Despite the menaced woman portrayed on the cover, this 1956 mystery by Samm Sinclair Baker is a comic mystery spoof featuring a Madison Avenue amateur detective, his wisecracking wife, a trio of singers named Molli, Dolli, and Polli - and backstage TV studio shenanigans during a high stakes game show that engages the nation.
New York advertising huckster Clark C. Clark (middle name: Clark) proposes a new gimmick for his client Cola-Rola, the nation's best-selling soft drink. Every evening at 8, they would broadcast a 15-minute musical mystery quiz TV show - "The $100,000-A-Week Quiz-tery". If the contestant correctly guesses the name of the tune, the composer, the year, as well as what musical it was from, they win $20,000, which compounds for 5 days as long as they are correct.
Cue the cast of a famous announcer; a pianist with wandering hands; esoteric song clues in sealed envelopes; the singing trio of the Humminvogel sisters (Molli, Dolli, & Polli - "The Three Terrific Redheads") who hum instead of singing the tunes; sound effects that sound like gunshots; network hotshots and temperamental engineers - and a lanky, languid star contestant named Horace Twootles, who sparks a romance with the script girl (and seems to know all the answers, no matter how hard they try to stump him).
Suddenly, someone is discovered shot dead in a locked studio green room, the only clue a lace handkerchief next to the body. Lieutenant Conner is called in but with a live broadcast minutes away, they agree it's no showstopper. In fact, they arrange for everyone present to sequester for the week and allow the show to continue! Tempers flare as they accuse and turn on each other (including the Huminvogel sisters Molli, Dolli, and Polli) even after one of them is attacked backstage. The show is a massive hit with the public - and the murder attached doesn't hurt the ratings. Aiding Clark as he simultaneously runs the show and tries to solve the murder (while laconic Lieutenant Conner stands in the background) is his wife who wanders in and out of the scene dropping droll wisecracks - only once mentioned by name but repeatedly referred to as my beautiful blonde; my chilly blonde; my beauteous blonde; my perceptive blonde; my brilliant blonde; my practical blonde... you get the idea.
Will we end up with a game show winner? A solution to the murder? A ratings sweep for Cola-Rola?
That is the $100,000 question.
This is a surprisingly solid mystery for all the tongue-in-cheek ribaldry. Absolutely not what the cover suggested but an entertaining time. Samm Sinclair Baker wrote another mystery (One Touch of Blood), but is best known as a founder of Miracle-Gro plant foods, and for co-authoring famous self-help diet and exercise books in the 1970's including The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet.
1956 / Paperback / 157 pages
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