IMPACT

I've had this one sitting on my bookshelf for who know how long. Finally decided to give it a read the other day. IMPACT, by Harry Olesker, was written in 1961. This edition was published by Dell in January 1965.

Stanley Gilborn, a New York City accountant, is a middle-aged man married to a much younger woman. Kitti, a former model, is Gilborn's "trophy wife" but the two seem to genuinely love each other. Gilborn returns to his apartment from work one day to find Kitti brutally murdered. Her death devastates him and suspicion (and circumstantial evidence) begins to point towards Lionel Black, an insurance salesman and Gilborn's much younger best friend.

But there are other suspects as well. Could Gilborn himself committed the crime? Black's needy wife Pat? Blanche, Gilborn's secretary who has been secretly in love with her boss for years? It's up to detective Joseph Conrad (I kid you not!) and his younger partner Johnny Rourke to sift through the evidence and statements and discover the truth.

Nothing spectacular here whatsoever but IMPACT is still a tightly written, efficiently constructed little murder mystery. Thumbs up.