To some, the postage stamps were colored bits of paper, worth mere pennies. Other people coveted them, preserved them, spent thousands of dollars to acquire them. One person in New York City was driven to commit murder.... Max Adrian was the rare stamp broker everyone in the know avoided — and those unfortunate enough to do business with him harbored grudges. It never mattered to the shifty broker, until someone demanded a refund at the point of a gun. Soon, Adrian's rival Larry Storm plays amateur detective for the benefit of a dishy dame, searching for a hidden cache of priceless stamps. Storm is one step ahead of the tenacious Inspector Luke Bradley, who's one step behind a cold-blooded killer — and Storm had better start running....Cancelled in Red was the $1,000 Red Badge Prize Mystery winner. It walked away with the $10,000 prize for the 1939 Dodd Mead Mystery Contest. Dodd, Mead & Company issued the story in paperback and hardcover that same year.Hugh Pentecost was the pen...

When ex-riveter Pat Cain accepted Emily Stoddard's offer to finance his singing career, he found himself hob-nobbing with a clique of voice teachers, theatrical coaches, a numerologist and an Indian Chief. It never occurred to him that violence and death simmered beneath the emotional outbursts of that motley crowd until Inspector Luke Bradley appeared, seeking information about Lydia Eagan, another of Emily's proteges, who had either been pushed or had jumped out of a hotel window. Thrill follows thrill in this engrossing mystery as Cain gives Bradley a sleuthing assist while trying to shield a lovely girl."Fine puzzle and good, tough dialogue." — New Yorker

Luke Bradley is no stranger to murder, but the stakes have never been higher — the defense of American lives from malevolent Japanese forces. The action begins when screenwriter Chris Wells travels from the west coast to a naval repair base on a barren island. Amid angry rumors and suspicion, Bradley and Wells race to unmask a saboteur before the civilian laborers turn upon each other. "An unusually well-plotted and well-written story with the suspects limited to the members of a small group. Action, suspense and plenty of thrills from start right down to finish...." — New York Times "A sharp, fast, exciting yarn, vivid with a refreshingly realistic patriotism...."— San Francisco Chronicle "A realistic and exciting murder mystery story...." — Chicago Tribune

A Nazi's widow comes to the Beaumont Hotel with death in her entourageAs befits the manager of New York's finest hotel, Pierre Chambrun has certain standards for his guests at the Beaumont. Were it not for the pleading of the hotel's owner, no amount of money could persuade him to allow the Baroness Charmian Zetterstrom a room. She is the stunning young widow of a Nazi war criminal; her husband was an infamous sadist who escaped before the fall of the Reich to live out the rest of his days in hedonistic isolation on a Mediterranean isle. Off the island for the first time since the war, the baroness comes to New York with an entourage of misfits, and mayhem follows.The first victim is the baroness's dog, which is savagely murdered by an unknown hand. The next to die will be human, forcing Chambrun to identify the killer, or risk having his hotel destroyed by the vindictive ghosts of the fallen Reich.

A lost boy draws Pierre Chambrun into an international conspiracyGuy Willis knows that if he is ever in trouble at the Beaumont Hotel, he can trust Pierre Chambrun. The manager of this world-famous Manhattan institution, Chambrun owes his life to young Guy's father—an Air Force intelligence operative who once rescued the unflappable Frenchman from a gang of terrorists. When Guy's parents disappear during a stay at the Beaumont, a priest turns up and approaches the boy, claiming to be an old family friend sent to take care of him. Guy doesn't trust the phony padre—or the pistol in his shoulder holster—one bit, and screams for Chambrun to help. Chambrun dispatches the ersatz priest, but finding Guy's parents will be more than a matter of visiting the lost and found. Major Willis has been kidnapped, and if he is not recovered, it will be more than just a mishap for the hotel—it will be a catastrophe for all of the United States.

Worldly, sophisticated hotel manager Pierre Chambrun faces a crisis of conscience when his beloved secretary is kidnapped by a group that wants Chambrun to betray a famous journalist, a guest at the hotel

 (The Pierre Chambrun Mysteries, 17)In the pool of the Beaumont Hotel, a teenager is found murdered and facelessManhattan’s charitable circles know no finer place for a fundraiser than the stately Beaumont Hotel, whose brilliant manager Pierre Chambrun will do whatever it takes to make Good Samaritans feel at home. This means that after popular singer Stan Nelson has completed his annual twenty-four-hour telethon for cancer research, Chambrun is loath to wake the crooner from his well-earned sleep. But there has been a murder in the hotel’s pool, and that means no good deed will go unpunished.A young man is found floating in the water, his face a bloody mess, his pockets empty of everything but a telethon pledge card bearing Stan’s autograph. The star swears he doesn’t recognize the corpse, but as Chambrun and his team dig into the secrets behind the charity, they discover a tangled plot involving sin and religion, and the deadly consequences that can come from doing good.Review“A certain hand, and a crafty mind. . . . Ingenious.” —The New Yorker“Hugh Pentecost’s best stories seem usually to be those about Pierre Chambrun, resident manager of that superb hotel de luxe, the Beaumont.” —The New York Times“The Hotel Beaumont is where I shall go if I die in a state of grace.” —Anthony BoucherAbout the AuthorHugh Pentecost was a penname of mystery author Judson Philips (1903–1989). Born in Massachusetts, Philips came of age during the golden age of pulp magazines, and spent the 1930s writing suspense fiction and sports stories for a number of famous pulps. His first book was Hold 'Em Girls! The Intelligent Women's Guide to Men and Football (1936). In 1939, his crime story Cancelled in Red won the Red Badge prize, launching his career as a novelist. Philips went on to write nearly one hundred books over the next five decades.His best-known characters were Pierre Chambrun, a sleuthing hotel manager who first appeared in The Cannibal Who Overate (1962), and the one-legged investigative reporter Peter Styles, introduced in Laughter Trap (1964). Although he spent his last years with failing vision and poor health, Philips continued writing daily. His final novel was the posthumously published Pattern for Terror (1989).

