The Bait by Dorothy Uhnak. 1968. Simon & Schuster.
One
of the delights I’ve experienced in my writing career was the
opportunity to conduct a phone interview with Dorothy Uhnak about a
year or so before her tragic suicide in 2006. I’d read all of her
novels, so I felt as if I’d had prepared enough. I needn’t have
worried. She was a pistol, very friendly and engaging. You can read my
interview and essay here: http://tiny.cc/ge08r.
The Bait won the 1969 Edgar Award for the best first novel, and Anthony Boucher praised it in his New York Times
review column. It introduced her character Detective Second Grade
Christie Opara (the surname is Czech) who went on to appear in two
subsequent novels: The Witness (1969) and The Ledger
(1970). Christie was based on Ms. Uhnak’s own fourteen-year career as a
twice-decorated detective with the New York City Transit Police.
Christie is a 26-year-old widow living with her small son Mickey and
mother-in-law Nora.
After
her husband died two years before in a construction job accident,
Christie now works for Casey Reardon of the District Attorney’s Squad.
En route to a big LSD drug bust, Christie arrests Murray Rogoff for
indecent exposure while riding on the NYC subway. She sets off a chain
of events that brings her back to clash with Murray under far darker
circumstances. Three young ladies have been strangled, and Murray
becomes the prime suspect.
I
like Ms. Uhnak’s characterization, the precise mannerisms and pitch
perfect dialogue she uses. She also injects enough gritty on-the-job
realism to her cop tale without going overboard or bogging it down. The
scenes showing the cops’ interactions feel natural and smooth. Banter
and humor surface even when setting a trap with Christie offering
herself as “the bait” for the murderous psychopath Murray. Christie
strikes up a romantic interest with Reardon, a married man with a
reputation for having affairs. I don’t remember how all that shakes out
through the rest of the Opara trilogy.
Murray
also wears special glasses to protect his lashless eyes and keep them
moist. Ms. Uhnak told me she based his character on a real life perp
she arrested who wore such special glasses. The perp left his lasting
impression on her. She said she’d searched the police archives to hunt
down his old arrest record.
I bought my paperback copy of The Bait
from a used bookstore for $1.50. I thought our library system still
shelved most of her books, but my online check just revealed all but one
title have been culled. Within five years of her death, her books have
disappeared. What a pity. She was a first-rate crime fiction writer
and one of the pioneer lady authors working in the police procedural
subgenre. At any rate, I suspect her used and ex-libris books are
readily available for a mere few bucks.
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