Lt. Al Wheeler of the Sheriff’s office is dragged out of his bed to investigate a murder called in by a woman. He gets there and wakes up the woman, Eleanor Dolan, she swearing she
hasn’t called any murder in.
But he finds a blond woman dead in the shower stall, shot through the left breast. Dolan recognizes her as the former tenant of the apartment, she herself just moved in two weeks before.
The story seems screwy to Wheeler. Both doors were secured before Dolan went to bed at ten and the shower was the last thing she used before doing so. The only possible way in was through the balcony, the sliding door left unsecured, the apartment being on the fourth floor. Dolan’s story is too dumb not to be true. If guilty, she’d come up with a better story, let alone being in the same apartment with a dead body. But try convincing the sheriff of that.
Wheeler learns from the M.E. that the woman had been dead for at least ten hours which would have placed it before Dolan went to bed.
Nice set-up for a novel that delves into corporate espionage, blackmail, more murders, and a suicide or two.
And a cop that becomes a suspect himself.
For more forgotten books, check in with Todd Mason at Sweet Freedom, who’s handling the meme this week.
Not The Baseball Pitcher 
Definitely sounds like an interesting set up. I just started reading an old Hardy boy’s mystery. Whoa, they haven’t aged well. 🙂
I remember reading THE CREATIVE MURDERS long ago, Randy. Of all the Carter Brown books, I preferred the Al Wheelers. Love the McGinnis cover!
Hm. My earlier comment seems to have vanished.
Never reached the blog, Todd. Unless it somehow got shuffled into the spam queue. That has happened before, one of Charles’s comments, but I’ve had so much lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of deleting them as fast as I can.
No great loss…just pointing out that even an example of cheesecake art from a master can’t trump, particularly on a Carter Brown cover, cheeky cheesecake photography…