Southern girl Sylvia Sanders has just arrived in Chicago to start her career on the radio. Back home in Carolina Sylvia has already dominated the air waves and if she wishes to have her career grow she has to step up to a bigger city. Her parents have allowed her to go to Chicago for the summer where she can stay with her cousin, Beth, who lives in the city for college.
Upon arriving Sylvia shares a cab with Helena Steiner, a sophisticated looking woman who writes and voices a radio advertisement for a jewelry store. She gives Sylvia her card and the southerner is excited to have made a radio connection already.
Once at the apartment building Sylvia meets Hal Graham, the nephew of Beth's next door neighbor. He's a nice young man who has just started his own recording studio.
That night over dinner Beth tells Sylvia her heavy accent is going to make finding a radio job difficult. She suggest Sylvia tone down the accent and introduces her to Eileen DeWolf, a voice coach. Miss DeWolf agrees to help Sylvia but when the girls arrive the morning of her first lesson they find the house in a tizzy. A set of antique silver goblets has been stolen from the woman during the night. The lesson is postponed but not for long and Sylvia speech quickly improves.
Feeling confident she heads out to a radio company. She has a letter of introduction to a man at the company but when she gets there she finds the man has left to work in Hollywood a number of months ago and she is not permitted to have an introduction with his replacement. She then calls various talent agencies but finds they're all filled with girls hoping to find the same jobs as herself.
Wyman Middlecoff is a young man that Beth often dates and he is eager to have Sylvia come out with the two of them some night. Sylvia does not want to intrude on Beth's love life but she agrees to a night out after she learns that Helena Steiner is Wyman's older sister and she will be coming along. Soon the woman has invited the girls, Wyman, and Hal to visit her home on Lake Michigan where her reclusive husband, Carlos Steiner, lives.
The home is built hidden among trees behind a hill which blocks off the view of the lake. Once arriving by boat they are greeted by two strange employees; one with a peg leg and one with an eye-patch. Happy to be out of the city Sylvia decides to explore the grounds and is startled to find a large fenced off ravine guarded by watch dogs. Quickly turning to flee the dogs she finds she has been followed and spied upon by Pete, the man with the peg leg. She heads back into the house feeling disturbed.
That night at dinner she meets Carlos Steiner and finds him intimidating. The next day Hal and Sylvia end up alone while swimming in the cove and discuss their mutual suspicions of the place. They decide to sneak off and explore during the evening which leads them to find a hidden cove with a secret tunnel built into stone.
In the tunnel they find a door and are unable to open it before a storm erupts and starts flooding the tunnel. They quickly begin retracing their path back to the house when a tree branch comes flying at Sylvia. Hal blocks her from it, fracturing his hand in the process. Wyman drives him back to the city that night to see a doctor and the girls are offered to stay an extra night which Beth eagerly accepts.
After dinner Sylvia heads back out to view the hidden cove and soon sees Pete heading that way. He meets up with a man who has boated into the cove and takes a heavy suitcase from him. The next morning Sylvia notes the suitcase is sitting by her and Beth's luggage by the front door. When she asks about it Wyman says he's bring some of his summer suits back to the city with him but on the boat Sylvia tests the weight of the suitcase and finds it much too heavy just to contain suits.
Once back home she visits Hal who is struggling to do his own secretarial work with only one working hand. Sylvia decides to take a job for him as his secretary.
While at lunch one day with Hal Sylvia notices Pete at the same lunch counter. That night Sylvia gets off work quite late and by the time her cab pulls up to the apartment building it's completely dark. As she crosses the sidewalk a man appears, grabs her purse, and sends a dagger flying at her. Sylvia quickly ducks and it sticks deep into the apartment door. Although shaken she tries to make light of the incident while also being conscious of the fact that Pete was in the city on the same day.
Sylvia visits Helena at her apartment in the city to receive a script Helena has written just for her. It's custom made to show off Sylvia's acting range. She will make a recording of her performing it at Hal's studio then pass it around to the radio studios in the hope of landing a job. During the visit Helena tells Sylvia her chances of getting a job in Chicago are non-existent and she should try New York instead. When Sylvia refuses Helena admits she's worried for the girls safety and thinks she would be safer if she fled to New York.