As X-rated stars descend on the Beaumont Hotel, someone takes a shot at its ownerTerrified of flying, Beaumont Hotel owner George Battle hasn't seen America in seventeen years, instead spending his days on the Riviera, counting his money. But pressing business calls him back to the United States: a seven million dollar investment in the latest epic directed by Maxwell Zorn, king of highbrow celluloid smut. It's the kind of motion picture that even an old man will want to oversee personally.As Zorn's outlandish entourage swarms the illustrious hotel, Battle takes residence in the penthouse suite of his infallible manager, Pierre Chambrun. On his first night there, a bullet splinters the headboard just inches from his face. Was the shot meant for him or Chambrun? The Beaumont's top brass must tread lightly. Die, and the Beaumont dies with them—a blow from which the jet-set will never recover.

A prank outside the Beaumont Hotel goes haywire, and an assassin kills the wrong manPolitical fundraisers can be cynical and coarse when they're among their own kind, and Pierre Chambrun, manager of the elegant Beaumont Hotel, prefers not to let them through his doors. But when his friend Douglas Maxwell, a hard-nosed senatorial candidate, asks to host a thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner in the Beaumont's famous ballroom, Chambrun cannot refuse. The fundraiser has just begun when bad taste rears its ugly head, and Maxwell steps out of his limousine smiling, waving, and wearing no pants. The crowd roars with laughter until the pantsless man falls to his knees, shot dead.Less than half an hour later, Maxwell appears in Chambrun's office, very much alive. The dead man was his cousin, a lookalike who came to New York to play a prank, and caught a bullet in return. Chambrun must find the gunman to save his friend and spare the Beaumont a second killing—because murder is the...

Just as "Cancelled in Red" took Inspector Luke Bradley, the soft-spoken, hard-boiled cop, through the intriguing maze of the stamp collecting racket, so this mystery tangles Bradley up in the fast tanbark crowd."The 24th Horse" gallops after a host of hard-faced people, some of them with more money than is good for them — and others, unfortunately, with far too little.From the minute Johnny Curtin drives a coupé with the body of a murdered girl in the rumble seat to Inspector Bradley's door, this novel keeps moving — fast! "The 24th Horse" is a tense, absorbing mystery novel that will hold the reader to the final page as Bradley sets a trap for a desperate killer — and finds himself face to face with death!

When its manager vanishes, the Beaumont Hotel spins towards disasterFor decades, Pierre Chambrun has maintained the enormous mechanism that is the Beaumont Hotel. He breakfasts in his office at nine, and spends his days and nights ensuring that the various problems that inevitably occur in a large hotel do not disrupt its overall operation. But one morning, the suave old hotelier does not appear for breakfast. Panic sets quickly once it is clear that Pierre Chambrun is missing, and his staff must manage without him. The first crisis comes before lunch: A socialite has been murdered in her suite.Investigating the killing falls to Chambrun's security chief, his secretary, and Mark Haskell, his indefatigable press man. Together they must find the assassin and search for Chambrun, all the while trying to keep the Beaumont on the rails. For whether their boss is dead or alive, nothing must bother the guests.

It's fashion week at the Beaumont, and Chambrun must investigate a haute couture killingBarrel-chested and twinkle-eyed, Nikos Karados is one of the jet-set's most charming figures. A Greek shipping magnate with a philanthropic bent, Karados has a Midas touch that turns charities into gold. For the sake of cancer research, he comes to New York to stage a fashion show at the stately Beaumont Hotel. Beaumont press agent Mark Haskell is admiring the models when he sees Karados collapse and perish from an apparent heart attack. Inspecting the body, the house doctor discovers that Karados's medication has been replaced by placebos.To avoid a high-fashion panic, Beaumont manager Pierre Chambrun has Haskell quietly investigate the murder. Among the models, designers, and photographers lurks a killer, and Chambrun and Haskell will see to it that this unscrupulous fashionista spends next season wearing pinstripes.

Soon after the Beaumont is sold, its new owner is found dead in Suite 912When crushing debts force the proprietor of the world-famous Beaumont Hotel to offload his prized possession to the ruthless tycoon J. W. Sassoon, hotel manager Pierre Chambrun and his staff brace for change. But the threat isn't J.W., it's his son, Johnny-baby—a cigar-puffing playboy whose bright ideas for modernizing one of Manhattan's most elegant destinations amount to nothing more than sleaze. When he suggests that the Spartan Bar's cigarette girls go topless, Chambrun quits, leaving the hapless wannabe to fend for himself.  Chambrun retires to his penthouse to write his memoirs, waiting for the inevitable crisis to force his return. It comes in the form of a dead body, Johnny-baby's father, who is found in Suite 912 with a tap on his phone and a call girl's underwear on the floor. To save his hotel, Chambrun is happy to come out of retirement—and clean up Johnny-baby's mess.