Whisper Murder!

Dan Cumberland tried to convince himself that the town of Clayton could not harbor the evil and threatened violence he felt in the air, but when the police chief pleaded with him never to say the word 'murder' aloud, he could no longer ignore the obvious. Dan was a returned war correspondent, and it might have been his terrible experiences in Europe which made him read horror into the two hotel fires and the death by gas poisoning of the hotel man and his wife. A girl who identified herself as the sister of the dead woman spurred him on a serious effort to solve the puzzle, and another girl, whose claim of affection was outworn with the years, proved the key figure in a series of startling revelations. Vera Kelsey is an experienced and versatile writer. She has created a group of distinct and believable characters and has accurately caught the feel of small-town life. Whisper Murder!, with its peculiarly cold-blooded plot, adds up to an excellent and substantial novel of murder. Whisper Murder! was published in 1946.