The Frightened Stiff

Rating:
Summary: Beware Greenwich Village Apartment Houses!
Review: The night that newly-married Jeff and Haila Troy move into the Greenwich Village apartment they return from a night out to find that someone has filled their tub filled with water--a mysterious but mundane discovery. But the next morning they find a dead man in their back garden and evidence indicates that he was drowned in their bathtub. Their neighbors all seem frightened and secretive. Jeff and Haila try to get to the bottom of things.

This is a well-plotted and witty little mystery from the early forties. Jeff is rather colorless a personality but Haila makes up for it. I believe this was Jeff and Haila's second appearance, and it's probably the best of them all, thanks to a genuninely mystifying mystery and an atmospheric setting. Husband-Wife detective duos were kind of a craze at the time (Pat and Jean Abbot, Pam and Jerry North) and, like them, Jeff and Haila make entertaining company.