Flappers, champagne and F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby... Welcome to my website for "Death of a Flapper"
Set in the Roaring Twenties, Death of a Flapper encompasses a decade of wealth, abundance and decadence. When Lucille Prado hasn’t heard from her daughter, Alice -- a New York City career girl -- she enlists the help of Tin Pan Alley detective, Carney Brogan. The last time Lucille heard from Alice had been two weeks earlier. With a dollar retainer, Carney takes the case, and soon identifies Alice Prado as Arabella Germaine, the ultimate flapper girl, a beautiful platinum blond who loves a good time and travels in all the right social circles – until she turns up dead, a victim of a hit-and-run.
As Carney digs further, he finds a whole slew of suspects, including Arabella’s roommate, Sally Blair, the man-hungry actress; the flapper’s mentor, the sophisticated art connoisseur, Victor Cathcourt; and the wealthy Landon siblings, Robert and Regan. From the Landon’s Long Island estate to the dark streets of the Bowery, and on to run-ins with mobsters, Carney follows the clues until he finally solves the question: who really wanted the gorgeous party girl dead?
Look what people are saying about Death of a Flapper:
Marva Dale’s first mystery gives us a glimpse of life in the 1920s, laced with the undertones of gritty crime, from jewel-clad party girls to machine gun-toting mobsters. – Wayne Beauvais, author of Waifs of the Wasteland
Death of a Flapper is a cleverly written mystery filled with wit, humor and touches of romance. The reader is transported back to the Flapper era, with bootleggers, speakeasies, hot jazz and cool martinis. Marva Dale’s book is guaranteed to keep the reader enthralled! -- Author Michael Murphy
The 1920s is often referred to as the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age, or sometimes the "Golden Age Twenties” because of the economic boom following World War I. The United States went through some pretty well-known and noteworthy changes in the 1920s, including the Prohibition and Suffrage.
Flappers were a "new breed" of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms.[1] Flappers had their origins in the liberal period of the Roaring Twenties, the social, political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange that followed the end of World War I, as well as the export of American jazz culture to Europe.
Flappers also began working outside the home and challenging women's traditional societal roles. They were considered a significant challenge to traditional Victorian gender roles, devotion to plain-living, hard work and religion. Increasingly, women discarded old, rigid ideas about roles and embraced consumerism and personal choice, and were often described in terms of representing a "culture war" of old versus new. Flappers also advocated voting and women's rights.
Flappers were associated with the use of a number of slang words, including "junk", "necker", "heavy necker" and "necking parties, although these words existed before the 1920s. Flappers also used the word "jazz" in the sense of anything exciting or fun. Their language sometimes reflected their feelings about dating, marriage and drinking habits: "I have to see a man about a dog" at this period often meant going to buy whiskey; and a "handcuff" or "manacle" was an engagement or wedding ring. Also reflective of their preoccupations were phrases to express approval, such as "That's so Jake", "That's the bee's knees," and the popular "the cat's meow" or "cat's pajamas".
Flapper dresses were straight and loose, leaving the arms bare (sometimes no straps at all) and dropping the waistline to the hips. Silk or rayon stockings were held up by garters. Skirts rose to just below the knee by 1927, allowing flashes of leg to be seen when a girl danced or walked through a breeze, although the way they danced made any long loose skirt flap up to show their legs. To enhance the view, some flappers applied rouge to their knees. Popular dress styles included the Robe de style. High heels also came into vogue at the time, reaching 2–3 inches high. Flappers did away with corsets and pantaloons in favor of "step-in" panties. Without the old restrictive corsets, flappers wore simple bust bodices to restrain their chest when dancing. They also wore new, softer and suppler corsets that reached to their hips, smoothing the whole frame, giving women a straight up and down appearance, as opposed to the old corsets which slenderized the waist and accented the hips and bust. The lack of curves of a corset promoted a boyish look. Adding an even more boyish look, the Symington Side Lacer was invented and became a popular essential as an every-day bra. This type of bra was made to pull in the back to flatten the chest. Other women envied flappers for their flat chests and bought the Symington Side Lacer to enhance the same look; large breasts were commonly regarded as a trait of unsophistication. Hence, flat chests became appealing to women, although flappers were the most common to wear such bras.
