solve the crimes in which the couple gets entangled. In “Death on the Aisle,” however, those insights weren’t very evident.

Death on the Aisle takes place in a little over 12 hours (each chapter has a running time clock). The playwright has invited the Norths to the dress rehearsal of a new Broadway play. The rehearsal ends rather abruptly with the discovery of the body of Dr. Carney Bolton in one seat. Bolton was an “angel” who financed various plays. He was also a lech and all-around jerk, engaging in conduct that would have earned him a spot on the #MeToo list today. The police soon arrive to investigate, headed by Lt. Bill Weigand, a close friend of the Norths.

Although Death on the Aisle is a Mr. and Mrs. North mystery, the Norths are rarely mentioned in the book’s first third. Instead, Weigand takes charge of the investigation in a professional manner. The theater’s front door was locked, and there were only about a dozen people in the theater at the time of the murder, all cast and crew (except for the Norths). Weigand soon assembles the cast and has them do a run-through of the same second act that was performed onstage at the time of the murder. This run-through occurs precisely three hours after the actual rehearsal, giving Weigand and readers a minute-by-minute understanding of the comings and goings of the various suspects.

Re-enacting the day’s earlier rehearsal accomplishes two goals. First, it provides readers with all the clues needed to solve the mystery hours before the police finally do. The Lockridges were proponents of the “fair play” style of mystery writing, in which the author reveals every critical piece of information. Of course, an author can’t make the solution too obvious, so they obscure the trail with irrelevant details (the activities of other characters besides the killer) and red herrings. With the detailed attention to the exact time at which everything in the theater occurred, this portion of the book becomes somewhat tiresome. Fortunately, the re-enactment includes re-staging the back-and-forth arguments and discussions among the cast members and the director about how the scene on stage should play out. Richard Lockridge was a newspaper drama critic, and this realistic look at the creative process involved in staging a play was the most interesting part of Death on the Aisle.

Eventually, the curtain comes down on the dress rehearsal, and the characters still have hours before the grand finale. That’s enough time for a second murder to occur, as well as for the Norths to invite Weigand, his assistant, and his fiancée over for dinner. (Jerry’s martini-mixing skills come in handy here.) Later, Pam shoots her mouth off in a supposedly empty area backstage, which allows the killer to kidnap her. Still later, Pam escapes, and even later, she runs back to the killer’s house for “safety.” I can see how Pam’s antics might work on a TV series episode. They don’t work here, and even the last revelation of the killer’s motive is a disappointment.

Death on the Aisle also refers to two characters in ways that were common in 1942 books but may offend some readers today. One minor character in the play is a maid who briefly appears during the rehearsal, referred to in the cast of characters at the front of the book as “Ruthmary Jones, actress, colored maid in the play.” While using the word “colored” to describe black characters was common in 1942, the authors overdo it by referring to the actress as “Ruthmary Jones, colored” each time she appears. Needless to say, they don’t repeatedly refer to other characters as “white.”

The authors’ description of Arthur Christopher, the show’s set designer, is equally offensive to many but a bit more subtle. The character is clearly gay, but books of that era couldn’t overtly refer to a character’s homosexuality. So, at one point, after a scarf becomes a key piece of evidence, Weigand notes, “Mr. Christopher likes nice things.” Earlier, the authors are even less subtle. Pam indicates she wouldn’t pick Christopher as the killer: “’ Too—’ she said, and let it hang. Nobody required enlightenment.”

It’s unfair to judge 80-year-old books by today’s standards of acceptable language, and my opinion of Death on the Aisle isn’t based on those passages. I mention them to inform those who find such language deal-breakers. For me, the cumbersome exposition and lame attempts at suspense were the deal breakers. The book’s supposed heroes were largely MIA. Jerry North was little more than a bartender, and Pam a hapless kidnap victim. The book’s central mystery is decent, although veteran genre readers should figure it out fairly quickly. I also enjoyed the byplay among the characters during the rehearsal. However, my overall experience was rather tepid. While Death on the Aisle makes it to Broadway, it never settles in for a long run.