The Other Typist
by Suzanne RindellI’ll be honest, I really only requested this book because the description explained that the setting was 1920s NYC, the main character was a young lady (Rose) who was working in a police department as a typist, and there would be a new typist who would shake up Rose’s world introducing her to speakeasies. Hello perfect book for me.
Now that I have read the book, I can say it’s not quite perfect, but it’s close. While I appreciate the author’s attention to detail and history, early on I did get annoyed by just how often Rose felt the need to go into great detail about women and typing and why they were better at it than the men even if it wasn’t proper for women to hear the things they’d hear in the police departments. I really only needed to hear that spiel once to get it -- and I’m not even talking about the male characters mentioning it to the female typists, I’d expect them to go overboard. There were some characters that really needed more face time / development. The ending was just a little crazy. That’s the bad.
The good? That bad is so minor in the grand scheme of things. This is a character driven book. Even the characters that did not get proper development are strong when they do make appearances. Whether someone is having a drink and a nice chat or needing to make a quick escape from somewhere the scenes are all tightly woven and as short and sweet as possible. This is very good as I'm a big fan of not over-embelishing actions to make up for weak characters. That's not to say that our narrator, Rose, doesn't ramble -- she does, but I consider that part of her character, she seems to acknowledge when she's off track and gets right back to where the story should be.
Besides Rose the other main character, Odalie, is a flirt and likely a liar but Rose still can’t help but be drawn to her. Odalie is strong, she’s brave enough to wear her in a bob, and somehow she’s strongly connected to the speakeasy world. How connected Rose is not sure, not at first anyway. Odalie is everything that Rose is not. Her world is one that Rose would never take part in. Yet somehow Rose is drawn into it anyway. Rose finds herself walking a fine line, actually many fine lines. Speakeasies and the police department. Stalker or friend. By the book or break all of the rules.
Rose doesn’t realize just how deep she has been sucked in until everything crashes down around her and by then she realizes that maybe it’s too late for her. Or so she tells us.
* Disclaimer: I received this book at no cost in order to review it. I offered no guarantee of a positive review, though I only request books I think I'll like so as not to waste my time.
