Inspector McKee

"The letters forming the name 'Sara Hazard' and the word 'murdered' were written large caps." The death of Sara Hazard, a Manhattan socialite, was first deemed an accidental drowning. This patch-work letter claimed otherwise and is sufficiently convincing to bring Inspector McKee on to the case.

The Dead Can Tell, first published in 1940, is a murder-mystery featuring New York City police inspector Christopher McKee, one of a series of books featuring the inspector. For added realism, author Helen Reilly (1891-1962) based many of her novels on her research of the NYPD Homicide Squad. "Sara Hazard died when her car slid across the drive into the murky depths of East River. The police crossed it off as an accident until Ins. McKee of the Homicide Squad received an anonymous letter calling it murder. There was ample motive for any one of several people to put her out of the way. McKee uncovered the fact that Steven, her husband, was in love with Cristie Lansing and had asked his wife for a divorce; also, that Mrs. Hazard had some strange power over the rising young politician Clifford Somers. When Cristie came upon evidence which seemed to point to Steven's guilt, she proposed that they be married immediately. He did not suspect that she did this to acquire immunity from having to testify against her husband. All arrangements were made when a voice from the dead changed everything. "There were others in this well-to-do group of New York sophisticates whose behavior puzzled McKee. Strangest of all to McKee was the scream on Halloween night at Hazard's farm where they were all gathered. Murder was done there too. It wasn't, however, until McKee had the answer to that strange sound of little horses galloping that all the pieces fitted into place and a dash in the squad car prevented still another killing. "Here is Helen Reilly at her best, with all the fascinating detail of the work of the New York Police Department, as seen through the operations of McKee and Medical Examiner Fernandez. It is a story of action and movement, but aside from its value as a novel and its bafflement as a puzzle, there shines through it a vast and cyclopedia knowledge of New York and the complex ramifications of the Police Department."

The Opening Door, first published in 1943 by author Helen Reilly, is a murder-mystery featuring New York City police inspector Christopher McKee, who is called in to solve the puzzling death of a young socialite. From the book cover: "This is the story of a beautiful and haunted young woman. When she was one-year-old, she was worth nine hundred thousand dollars. At twenty-one, she was sole heir to five million. Before she was twenty-two, she had endured more heartache, greed and violence than her whole estate was worth. It was anybody's guess whether she would ever see twenty-three..."

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.