Editing Melody Malone: Private Detective in Old New York Town

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{{Infobox Object 
|image       = Melody Malone novel screenshot.jpg
|aka         = Melody Malone
|type        = Book
|origin      = [[United States]]
|made by     = [[River Song]] 
|used by     = [[Eleventh Doctor]], [[Amy Pond]], [[Bertie Potts]]
|only        = The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story)|The Angels Take Manhattan
|appearances = 
}}'''''Melody Malone: Private Detective in Old New York Town''''' ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Ruby's Curse (novel)|The Ruby's Curse]]'') was a memoir and guide, posing as a pulp detective novel in the [[Melody Malone (series)|Melody Malone]] novels.

== The book ==
The book centred on an investigation into [[Weeping Angel]]s in [[New York City]] by hotshot female private detective, Melody Malone, (in reality, future time-travelling archaeologist [[River Song]]).

Melody described herself as having "ice in her heart, a kiss on her lips, and a vulnerable side which she [kept] well hidden." [[Hallucinogenic lipstick|Her "lipstick]] was combat ready" and she "pack[ed] cleavage that could fell an ox at twenty feet."

In chapter 7, "The Skinny Guy", it mentioned that on the night of [[3 April]] [[1938]], Melody spied a familiar skinny guy, [[Rory Williams]], whom she followed for two blocks before he turned around and told her that he had just gone to get coffee for her husband, the [[Eleventh Doctor]], and her mum [[Amy Pond]]. They greeted each other, "Hello, River." "Hello, Dad".

The book went on to tell of Melody and her father [[Rory Williams]] being taken to the home of mobster [[Julius Grayle]] at 406 94th Street, in [[Manhattan]], her restraint by Grayle at the hand of an Angel, Rory's basement imprisonment with cherub Angels, and her rescue by [[Eleventh Doctor|her husband]] and [[Amy Pond|her mother]], who knew where and when to arrive by having found the book in the Doctor's coat pocket and having read up to that point in Chapters 8 and 9, "Julius Grayle" and "Calling the Doctor". Fearful of reading something undesirable and thus creating an unalterable [[Fixed points in time|fixed point in time]], they proceeded to obtain further insight by reading only the chapter titles in the book's table of contents. Even doing that, however, devastated the Doctor when he saw the final two chapters were titled "Death at Winter Quay" and "Amelia's Last Farewell".

After living through the events and twice witnessing her parents disappearances through time while risking their lives, River Song proceeded to write the book. River gave the manuscript to her mother, [[Amy Pond|Amelia Williams]]. River also told her grieving husband that she would instruct her mother to write him an afterword, whereupon he flew the TARDIS to Central Park to retrieve the final page which he had earlier discarded. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story)|The Angels Take Manhattan]]'')

== Chapters ==
* Chapter 1 The Dying Detective
* Chapter 2 The Angels Take Manhattan
* Chapter 3 Missing in New York
* Chapter 4 Taking the Case
* Chapter 5 Night in the Statue Park
* Chapter 6 The Gargoyle
* Chapter 7 The Skinny Guy
* Chapter 8 Julius Grayle
* Chapter 9 Calling the Doctor
* Chapter 10 The Roman in the Cellar
* Chapter 11 Death at Winter Quay
* Chapter 12 Amelia's Last Farewell
* Afterword

=== Afterword, by Amelia Williams ===
Hello, old friend.

And here we are. You and me on the last page.

By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone, so know that we lived well and we're very happy, and above all else, know that we will love you. Always.

Sometimes I do worry about you, though. I think; once we're gone you won't be coming back here for a while and you might be alone, which you should never be.

Don't be alone, Doctor.

And do one more thing for me: There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, so she's going to need a lot of hope.

Go to her. Tell her a story.

Tell her that if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to sea and fight pirates, she'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two thousand years to keep her safe, tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived, and save a whale in outer space.

Tell her this is the story of Amelia Pond, and this is how it ends. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story)|The Angels Take Manhattan]]'')

== References ==
[[Bertie Potts]] asked [[Marcus Gifford]] if he had ever read any ''Melody Malone'', in order to convince him that River was the best person to investigate [[Jenkins (I Went to a Marvellous Party)|Jenkins]]' [[murder]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[I Went to a Marvellous Party (audio story)|I Went to a Marvellous Party]]'')

== Behind the scenes ==
* Though barely legible in ''[[The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story)|The Angels Take Manhattan]]'' itself, production design artwork on the BBC website shows the novel's subtitle as "Private Detective in Old New York Town". The title was eventually used in a [[Tardis:Valid sources|valid source]] in ''[[The Ruby's Curse (novel)|The Ruby's Curse]]''.
* The production artwork shows "Pond River" as the publisher on the spine of the book, ensconced between two pairs of wavy lines symbolising water. The publishing stamp appears on the prop shown in the episode, but the words are too small to read on screen.
* While "reading" the afterword, [[Matt Smith]] had to hold a blank page to avoid people taking pictures of it before the actual [[The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story)|episode]] aired.
* The name "Melody Malone" actually has some meaning behind it. The name Melody is obviously a reference to River Song since song is a synonym of melody. The surname Malone comes from the Irish surname "''Ó Maoil Eoin"''  which means "descendant of a disciple of Saint John." The episode [[The Bells of Saint John (TV story)|''The Bells of Saint John'']] which opened the second half of [[Series 7 (Doctor Who)|Series 7]] after [[The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story)|''The Angels Take Manhattan'']] showed the TARDIS with a sticker for the "Saint John Ambulance." More over, if you consider Rory and Amy to be disciples of John Smith (the Doctor), then River Song would be exactly as the name Malone implies.

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[[Category:The Doctor's books]]
[[Category:Melody Malone Mysteries books]]
[[Category:Works written by River Song]]

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