Room to Swing by Ed Lacy

Room to Swing

Ed Lacy

1958 Edgar Award Winner First appearance of Toussaint Moore, a black private investigator from New York, framed in his own city for a white man’s murder. Moore ends up in a small Ohio town, close to the Kentucky border, trying to prove his own innocence and dealing the attitudes of the time. Fascinating novel, written by Lacy (Len Zinberg), a politically active author from the ’30s whose knowledge of the culture is derived from his marriage to an African-American woman. Toussaint ‘Touie’ Moore is considered the original, credible black detective.

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Plot Summary

Toussaint Marcus Moore, private eye, is hired by Kay Robbens to keep an eye on Robert Thomas, the man who is going to premiere Kay’s new television show about felons on the loose. When Moore walks into Thomas’s bloodied room and discovers a corpse, he know that he’s been framed for murder. As a black man, Moore realizes that he has no chance for justice unless he finds the real killer himself. He travels to Bingston, Ohio to try and track down clues to the murder. There he digs through the past of this racially divided town until he comes upon the clue that leads him to the murderer. He returns to New York and with the help of Kay Robbens and his old boss, Ted Bailey, Moore traps the real killer and solves the crime.

Major Characters

Toussaint Marcus Moore adult male, African-American, World War II veteran, worked as a security guard and then worked for a detective service before starting his own detective agency, private detective

Kay Robbens adult female, bisexual, was married once to a man but he disapproved of her career and was bad in bed so she left him, television producer

Steve McDonald adult male, homosexual, writer, cousin of Robert Thomas who is killed in the opening of the novel, but he and his family never had anything to do with this cousin despite the fact that they were fairly well off and the cousin was often without food or shelter

Sybil adult female, Moore’s girlfriend in New York

Frances Davis adult female, daughter of the postman in whose house Moore stays in Bingston, Ohio

Barbara ‘Bobby,’ adult female, Kay Robbens’ girlfriend

Ted Bailey adult male, Moore’s ex-boss, private investigator who helps Moore catch McDonald

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Details

ISBN	9781596542099
Genre	Award Winner; Pulp
Copyright Date	27-Aug-57
Publication Date	30-May-05
Publisher	blackmask.com
Format	Paperback
No. of Pages	132
Language	English
Rating	Great
Original Publisher	Harper
Paper Type	Electronic Format Available
Subject	Lesbians – Fiction
BookID	10842