Manning Long– Tremendously under appreciated and underexposed now, through the decade of the 1940s Manning Long created gritty  mysteries with tangy of humor. Her novels are hard to find, no longer in print (though quite popular when they came out), but once you snag your first one, you won’t be able to quit. The protagonist of the series is Liz (Louise) Parrott, a savvy, smart-talking red head in the mode of Anne Sheridan or Lucille Ball. With titles like Here’s Blood in Your Eye, Bury the Hatchet, and Dull Thud, Long’s novels leave not doubt that you and Liz are in for some gritty and bitingly ironic adventures. Yet beneath the cynicism that Liz projects to others (and tries to convince herself is her true, experience-hardened self) is a decent human being. We see this in the mutual affection and sarcasm she shares with her Siamese rescue cat I-Am and her insight into the characters she intermingles with en route to  disentangling herself from murders threaded through a series of seven books ranging from 1941-48. Her skeptical banter with the DA investigator in the first book (Blood in Your Eye) may be sharp as a razor – and just as effective a defense- but his decency and the warmth lurking in her heart lead them into becoming a passionately bonded investigating duo. It’s a duo based on independence and mutual respect, with plenty of smart talk spicing the romance.
Reading Long’s Liz Parrott mysteries is like film noir for the imagination. Her descriptions and characterizations beautifully  capture noir‘s dark midnight world, life in the bohemian atmosphere of the Village among artists, and wealthy snobs trying to play power politics to hang onto dough and clout. The dialogue is spot on with noir‘s acerbic insight into grifters, phonies, and unsympatheic victims: “Cassandra’s little nest . . . Swank and suave and equipped with hot-and-cold-running butlers. . . .Between them, Cassandra and the decorator had included [her husband] completely out. Just the guy with the checkbook” (False Alarm 225).
Particularly fun is the way Long’s descriptions of decor, clothing, food, drinks, smoking, locales, etc. vividly convey life in the 1940s. In False Alarm, we also feel the tension of preparing for attack when Liz becomes an Air Raid Warden, as well as the fears of being drafted or for your loved one who’s in the service. Of course, for Long, it’s just portraying the world she lives in. For us, it’s a magic door opening into homefront life before during, and after WWII.
 A doctor’s daughter, Manning Long was born in Chase City, Virginia in 1906, and after living in New York and New Jersey, she settled back in Virginia. In addition to the Liz Parrott series, Long also published short stories. Oddly enough, her her last publication was to co-author with Lewis Coffin The Fog Boat – honest to God, a children’s book! Would child readers end up tossing off mordant quips like Dick Powell or Joan Bennett? Really interesting, her husband Peter Wentworth Williams designed the Edgar Allen Poe award statue for MWA’s Edgar Award.
So far, I’ve read Here’s Blood in Your Eye (#1) and False Alarm (#3), Bury the Hatchet (#4), and Savage Breast (#7). So I’m looking forward to completing my survey of Liz’s sharp noir adventures in the rest of the series.
The Complete List of the Liz Parrott novels:
Here’s Blood in Your Eye (1941)
Vicious Circle (1942)
False Alarm (aka Invitation to Murder) (1943)
Bury the Hatchet (1944)
Short Shrift (1945)
Dull Thud (1947)
Savage Breast (1948)
Published 1/23/25
Noir Apartment scene public domain from Beyond Tomorrow, author’s collection
Published: 1/23/25
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Sharon Healy-Yang 
