The Other Typist

April 29, 2013
With prohibition picking up steam, the New York precinct where Rose Baker works typing confessions is busy enough to need a new girl. Enter the beautiful, disturbing, and enviable Odalie. Soon Rose, a convent-raised orphan who presents herself as old-fashioned and dowdy, is ensconced in Odalie's expensive apartment, sharing her clothes, and going with her to speakeasies. Even as she's drawn in by Odalie's seductive charm and comfortable life, Rose is aware of Odalie's flexible relationship with the truth and the way she uses her position to help confederates on the wrong side of the law. But though this awareness gives Rose pause, the lure of having a friend and the thrill of living life instead of watching it pass seem to be enough to make her ignore her doubts. But then a figure from Odalie's mysterious past shows up and raises questions even Rose can't ignore, and her curiosity leads her to challenge Odalie, with explosive results. Though the final twistâthe one that should make readers gasp and look back for the clues they missedâis hinted at too often ("this latter discovery lay like a bear trap waiting to spring on me," as Rose tells us) to snap smartly when sprung, Rindell's debut is a cinematic page-turner. Agent: Emily Forland, the Wendy Weil Agency.

Starred review from April 15, 2013
Take a dollop of Alfred Hitchcock, a dollop of Patricia Highsmith, throw in some Great Gatsby flourishes, and the result is Rindell's debut, a pitch-black comedy about a police stenographer accused of murder in 1920s Manhattan. Typing criminals' confessions, Rose admires the precinct's conservative, mustachioed middle-aged sergeant while she is critical of his superior, the lieutenant detective Frank, who is closer to her in age and a clean-shaven dandy in his white spats. An orphan raised by nuns, Rose lives in a boardinghouse and leads a prim spinster life far removed from the flappers and increasingly liberated women of the "Roaring Twenties." She seems destined to a life of routine solitude until a new typist is hired. Odalie wears her hair bobbed, dresses with panache and lives in a posh hotel. Rose voices disapproval at first, but she is clearly drawn to Odalie, even obsessed with her. When Odalie invites her to share her hotel rooms, Rose moves right in. Soon, Rose is accompanying Odalie on her adventures, which include bootlegging, among other vices. Sometimes Rose borrows Odalie's clothes, sometimes she runs errands for Odalie. But who is Odalie? Where does her money come from? And if she has money, why does she work as a police stenographer? At a house party on Long Island, a young man from Newport thinks he recognizes Odalie as the debutante once engaged to his cousin, but she denies knowing him. By the time he turns up dead, Rose has been sucked into Odalie's world so deeply that their identities have merged. Who is using whom? Recalling her recent life, revealing only what she wants to reveal in bits and pieces, Rose begins her narration archly with off-putting curlicues she gradually discards. She is tart, judgmental, self-righteous and self-justifying. She is also viciously astute. Whether she's telling the truth is another matter. A deliciously addictive, cinematically influenced page-turner, both comic and provocative, about the nature of guilt and innocence within the context of social class in a rapidly changing culture.

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December 1, 2012

"The other typist" is Odalie, the mysterious, magnetic young woman who joins Rose Baker's typing pool at a Lower East Side precinct in 1924 Manhattan. Rose, confused by the rapid changing mores as the Twenties roar along, is enthralled with the newcomer, but her admiration soon turns into threatening obsession. First novelist Rindell has published poetry and short fiction in places like Conjunctions, so she can write. With rights to six countries.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2013
Rose, a police precinct typist in Prohibition New York, has seen many things. As the recorder of confessions and transgressions of all sorts, she considers herself to be an astute judge of character. So when Odalie Lazare, a new typist, arrives in the office, Rose is intrigued by her beauty, charm, and seeming wealth. Rose becomes infatuated with Odalie, who is not what she appears to be, as Odalie pulls Rose into a world filled with speakeasies, bootleggers, and elite estate parties. With hints toward The Great Gatsby, Rindell's novel aspires to re-create Prohibition-era New York City, both its opulence and its squalid underbelly. She captures it quite well, while at the same time spinning a delicate and suspenseful narrative about false friendship, obsession, and life for single women in New York during Prohibition.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)