When Dorinda Dances is a 1953 novel by Brett Halliday, the pen name for Davis Dresser.
It is an installment in the long-running mystery series about hardboiled Miami detective, Michael Shayne. At the beginning of this one, Shayne is about to take his Sexy Secretary Lucy Hamilton out for the evening. Not long before closing time, a client shows up at the office. She identifies herself as a Mrs. Davis, and she is concerned about the daughter of a friend. It seems that the daughter in question, an 18-year-old girl named Julia Lansdowne, is supposedly being a good college student, but in reality is performing as a nude dancer at a sleazy Miami club. Complicating the situation is the fact that her father, Nigel Lansdowne, has been a senior official in government since the Roosevelt administration.
Shayne is skeptical, pointing out to Mrs. Davis that Julia, who reportedly is nude dancing under the stage name "Dorinda", is of age and can make her own choices. But Mrs. Davis begs him to help and he agrees to take the case. Doing so means that he cannot help the next client, who comes into the office just as Mrs. Davis is leaving. That client, a businessman named Milton Brewer, is convinced that his business partner Hiram Godfrey means to murder him. Brewer tells Shayne that Godfrey wants sole control of their business, and sole control of Brewer's wife Betty, whom Godfrey is banging.
Shayne, now engaged by Mrs. Davis, refers Brewer to another private detective, who is tasked with tailing Hiram Godfrey. Shayne then goes to the sleazy club and does in fact find a gorgeous nude dancer named Dorinda—but when he asks her afterward she insists that her name is actually Dorinda, not Julia Lansdowne, and she has no idea what Shayne is talking about. Shayne tries to find Mrs. Davis to report this puzzling development, but she has disappeared. He then receives shocking news: Milton Brewer has been murdered!
Tropes:
- Dame with a Case: Although it's subverted as Lucy insists that their client is not a "dame", she's a lady. In any case, the classy, beautiful Mrs. Davis shows up at Shayne's office and asks him to get Julia Lansdowne out of what Mrs. Davis thinks is a terrible fix.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The formula of the Michael Shayne novels. Most of the story unfolds over about 24 hours, then Shayne flies to New York the next day to catch the killers.
- Friend in the Press: Tim Rourke, a recurring character and Intrepid Reporter who often helped Shayne out in return for scoops. In this novel Rourke takes Shayne to the newspaper building, where they comb through the archives in search of photos of Milton Brewer, Hiram Godfrey, and Julia Lansdowne.
- Gun Struggle: Shayne confronts Moran, the scumbag who has forced Julia/Dorinda into life as a nude dancer. Eventually Moran tries to pull a gun, Shayne grabs him, they struggle, and Moran gets shot and killed.
- I Have This Friend: When Mrs. Davis says she has "a very dear friend" who is worried about her daughter, Shayne assumes this trope is in effect. It turns out that Mrs. Davis is lying, but for a different reason.
- Love Triangle: Brewer informs Shayne that he married Betty, the woman that his partner Godfrey wanted. But since that time Godfrey has managed to seduce Betty anyway, and Brewer is convinced that Godfrey means to murder him so that Godfrey can have Betty all to himself (as well as the business).
- Red Herring:
- Everything about Julia Lansdowne aka "Dorinda" was nothing more than a ruse to keep Michael Shayne busy, so he would have to refer the Brewer job to another detective, who would not recognize that the man he was tailing was the same man who came to Shayne's office.
- It's eventually revealed that Brewer had a severe phobia of getting his picture taken and in fact there are no extant pictures of him anywhere. Shayne begins to suspect a case of impersonation or a phony identity. It turns out that Brewer was just weird.
- Red Scare: In Real Life it was at its peak in 1953. Judge Nigel Lansdowne is one of the last of FDR's New Dealers left in government, and Shayne thinks about how these are "damned extraordinary times" in which liberals like Lansdowne are "being hounded in the reactionary press by charges of subversion." In fact this is one of the reasons why Shayne, who apparently is an old FDR Democrat, takes the case, to protect Lansdowne from scandal.
- Sexy Secretary: Lucy as usual; Shayne breaks a date with her to go to the strip club, and Lucy is irritated by this, by the fact that he won't take her along, and by the fact that she won't get to show him her sexy dress—so she follows him anyway, wearing said dress. Later there's a random moment where Gibson the lawyer is revealed to have a sexy secretary of his own, one that holds Shayne in contempt.
- Theiss Titillation Theory: In-Universe, Discussed Trope. Lucy gets a look at the photo of Dorinda, dancing while totally nude. She isn't all that offended and says "Actually, I think those scraps of cloth and fig leaves dancing girls wear are what makes them vulgar."
- Title Drop: Shayne asks Lawry, the vaguely slimy manager at the club, about Dorinda the dancer. Lawry says "That's the moment we all wait for. When Dorinda dances."
- You Can Leave Your Hat On: The young woman who may or may not be named Dorinda dances in the nude at a local club. Shayne enjoys the show, to the disgust of Lucy Hamilton who follows him to the club uninvited.
