Summary
Summary of Find the Woman
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Clancy gives ambition a new name
Clancy Deane arrives in New York with an inheritance, confidence in her looks and a plan to enter the movies. A singer’s introduction card gives her access to an agent and a borrowed identity: Florine Ladue. She decides to make that name famous.
At the friendly Napoli hotel, Fay Marston draws her into a dinner dance among actors, directors and men with money. Clancy feels close to the future she wants, but she barely knows the people opening its doors.
Key idea 2
Glamour hides a crooked game
Start free to read
Key idea 3
An introduction becomes a dangerous mistake
Start free to read
Key idea 4
Running away makes safety more fragile
Start free to read
Key idea 5
A promising job brings another threat
Start free to read
Key idea 6
The dance draws danger closer
Start free to read
Key idea 7
Friends offer protection without full certainty
Start free to read
Key idea 8
Scandal and youth pull against honesty
Start free to read
Key idea 9
Cleverness can exploit or protect people
Start free to read
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who enjoy Jazz-Age New York, spirited heroines, cabaret nights, quick dialogue and a murder mystery with a romantic thread will find this book a lively companion.
What this book is
Find the Woman is a novel by Arthur Somers Roche, set in New York in the winter of 1920. It follows Clancy Deane, a twenty-year-old typist from the Maine fishing town of Zenith, who spends a small inheritance on a one-way trip to the city of her dreams. She wants a career in the movies and a rich future. What she gets is one week in which glamour, crooks and danger pile up on top of one another.
Roche wrote for a wide magazine-reading public, and the pace shows. Chapters close on a knock at a door, a locked room or a newspaper headline. The book is also a picture of the Jazz Age, with its cabarets, easy money, press agents and private poker games, seen through the clear eyes of a country girl who learns fast. Along the way you meet a card cheat, a crooked agent, a warm-hearted judge, a young prosecutor and a woman painter.
In this summary you follow Clancy from her first taxi ride up Fifth Avenue to the days when she must hide, bluff and think her way out of a trap. We stop before the ending, so the mystery stays yours to solve. You will also hear what the story says about ambition, scandal and youth. Let us begin on the afternoon Clancy arrives in the city.
In this summary
- 1A Maine girl takes Broadway by stormFree
- 2A poker game ends in a brawl
- 3A talent agent locks the door
- 4The papers print a murder, and she runs
- 5A job, a painter, and a familiar name
- 6A glittering party and a hidden trap
- 7A bluff, an opera, and a deal that saves her
- 8Ambition, scandal and the nerve of youth
- 9How the story keeps you turning pages
Key point 1 of 9
A Maine girl takes Broadway by storm
Clancy Deane rides in a taxi along Fifth Avenue and can hardly believe the street sign. Two days earlier she was typing for Mr. Frank Miller at a canning company in Zenith, Maine, and living in Aunt Hetty's boardinghouse. Now she watches a woman in a limousine, wearing Paris shoes and a chinchilla collar, and decides that clothes are all she lacks. She is sure of her looks, and she means to sell them at the best price.
What gave her the nerve? A cousin of her mother's died in California, and her share of his estate comes to seven hundred and thirty-two dollars and forty-one cents. She also carries a card from Fanchon DeLisle, a burlesque singer whom Clancy nursed through the flu. The card introduces a little friend called Florine Ladue to a theatrical agent named Morris Beiner. Clancy decides on the spot that Florine Ladue is the name she will make famous.
She checks into the Napoli, a hotel near Times Square where actors live and may sign checks for a week. Madame Napoli, a fat and cheerful landlady, calls her guests her children. Clancy's room, number one hundred and eighteen, looks out over the electric signs of Broadway, where a giant kitten chases a ball of twine. She decides that nobody could be lonely in this town.
Before she has unpacked, a tall blonde named Fay Marston wanders in and asks to be hooked into her dress. Fay is loud, friendly and certain that good skin is the secret of success. She invites Clancy to a dinner dance at the Château de la Reine, to make up a party for a broker named Ike Weber. Clancy hesitates for a moment, then lets Fay help her into her plain foulard dress.
At the cabaret, Weber greets her with fat, squeezing hands and shrewd eyes. Clancy sits among actresses, directors and money men and tastes anchovy, turtle soup and sole for the first time. She dances with several partners, including Zenda, a mop-haired film director who is the host and forgets her at once. Everyone calls her Florine, and nobody seems to know anyone else's name. When dinner ends, five men whisper together about a private game, and Fay asks whether Clancy wants to come along.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Check yourself
Why does Clancy flee Zenda’s apartment when the poker game turns violent?
Right. “Her fear is not of blows but of scandal, for she can picture her name in the papers back home.”Not quite. “Her fear is not of blows but of scandal, for she can picture her name in the papers back home.”
Why does Beiner initially think Clancy is involved in the poker scheme?
Right. “Zenda has just left his office asking after Weber, and Beiner has guessed that the girl called Florine is Weber's messenger.”Not quite. “Zenda has just left his office asking after Weber, and Beiner has guessed that the girl called Florine is Weber's messenger.”
What distinguishes the cleverness of Clancy and her friends from that of the crooks?
Right. “The other belongs to Clancy and her friends, who use their wits to protect each other.”Not quite. “The other belongs to Clancy and her friends, who use their wits to protect each other.”
Questions about Find the Woman
What is Find the Woman by Arthur Somers Roche about?
It follows Clancy Deane, a young typist from Maine who moves to New York hoping to work in the movies. Within days she is mixed up with a poker swindle, a crooked agent and a murder, and she must hide while she searches for the truth.
Who is Florine Ladue in Find the Woman?
Florine Ladue is the stage name Clancy Deane takes when she reaches New York. It is also the name on the card of introduction found in the dead agent's office, so the police treat it as the key to the woman they want.
When was Find the Woman written and where is it set?
It is a work of fiction set in New York in the winter of 1920, during the early Jazz Age and Prohibition. It moves between Broadway, Greenwich Village, Park Avenue and a snowy country house, all drawn from the period.
Is Find the Woman an easy read?
It is told in short chapters with lively dialogue and a clear, forward-moving plot. A friendly narrator explains the city's customs as Clancy learns them, and nearly every chapter ends on a small hook that makes you want to read on.
What does the title Find the Woman mean?
The phrase echoes the old advice to look for a woman behind a crime. In the book it appears as a newspaper headline, which puts Clancy in danger because everyone is searching for the woman seen on the fire escape.
