MARELE DAY
and
CLAUDIA VALENTINE PI.
The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender
The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado
The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi
About the Author
Bibliography
"The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender"
Mark Bannister is writing "the bestseller of the century". But when he’s found dead at his computer he seems to be the victim of a murder so perfect that Claudia Valentine smells a rat - and wants it caught.
The chase leads deep into Sydney’s murky underworld - a world where bright, tough Claudia must play a deadly high-tech game of cat ant rat with the menacing overlord of the city’s cancerous network of crime and corruption.'
"Exciting, fast-paced and plenty of just slightly shabby style - in fact everything a good detective yarn should be" - Daily Telegraph
The case begins when Claudia is hired by her old school friend, Marilyn Edwards to investigate the death of her brother Mark. Mark is found dead in front of his computer, his pacemaker apparently having malfunctioned causing cardiac arrest. While the verdict of death by natural causes goes unquestioned by the police, Marilyn is convinced that there is more to it, especially when she receives a card on which are inscribed the words "Terminal Illness". Someone wants the death investigated. Mark had been commissioned by an unknown person to write "the best seller of the century". He spends night after night in front of his computer but no one seems to know exactly what he is doing. Could the computer help solve the case? How did Mark really die? Claudia, with the help of a few friends sets out to find out.
This is Marele’s first book to feature Claudia Valentine PI. Claudia is divorced, practices karate, drives a Daimler and lives in Sydney. "My legs are my best weapon. If I’m close enough I can do a karate kick that knocks them flat. If I’m far enough away I run." She doesn’t carry a gun "If I don’t have one then I can’t use it and conversely it can’t be used on me....Like I say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat and most of the time it’s not necessary to skin it." On our first meeting we find her recovering from a drinking spree the previous evening, an empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor, her place a tip and a good looking blonde in her bed. The blond is kicked out unceremoniously, Claudia has a funeral to go to!
Carol Rawlins, a friend from university days, also makes her first appearance in this book. She’s a Detective Sergeant in the Police Force, one of the first to enter the profession with a degree. She pops up one way or another in each book even if it’s only to act as a drinking partner, though only too often it’s to have a go at Claudia for causing difficulties at work. Their relationship is often tricky because of their respective professions and sometimes Claudia takes advantage, but then what are friends for?
Claudia is drawn into the world of organised crime and corruption in her search for the truth behind Mark’s death. She finds a little love and sympathy along the way but in the end she’s not sure who she can really trust, the corruption runs too deep. When the truth is finally revealed, nothing is changed, nothing is resolved, the life and crimes of the city will go on... and on ...
The story has plenty of excitement, witty dialog and clever twists to the tale. Marele Day & Claudia Valentine make an impressive debut.

"The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado"
Being a minder for Dolores Delgado was no trouble at all for Claudia Valentine. Dolores slept all morning, shopped all afternoon and danced all night. Hanging out with this exotic and beautiful creature was more fun than work. Then things got complicated.
Dolores dropped dead. On stage. With barely a mark on her perfect body. Claudia had never lost a client before, let alone one who was also a friend. This was not going to be good for business.
Claudia’s investigation leads her into a steamy world of passion and intrigue, of death and double crosses, of romance and revenge. And finally, hidden beneath layers of dazzling deception, to the truth.
"Dolores Delgado’s life was cut short. I would like to have known her longer because everything about her intrigued me - her glamour, her seductiveness, the hint of tragedy in her past. What intrigued me the most about Dolores Delgado was whether there was anyone there at all under all that bullshit."
And so the story begins, Claudia feels somehow cheated by Dolores’s death. Although originally hired by Dolores, she thinks of her as a friend and is determined that the truth behind Dolores’s sudden death should be uncovered.
When Carol seems reluctant to pursue the death further, Claudia begins her investigation into Dolores’ life in the hope of finding out about her death. She takes on Dolores’ identity in order to find out what really happened and as she becomes caught up in Dolores’ world, she discovers how little anyone really knew of her. Dolores’ life as a Tango dancer at the Tropicana Club represents the surface glamour hiding a much more menacing reality. Unraveling the truth leads Claudia into many a tricky and often dangerous situation which she deals with in a refreshingly straightforward way. On more than one occasion she has the chance to put into practice the karate that she uses to defend herself in her work as a PI.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the danger and the intrigue, Claudia becomes attached to the new Dolores she discovers and adopts her lifestyle with enthusiasm, reveling in the opportunity to experience some of the glamour of Dolores Delgado’s life at first hand. She even becomes an aficionado at? shopping - Dolores-style!
Even in the grimmest situation, Claudia amuses, with her quick, sharp humour which never detracts (or distracts) from the plot. The humour is often woven cleverly into the story-line as, for example, when Claudia, not wanting to be seen in public using her new mobile phone (not good for the image!) sneaks down an alley to check on any messages at home. This turns out to be a very bad idea, and the outcome of the episode comes all the more as a shock because it started out with humour.
Sprinkled along the way are also some memorable one-liners as is the tradition of the hard-boiled school. On being invited into a suspects car to discuss business, Claudia quips, "’Normally I don’t get into cars with strange men,’ I said. Strangely, I don’t get into cars with normal men either."
The way that Marele deals with the violence in the story is also refreshing. Writing a woman in a violent situation with a male is difficult, and too often predictable. Marele, however plays it straight and allows that not all males are necessarily stronger and more aggressive than females (and indeed, not all "villains" are at home with physical violence) - some will even be surprised by a female that can fight back! And the female may be just as surprised by the male’s reaction as he is by hers. The incidents involving violence are written with such wit that the situations are completely convincing.

