The Marceau Case

"The Babe from Hell!" gasped Andre Marceau just as the wire rightened around his neck. A second later he lay sprawled on the ground -- dead. Close by his body were the tracks of tiny footsteps, beginning nowhere and leading nowhere...the only clues to one of the most shocking crimes of the Twentieth Century! That was the beginning of a mystery that Scotland Yark sleuths worked on frantically for two years and then abandoned in despair, without a solution. Yet it was to be solved, not by a detective, but by a resourceful and imaginative American newspaper man, who tracked down an overlooked clue and reopened the case. The thread of Destiny which brought a horrible death to Andre Marceau stretched through Europe to Japan and Australia and even America!

When Kwan Yung, Chinese inventor, gets cheated out of $32,000, it sets off a whirlwind set of circumstances that will affect financier Christopher Thorne, his beautiful daughter, Alicia, and his loyal employee, Philip Erskine -- for better or for worse! Throw in a brain-teaser and you’ve got the makings for one of the most complex webwork mysteries to escape the mind of Harry Stephen Keeler. You also get a third solution to the Marceau Case, which has baffled Scotland Yard. The action ranges from Chicago to New York to New Orleans in this classic work by Chicago’s own Harry Stephen Keeler.

One of Keeler's best, this is the second half of the notorious Marceau case, where a strangler baby dangling from an autogyro may have done the deed. Written in 1935 at the peak of Keeler's powers. Xenius Jones, Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, gave the exact date he would reveal the details of the infamous André Marceau murder. Then Alec Snide, an American reporter, broke the case before he did! But Jones insists that Snide is 100% wrong—and he’s got the 4-dimensional proof of it! In the second “dossier novel” of this remarkable murder case, Harry Stephen Keeler once again proves that no one could handle a complicated plot as he could. Note for the culturally sensitive: Most of Harry Stephen Keeler's works are not politically correct by contemporary standards. Please keep in mind the time in which it was written as you read it.

Volume contains: 222 NY 696 (Fagan v. Ulrich) 222 NY 482 (Francey v. Rutland R.R. Co.) 222 NY 449 (Helgar Corp. v. Warner's Features, Inc.) 223 NY 542 (Jones v. Nat'l Surety Co.) 222 NY 717 (Kollarcik v. Salts Textile Mfg. Co.)

Follow-up to the Edgar Award-nominated Gun in Cheek further celebrates neglected classics of substandard mystery writing, uncovering even more twisted treasures for connoisseurs of hideous prose.