V As In Victim — Lawrence Treat

Originally published in 1945, V as in Victim was the first crime novel to feature ordinary cops as the main characters, launching the subgenre known as “police procedurals” and earning Lawrence Treat an important place in the history of mysteries.

“So Mitch knew in general why he was a cop. ...But Jub Freeman was different, and the difference bothered Mitch.”

New York City Police Detective Mitch Taylor doesn't love being a cop, but it's a decent, respectable job -- except for the paperwork. He files his cases as “investigations,” not crimes, so that failure to solve them won't jeopardize his promotion. Lab tech Jub Freeman never wanted to work for the police, but landing in the lab suited him well. When they're called to the scene of a hit and run accident, Mitch is annoyed with the witnesses. None noted the license plate number of the car, but one insists that she heard a woman scream just before the accident.

Interviewing the woman in her apartment overlooking the accident, Mitch and Jub are surprised to learn that her scream had nothing to do with the hit and run: she's discovered her cat died, for no apparent reason. When her date doesn't show up either, she grows worried and asks the police to check out his apartment at a nearby hotel. There, they find her friend bludgeoned to death.

Are the cases related? With no brilliant amateur detectives in sight, can regular police solve these puzzles? Schooled in the ways that real law enforcement operates, Treat takes the readers along on a satisfying ride to justice.