Phantom Books No. 500 Paperback Original (1951). Digest Size. Uncredited Cover Art.
“Homicide Hotel” by Joe Barry (Barry Lake)
A Jealous Woman Plus a Faithless Lover Equals Murder!
From the blurb inside the front cover:
Murder was an everyday affair for Donn O’Mara – but this was the first time in his career as a private eye that he had run into so many likely – and lovely – suspects . . . There was his alluring employer, Gale Storm – as beautiful and as deadly as they come . . . There was seductive Alison Denning, a gorgeous dame with more men than scruples . . . And there was a missing blonde whose pocketbook bulged with a dead man’s money . . . Only the dead man, Sam Gale, knew all the answers – but he was sprawled out peacefully, if grotesquely, on his hotel room floor, the victim of a cold, calculating killer who had to silence Sam whatever the consequences. But O’Mara was never too far from the murderer’s trail, a trail that led him from brunettes to blondes, bars to brawls – right into the killer’s lap!
From the back cover (accompanying a posed photo):
DEATH STALKS THE BIG CITY!
“I pulled her toward me again and her lips slid hard against my cheek. My arms tightened for an instant and in my ear she whispered, ‘I didn’t mean it this way, Donn’. Then I pushed her back and at that moment the door opened and a wild-eyed youth stormed into the room. ‘You sneaky rat,’ he snarled, ‘I’ll kill you for this!’ ”
This is the first book in the Phantom Book Series published in the USA from 1951-52. The number of Phantom books published in the USA is 14, all original hard-boiled crime stories. Australia also had a Phantom Book Series patterned after the USA series. The Australian series ran much longer and encompassed over 300 titles.
Phantom Books No. 500 Paperback Original (1951). Digest Size. Uncredited Cover Art.
“Homicide Hotel” by Joe Barry (Barry Lake)
A Jealous Woman Plus a Faithless Lover Equals Murder!
From the blurb inside the front cover:
Murder was an everyday affair for Donn O’Mara – but this was the first time in his career as a private eye that he had run into so many likely – and lovely – suspects . . . There was his alluring employer, Gale Storm – as beautiful and as deadly as they come . . . There was seductive Alison Denning, a gorgeous dame with more men than scruples . . . And there was a missing blonde whose pocketbook bulged with a dead man’s money . . . Only the dead man, Sam Gale, knew all the answers – but he was sprawled out peacefully, if grotesquely, on his hotel room floor, the victim of a cold, calculating killer who had to silence Sam whatever the consequences. But O’Mara was never too far from the murderer’s trail, a trail that led him from brunettes to blondes, bars to brawls – right into the killer’s lap!
From the back cover (accompanying a posed photo):
DEATH STALKS THE BIG CITY!
“I pulled her toward me again and her lips slid hard against my cheek. My arms tightened for an instant and in my ear she whispered, ‘I didn’t mean it this way, Donn’. Then I pushed her back and at that moment the door opened and a wild-eyed youth stormed into the room. ‘You sneaky rat,’ he snarled, ‘I’ll kill you for this!’ ”
This is the first book in the Phantom Book Series published in the USA from 1951-52. The number of Phantom books published in the USA is 14, all original hard-boiled crime stories. Australia also had a Phantom Book Series patterned after the USA series. The Australian series ran much longer and encompassed over 300 titles.