Stone Cold Blonde

First in a series: The mysterious life of a gorgeous stiff leads a Manhattan detective from Broadway to Coney Island to find her killer.

Lawrence Lariar was one the most popular cartoonists of the twentieth century. But from the 1940s through the 1960s, he also crafted a line of lean and mean detective and mystery novels under his own name as well as the pseudonyms Michael Stark, Adam Knight, Michael Lawrence, and Marston La France. Lariar now gets his due as a leading artist in hardboiled crime fiction.

There she was in PI Steve Conacher’s office: totally naked, and given the knife wounds, unquestionably dead. The nasty business makes lurid headlines, but it’s also drawn the attention of a frantic new client. Grace Masterson says she needs help finding her husband, a runaway jewel thief with a tomcat rep. The lonely housewife also craves a little more intimate service on the side. Conacher doesn’t say no; although it does raise his brows.

But Grace isn’t the only puzzle. The DOA stranger has left a trail of secrets that lead from the posh office of a sexy Park Avenue barrister to Greenwich Village haunts to smoky New York jazz clubs. As the two cases begin to collide, Conacher’s not sure whom he can trust, whom he’s supposed to protect, or who’s got the motive to kill again.

Stone Cold Blonde is the 1st book in the PI Steve Conacher Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.