Cover art by Victor Kalin.
Published 1949
Dell Publishing Company
Green Light for Death
by Frank Kane
A Johnny Liddell Mystery
Seven Days of Bad Luck...It was a rough week for Johnny Liddell. They were shooting clients out from under him, and witnesses, and suspects.
First there was the girl who hired him. She had something Johnny liked, but it couldn't have been brains - because they fished her out of the river a couple of days later.
Then there was his key witness, a blonde who was worth seven days of any man's time. She made a pretty corpse, but she'd been better company alive.
Then there was the redhead, a singer, hip chick, in the know, wise doll. Johnny wanted her away from bullets. He had a special reason.
Frank Kane is an undisputed master of the hard-boiled detective genre. In this book, our hero takes on corrupt police bosses and dope-addled syndicate toughs to solve the murder of a local bargirl who had hired him to find the killers of her kid brother. The case is pitched as a suicide, but Johnny Liddel knows better. Johnny has gotten on the wrong side of everyone involved with this case, and every snitch and small-time hood who helps him is promptly snuffed out. Between back-room beatings at police headquarters and all-night cognac swilling upstairs with comely cigarette girls, he can hardly find time to get enough sleep! But with the help of the local newspaper editor, the last honorable cop on the force and the city coroner, Johnny slowly nails the lid on this caper.
- Paul Irvin