Alas, none of my county's libraries have Even Yuppies Die, so I must move on to book five of the Trixie and Evangeline series, Break a Leg, Darlings. One of the subplots is fallout from the bad news at the end of book three, Shadows in Their Blood. I have some idea of what happened in book four because our elderly Golden Age movie stars are living in a less convenient neighborhood, one to which taxi drivers are reluctant to take them. Sadly, as we learn in the first chapter, their rent is paid until the end of March.

They're also still looking for a play that would be right for them. That search drives the plot for this entry. Another subplot involves another Golden Age movie star, Sweetums Carew. She's as poorly named as Judith Flynn's cat in Mary Daheim's Bed-and-Breakfast cozy mystery series. (I'd rather spend time with the cat.) Dare we hope that she'll be the murder victim?

NOTES (pop culture references, fictional and real name-dropping, character facts, and non-spoiler tips to help those who've read the book find things again):

Chapter 1:

a. The fake play our heroines are enduring is 'Farewell, Everyone'. The four actors are playing at least 27 parts.

b. Reusable typewriter ribbons tended to be like printers and copiers that are low on toner and produce fainter and fainter impressions.

c. Gel-based duplicating equipment

d. 'Car boot sales' -- what we call a car's trunk in the USA is called 'the boot' in the UK.

e. 'The Emperor Has No Clothes' is a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. (Evangeline's response made me chuckle.)

f. Hugh and Martha Dolan Carpenter are just back from their honeymoon.

g. 'Here am I, a stranger and afraid...' Evangeline appears to be slightly misquoting from A. E. Houseman's poem XII in Last Poems. http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/housman1.html

h. Enter Eddie, the taxi driver who will become a recurring character.

Chapter 2:

a. Carmen Miranda

b. the White Witch of Rose Hall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Witch_of_Rose_Hall

c. Viola and Orlando, Hugh's children by his first wife, were introduced in Encore Murder. It's nice to know that Viola's hair is growing out from that unbecoming cut her mother forced on her.

d. The song 'Second-Hand Rose'

e. The usual phrase, 'Love's Young Dream,' wouldn't apply to Hugh and Martha, but Evangeline doesn't have to be rude.

f. The postcard from Des and Julian goes back to Shadows in Their Blood. (Des is a young actor who used to live in the same building as our ladies. Julian is Detective-Sergeant Julian Singer, Golden Age movie fan.) ( )