Dames Don't Care — Peter Cheyney

Is it hot! I ain't never been in Hell, but I'm tellin' you that I reckon it ain't any hotter than this Californian desert in July.

Special agent Lemmy Caution is back to tell the story in his inimitable vernacular. This is a tale from the hard-boiled school, spiced with romance, murder, counterfeiting and mistaken identity, spanning the country from New York City to Palm Springs in its stormy passage. The careful reader will need to eliminate more than one red herring to keep the facts straight; but the solution is both ingenious and fair.

Dames Don't Care was originally published in 1937.

'Peter Cheyney is the Damon Runyon of crime' The Times