Let Me Call You Sweetheart is a modern mystery that borrows from past works but also deviates from traditional patterns. Certainly, one can recognize Conan Doyle's mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901; see separate entry) in Let Me Call You Sweetheart. Like the later novel, The Hound of the Easkervilles posits a murder mystery and depends for much of its attraction on prolonged suspense. "How close is Sir Henry to death? What is that howling animal?" These questions are not far from "Is Robin in danger? Who was in that black car while taking photographs?" Each novel employs the technique of building suspense by keeping some of its actors unknown and their potential for harm great without showing where that harm may fall.

Women have long been central figures in novels. Some, like Suzanne, are long on good looks and ill temper, such as Scarlett O'Hara...