The woman who disappeared door Philip Prowse

The woman who disappeared

Title: The Woman who disappeared.
Writer: Philip Prowse.
First published: 1975.
This editoin published: 1992.
Publisher: Heinemann ELT.
Genre: detective.

Summary:

Lenny Samual is a private detective. His office is on the west side of Los Angeles, on the fourty floor of a high building.
Lenny Samual is asked by a woman to do a job for her for 50 dollars a day.
The woman, named Helen Garfield, wants him to find her sister Elaine Garfield who disappeared. She doesn’t want him to have contact with the police and she doesn’t want to say why.
Lenny starts with an investigation and visits the appartment from Elaine Garfield. There was nobody at home so he opened the door and walked in. He saw that most of her clothes were gone and that isn’t normal when people “disappear”. Just when he wants to leave the appartment he sees that two men are standing outside the door. He tried to close the door but one of the two men put his foot out to stop the door closing. They hit him in his face and he fell on the ground. He was senseless.
Later he went to the office where Elaine Garfield usually works. Elaine’s colleague Suzy tells Lenny that Elaine often went to the Las Cabanas club, where she met a man called Benny Greep. When Lenny goes to Benny’s appartment he finds him dead in the bath. Lenny calls the police and they took him to the police office. Lenny Samual is arrested for the murder of Benny Greep. Lenny told that he didn’t kill Benny Greep but they didn’t believe him. Later the police let him go after he told what happened.
The police starts to investigate all about Helen Garfield, and find out: there is no Helen Garfield at all !!
Lenny is surprised to hear that, and the next time he met “Helen” he told her what the police told him, that there doesn’t exist a Helen Garfield.
Than she told Lenny the whole story:
Here name was Elaine Garfield and she went to the Las Cabanas Club very often to see Benny Greep, who played there in the band. Two men, obviously criminals, always came to the Las Cabanas Club with big bags. But when the two men left, they weren’t carrying bags. So Elaine asked Benny about the two men. Benny said that there were a lot of strange things happening at Las Cabanas and that it was dangerous to ask him questions.
One night one of the men was sitting at the table next to Elaine.
He was talking whit someone and he opened the bag he was carrying. Elaine was sitting so close to him that she saw what was in the bag.
It was full of diamonds and jewellery. She told Benny about the bag. They decided to steal the bags and hide it in the appartment from Elaine Garfield.
When the two men found out there was missing a bag, Elaine moved into a hotel and came to see Lenny: the private detective. Elaine told Lenny that her sister “Helen Garfield” was disappeared, to make sure she was safe, because Lenny was very often with Elaine.
The story ends well: the criminals try to get the bag back, and the police came and arrested the two men.
And now there were no more mysteries.............
Poor Lenny, he is NOT paid for all his efforts because Elaine has no money after returning the bag with the jewels !!!!!!

Persons:

-Lenny Samual: he is a private eye and very intelligent. His reactions are very cool for example: when he is being arrested for murder he does not think it is a big problem.

-Helen Garfield: the woman who asked Lenny to find her sister Elaine Garfield. She is also very smart, but also a good liar!! She is a beuatiful woman. But she isn’t Helen Helen Garfield but Elaine Garfield !!!!!!
Helen Garfield has never existed !!!!!!

-Sergeant Murphy: a boring old person who doesn’t like private detectives. He isn’t very smart but at the end, he does the right thing by arresting the criminals.

-Elaine Garfield: she is the one who disappeared. That’s what everyboby thinks..
But at the end of the story she explained that she is NOT Helen Garfield !!

-Jo: one of the criminals, together with his tall friend.

-Benny Greep: Benny plays the drums in the band.

-Suzy Graham: and Elaine Garfield used to go out dancing together a lot.
It is a colleague from Elaine.

Theme:

The important thing:
Lenny Samual is a private detective, and he must find Elaine Garfield, but the girl who asked Lenny to find her sister is Elaine Garfield !!!! and NOT Helen Garfield !!!

My personal opinion:

This book was very interesting, i really liked it !!!!
It was very funny that a private detective has to find somebody who doesn’t exist!!!!
It was also funny that i think that private detective normally makes a good profit from that, but he didn’t !!!
It was a really strange story, but i really like it !!!!