"The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi"
Published in paperback by New English Library on 18th January 1996
Claudia Valentine PI returns gutsy and glamorous as ever.....
It is the start of a long, hot summer and Madalena Grimaldi has disappeared. Claudia is hired to find the missing schoolgirl, but she’s already working on a case - the death of Guy Valentine, her father.
As Claudia searches the streets looking for the ghost of her derelict father and for the mysterious man who can lead her to Madalena, she finds herself sinking into a world where, for many, rock bottom is only the beginning.
The story starts as Claudia discovers that her father who left home over 30 years ago, and ended up living on the streets, died in 1985 on Anzac day. She never tried to contact him while he was alive, but now he is dead, she wants to find out what happened, to lay the ghost to rest.
Then she is called in on what seems a typical case of a schoolgirl disappearance. But appearances are deceptive and both cases become intertwined and expand to encompass the seamy underworld of the city of Sydney, a world of which few are aware - the other life of the city. This other word not only involves the traditional "underworld" as represented by the world of prostitution, homelessness, gambling and racketeering, but an actual underworld - the maze of subterranean links that hold the city together - the underground railways, cabling systems, sewer, water and drainage tunnels, and the old hydraulic power tunnels.
The deception is mirrored by the city itself. Sydney (as any large city), shows only its beauty and respectability, its acceptable side, to the casual observer. The wonderful Bondi Beach is the jewel of the city, but after daylight it becomes a place frequented by drug users and the young homeless. In her books, Marele often echoes this theme, outward appearances are often a facade behind which the lucky majority take comfort. In many cases it doesn’t take much scratching to uncover the seedy and sadder side of city life.
Merele describes Sydney’s Kings Cross area:
"There were young girls, and boys, on the street who were prostitutes - drug users, many of them with only a few years left to live. There were old men lying in the park too drunk to brush away the flies settling on their weeping sores. There were ex-property developers producing corporate videos. There were people meeting each other for coffee in the trendy cafes, going shopping, doing deals. Sunny Sydney, most beautiful harbour in the world."
Despite the criticism, Marele obviously has a soft-spot for the city, a warmth comes through and a strong sense of place dominates the story. You feel like you know and love the place, despite it’s flaws. The criticism is a comment on the corruption of the people who create the underclass, not on the city itself. The story is set to the background of a heat wave, which finally erupts into great bush fires around the city, destroying anything in its path. Many are leaving their homes in fear of their lives, and Sydney becomes:
"Gotham City. Behind the smoke the sun was a red ball of blistering heat. It was only midday yet the light resembled a garish sunset. If hell had a waiting room, this was it."
The tension, like the heat, builds and builds (some of the scenes in the underground tunnels are actually terrifying), to the final climax where all is resolved, but there are lots of surprises along the way. Although the mood of this book is much more sinister and oppressive than the previous books, Claudia’s wit is irrepressible and often had me laughing out loud.
Marele has the trick of never letting her characters become predictable. As in real life, her characters are at different stages in their lives in each book and often in different states of mind and Marele’s writing is never spoiled by unnecessary explanations. The result is not a feeling of inconsistency, but the development of real characters. Take Claudia herself in "Dolores Delgado" and "Madalena Grimaldi". In one she is feisty, full of wisecracks and action, in the other she is often subdued and tense, as she looks into the death of her father and the disappearance of a young girl.
Marele has delivered another fine book. All of Marele’s books are thoroughly enjoyable, but her ability to create a satisfyingly tension-building plot just gets better and better. Claudia Valentine herself has to take much of the credit for this - she is one of the wittiest and most credible female PI’s I have come across in a while, and I would say that she certainly ranks up there with the best. I can’t wait for the next! (E.A.L.)

Marele Day grew up in Sydney and graduated from Sydney University. Her work experience ranges from fruit picking to academic teaching and she is currently a freelance editor. She lived in Italy, France and Ireland and has travelled extensively (including a voyage by yacht from Cairns to Singapore which resulted in near shipwreck in the Java Sea). The third Claudia Valentine thriller, The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado, won the Private Eye Writers of America's prestigious Shamus Award.

Bibliography
Marele Day has written four Crime Mysteries featuring Claudia Valentine PI:
"The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender" © 1988 (Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd. - Australia)
1st British publication by Hodder & Stoughton 1994 hardback & Coronet paperback
"The Case of the Chinese Boxes" ©1990 (Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd. - Australia)
1st British publication by Hodder & Stoughton 1994 hardback & Coronet paperback
"The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado" © 1992 (Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd. - Australia)
1st British publication by Hodder & Stoughton 1995 hardback & Coronet paperback
Won the Shamus Award 1993 for the Best PI Paperback Original
"The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi" © 1994 (Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd. - Australia)
1st British publication by Hodder & Stoughton 1995 hardback & 1996 NEL paperback