Helena has also hired Sylvia to do some typing for her. When Sylvia shows up at her apartment with the completed work she finds Carlos present as well as Maizie, Helena's sister. Helena looks as tho she's been crying and makes defiant remarks against her sister and husband. When Maizie request Sylvia to deliver a package to Friedman's Jewelry store Helena tries to make Sylvia decline but Sylvia's polite nature holds out and she accepts the errand.
After leaving the apartment with the small package in hand Sylvia trips running across a crosswalk and is knocked unconscious. She awakes in the hospital with a bad cut and bruise on her forehead. She's disturbed to see the package has been badly damaged and even more disturbed when she sees the contents of the package. While inspecting the damage to the box a paperweight falls from inside with a note reading "So you can't be trusted". Sylvia is greatly insulted.
With Beth on vacation and Hal holding down the studio alone Sylvia is at a loss who to call. Then she remembers Nat Hudson, one of her father's oldest friends who visits the Sanders every year for a fishing trip. He lives in Chicago where he works for the FBI. The hospital calls him and he arrives quickly and insists on Sylvia staying with him and his family until Beth's return. Sylvia explains everything that's happened since her arrival to the city and he is greatly interested in Carlos Steiner. He is able to replace the damaged box with a new one and requests Sylvia to complete her errand as though nothing had happened.
Several days later he requests Sylvia to again visit Helena's apartment in the hopes of Maizie giving her another package to deliver to Friedman's . She does and as she is handing over the package two policemen bust in and arrest Mr. Friedman. Inside the package is one of Eileen DeWolf's stolen goblets and a package of cocaine.
Carlos and his gang are arrested and tried with Sylvia having to testify as a witness. Helena is found to not have been involved with her husbands criminal dealing and her and Sylvia are able to continue their friendship. Wyman, who was a part of the gang, gets a light sentence but thankfully Beth has gotten engaged to an old boyfriend back home in the south so she won't be heart broken over it. And to really wrap up with a happy ending Sylvia and Hal get engaged and Sylvia is offered a part in a new radio show.
- After the receptionist at the radio studio was rude to Sylvia both her and Beth agree the woman was simply jealous because she must be a failed radio actress. This is so delusional and immature. Some people are just rude and assuming it's because they're jealous is just a way to pump up your own ego.
- Sylvia mocks the people who come into Hal's recording studio to make recordings of their singing. She thinks they're conceited to think they deserve to be recorded. I found this extremely rude and unnecessarily judgmental. These people are paying to have recordings made, it does not matter if the person has a good voice or not. Not to mention that Sylvia has no way of knowing why the recording is being made, she just assumes everyone is going to use them to try and get on the radio. Maybe they want them to send to a family member or loved one.
- I can't help but feel that Ruby Lorraine Radford was inflating her own ego when it came to Sylvia's southern accent. Sylvia only gets a job when her natural accent comes out because it is considered so beautiful. Normally I would assume this was a message about being yourself but it's not written that way. Sylvia has been advised to tone down her accent because she's hard to understand. Obviously this will impact her as a voice actress. She is never made fun of for her accent or told it sounds ugly or anything of that sort. So when Radford, a southerner, writes about how beautiful southern accents are I can't help but feel she's complimenting herself. This is the same thing I felt she did with Christianity in some of her other books.
This book reminded me of Radford's other book, Nancy Craig and the Mystery of the Fire Opal (written under the name Matilda Bailey), because they both are very unique stories which are boring at first but very interesting in the second half.
I found Sylvia arrival in the city and the stay at the Strikers home a bit boring and really had to force myself to read through it. Things didn't pick up until after Sylvia goes to the hospital. I also did not like how Beth disappears for the last half. It seems strange to me that she would take a vacation to Sylvia's home while Sylvia is visiting her in Chicago. Even stranger that she decides to not come back. It's also a little annoying that a plot is centered around Sylvia getting on the radio just for her to get a job on the last page and not get to experience any of that.
Overall it's not bad and I'm looking forward to reading more books by this author in the future.
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