Secret Identity by Alex Segura

 

Carmen Valdez has come to New York after a disastrous love affair in her hometown of Miami.  She has landed a job as a secretary at Triumph Comics, her dream profession.  She hopes to eventually work her way up to being a writer as she has been working on a female hero for several years on her own.

When a co-worker gets the chance to write something for the boss, Carmen is disappointed it wasn't her.  But the co-worker asks her to collaborate with him.  Carmen gives him six of her female character's, The Lethal Lynx, scripts only to find that he turns them all in to the boss with no cowriter credit for her, claiming the work as his own.  Carmen goes to his apartment to confront him, only to find him lying dead, shot in the head.

Who would kill him?  When the police don't seem to be making any progress on the case, Carmen starts to investigate herself.  Another woman in the comic business is attacked and put in a coma and then Carmen herself is targeted.  What is the secret that someone doesn't want to come out?

This was an interesting novel apart from the mystery itself, which was great.  I enjoyed the setting of New York in the 1960's and 70's and the look into the comic business before the advent of graphic novels.  Carmen is gay and her love affairs add another dimension to the story as does the difficulty of being a woman in a man's world before women gained more equality in the work place. I listened to this novel and the narrator was great as Carmen.    This book is recommended for mystery readers.