Make Mine Murder

By Robert Sidney Bowen

Returning to New York after serving in the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War, Gerry Barnes found himself under pressure from his girlfriend Paula to marry and settle down. To her dismay, he showed little desire to do either: instead, he set himself up as a private detective!

Thanks to his legacy from a rich departed uncle, he was in a position to pursue whatever occupation he wished-and he had always wanted to be a private detective. As he told Paula in his new office whilst still waiting for his first case: “…a private dick shouldn’t have a wife…like a sailor shouldn’t. Not around enough to make it stick.”

Paula reluctantly accepted the situation, and half-jokingly vowed to find him his first client-not realizing it would be herself. For when she returned to her hotel it was to find the body of a dead man, sprawled on her bed, the handle of a pearling knife Gerry had sent to her as a souvenir from Fiji sticking up out of the base of his throat!

Robert Sidney Bowen was an author, editor, journalist and World War I aviator. Born in Boston, he was best known for his boys’ series of books set during World War II, including the Dave Dawson War Adventure Series and the Red Randall Series. Married twice, he had three sons, a daughter and eight grandchildren before his death in 1977.