The killer stalked her in the dark as silently, desperately she groped for escape....

Another intricate cat-and-mouse problem in murder with Inspector McKee doing the stalking!

A speakeasy performer is murdered in this pioneering mystery from the mother of the police procedural.When one of New York's favorite dancers is killed in a crowded high-tone speakeasy, everyone present becomes a suspect—and those that may have eluded questioning as well. It's up to Inspector McKee of the NYPD to sift through the witness statements, separate fact from fiction, and put together a picture of the crime as it happened in order to discover what's missing from the official narrative. And in the process, he'll uncover a story that leads back into the past, with blackmail and stolen emeralds lurking in the shadows....As McKee's case comes into focus, a rich and confounding mystery plot is revealed, which will take all of the inspector's resources to solve. Along the way, the inner workings of the New York City police department in the 1930s is on full display, including the line-ups, the radio room, the morgue,...

Death strikes down a man on the eve of his wedding to a lovely girl. The verdict is suicide, but the girl is certain it is murder—certain because of a closing door. Inspector McKee wonders, too, and soon both he and the girl have their hands full trying to catch up with an ingenious murderer who leaves a corpse-dotted trail.

Catherine Lister's life is very much centered about her aunt and her two cousins. When Catherine’s aunt announces her own plans to re-marry, events begin to snowball — and somehow the silver leopard that Catherine’s uncle had sent her just before his untimely death is intricately involved.

murder rides a transcontinental express**

"The murderer wasn't shy. One victim was killed in a department store window. Another died before the startled eyes of a policeman on guard duty. The third breathed his last in a crowd of people coming out of a theater. Then the murder tried the boldest move of all -- with Inspector McKee as the intended victim." Fiction.**