Strip for Murder

by Dolores Hitchens

STRIP FOR

Mark Bellew presents himself as a Theatrical Representative, but what he really does is supply strippers for private parties. Years ago he made a mistake, and one of his girls was raped, then killed herself. He got out of the business for a while, but realizing that this is the only business he knows, he now keeps a small office just off Wilshire Boulevard. But someone who knows about his past is now sending him threatening letters. The only person Bellew can ask to investigate these letters is Ed Warne, an insurance adjustor who shares the upper floor with him. Warne agrees to do some checking but gets more than he bargains for—because whoever is writing the letters has now committed murder. And who knows how far they’ll go to settle this old score.

Also included are two Dolores Hitchens stories from the pages of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

183 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1958

About the author

Julia Clara Catherine Maria Dolores Robins Norton Birk Olsen Hitchens, better known as Dolores Hitchens, was an American mystery novelist who wrote prolifically from 1938 until her death. She also wrote under the pseudonyms D.B. Olsen, Dolan Birkley and Noel Burke.

Hitchens collaborated on five railroad mysteries with her second husband, Bert Hitchens, a railroad detective, and also branched out into other genres in her writing, including Western stories. Many of her mystery novels centered around a spinster character named Rachel Murdock.

Hitchens wrote Fool's Gold, the 1958 novel adapted by Jean-Luc Godard for his film Bande à part (Band of Outsiders, 1964).

Although she was known as Julia as a child, she later said Dolores was the only one of her five given names she liked. Robins was her maiden name; Norton and Birk were two previous stepfathers; Olsen was her first husband; and Hitchens was her second husband.

Reviews

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strip for Murder was published in Mercury Mystery Magazine in October 1958. It is entertaining... If You See This Woman was in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine January 1966. It is not really a mystery, more a quirky tale of kidnapping....Blueprint for Murder is from 1973 and.is the shortest one, about an old man talking about a murder he did, and maybe inspiring his nephew to kill him.

[John Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent short novel by Dolores Hitchens inexplicably overlooked since magazine publication in the late '50s. A booking agent for strippers turns to an insurance investigator friend after receiving a series of increasingly vicious poisoned pen letters about the rape a suicide of one of his clients many years ago. The investigation takes several unexpected turns against a gratifyingly (but never gratuitous) bleak background. While the resolution may be a little rickety, it is satisfying. One of Hitchen's best.