Draw The Curtain Close by Thomas B. Dewey

This is the series debut of Mac, a calm and conscientious Chicago private eye who isn't afraid of fisticuffs or firearms when it comes down to it.

A butler shows Mac into the fine library of Warfield's mansion, the large man looking to Mac like someone who owns half the city and the people in it, and has done the things you have to do to get to own them. For a generous retainer, Warfield hires Mac to watch his wife, who left him after an argument a few weeks ago. Now living in an apartment, she may be in danger. Waiting in his car outside is Marilyn Maxwell, a beautiful redhead asking for a ride. Let's say she's a friend of the family, who sings a little and dances at Warfield's Mobile Club - and one of the reasons his wife left. Back at his office, he finds three hoodlums of loan shark Burnett demanding a mysterious package they think Warfield gave him. He also finds Warfield's butler delivering this package before the men shoot him down in the street. Mac's good friend Donovan arrives to investigate the shooting; the best cop in town, he has known Warfield since he was a hood named Scarpone. Mac meets Mrs. Cynthia Warfield in her apartment, who knows the package contains a family heirloom, one volume of a 1455 Gutenburg Bible worth $50,000. They return to the mansion together to find Warfield bludgeoned to death - the bloody fireplace poker later found in Cynthia's closet. Someone wants her framed out of the way. There are a lot of people after the book - Burnett, Miss Mayfair, and a mob kingpin named Callahan, trying to outbid each other to possess it - strange, as it seems worthless now that someone has hollowed out the pages inside.

Mac does the legwork of following people or trailing them in cabs through the darker shadows of Chicago. Mac and Donovan have a familial relationship (calling each other Shamus and Copper), but Mac is a diligent loner. He doesn't incite action, but is not afraid of fisticuffs or firearms as the finale whips up into a frenzy of violence, littering the floor with bodies. "Nice work, Mac," she said. "They had it coming. All of them."

1947 / Hardcover / 216 pages