BLUE MURDER.
New York: Phoenix Press Publishers, [1938]. Octavo, pp. [1-10] 11-256, publisher's blue cloth stamped in red. First edition. A presentation copy with a contemporary inscription by Bellem on the front free endpaper: "To / Duke & Ann Sutherland / with love / and a leer -- / Robert Leslie Bellem / 29 Palms, Calif., Apr 4, '38." The first novel by the creator of legendary Hollywood detective Dan Turner. BLUE MURDER is a risqué hard-boiled detective novel featuring Los Angeles private eye Duke Pizzatello who is framed for murders he did not commit. "Bellem’s novels, for the most part, are forgettable. The only exception is his first, BLUE MURDER (1938), which features a Dan Turner-like private eye named Duke Pizzatello and contains some of the same slangy, campy mangling of the English language" (Pronzini). Robert Leslie Bellem (1902-1968), a prolific writer, known for his hard-boiled stories, usually with plenty of slang and a touch of the comic, published under numerous pseudonyms and is thought to have written as many as 3000 stories. [Reference: Hubin (1994), p. 63. Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights: The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, pp. 54-55]. Slight spine lean, text paper and endpapers tanned, a very good copy in good pictorial dust jacket priced $2.00 on the front flap with wear and shallow fraying and creasing along the top and bottom edges and stains to the spine panel, internal with no show through on the outer surface. Still, a presentable copy. From the library of a well-known mystery writer with his library stamp on the front paste-down. (36126). Item #36126
Price: $2,500.00