Delancey: Murder Below Wall Street

“The vast majority of detective stories are so strained in the plotting and so strained in the writing that one welcomes such a fine detective yarn as [this]. Moving off to something of a slow start . . . the book gets under way and goes on steadily in a most satisfactory manner. There has been a murder in the office of some brokers who are suspected of having been mixed up with gangsters and killers; they also may have had a finger in financing some revolutionary trouble in a South American country. A number of persons might have wished Hugo St. Lawrence out of the way; but when he’s found with a bullet in his heart, there is almost no evidence upon which to base the investigation. So the police call in Dr. Arthur, a truly pleasant gentleman who’s an expert in crime detection. It is Dr. Arthur who tells the story . . . the thing is well done in every way; one even becomes interested in the characters themselves, as well as in their relation to the crime that has been committed.” (1934 review)