Other Typist (Rindell) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
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.... 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 twist—the one that should make readers gasp and look back for the clues they missed—is hinted at too often to snap smartly when sprung, Rindell's debut is a cinematic page-turner.
Publishers Weekly


"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.
Library Journal


With hints toward The Great Gatsby, Rindell’s novel aspires to recreate 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.
Booklist


(Starred review.) [A] pitch-black comedy about a police stenographer accused of murder in 1920s Manhattan.... Rose [Baker] 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.
Kirkus Reviews