Dr. Daniel Webster Coffee Mysteries

"Ten stories prove the superiority of Forensic pathology over coroner's findings . . . Science and murder in a firm partnership." -Kirkus Reviews Nothing much gets past Midwest pathologist Dr. Daniel Webster Coffee, whose whip-smart mind provides logical solutions to what seem like unsolvable cases. While detectives search for motives, Dr. Coffee provides the means, searching for microscopic clues on bodies and evidence with an unbeatable combination of imagination and intelligence. In ten Golden Age mystery stories, Lawrence G. Blochman pits Dr. Coffee, his able assistant Dr. Motilal Mookerji, and police lieutenant Max Ritter against criminals who, in an earlier era, might have just gotten away with murder. The former sweetheart of a married man dies after meeting him in a hotel room. Was the cause of death a faulty gas heater, the man himself, or his jealous wife? Dr. Coffee delivers the shocking results in "Old Flame." "Stacked Deck" proves that even the fingerprints of a convicted killer don't point to murder, when Dr. Coffee reveals the deadly consequences of poetic justice. Hang around for "Calendar Girl" and find out how a printer's death from heart failure turns into an authentic homicide during Dr. Coffee's investigation. These stories, and seven more, immerse you in a world of justice where forensics foil foul play every time.

A public relations man finds himself in hot water when murder is added to the mix at the soup company where he works. Luckily, Dr. Coffee is on the case. After crowning a Carrot Queen-the fastest carrot peeler at the factory-the Barzac Soup Company is on a public relations roll under director Robert Gilmore. It plans to raise its profile-and stock price-even higher by introducing field rations for the US Army. But when an employee drops dead hours after tasting the field rations, Gilmore has a PR nightmare on his hands . . . With his job on the line, Gilmore seeks the help of pathologist Dr. Daniel Webster Coffee, a man who enjoys good food as much as the unassailable practice of good medicine. But what he discovers raises the stakes: The victim died of arsenic poisoning. The rations could have been deliberately sabotaged as an act of war. As tensions reach a boiling point, Gilmore finds his past, his heart, and his life on the line . . . "Blochman fans generally tend to think of him as more intellectual than the average pulp author, and based on one book, we can't disagree. Recipe is scientific detection, and plenty detailed enough for readers who like that sort of thing . . . for 1954, this is nuanced stuff." -Pulp International