Murder in the Gilded Cage (1929) by Samuel Spewack

Samuel Spewack was a Ukrainian-born American journalist, Hollywood screenwriter and novelist who penned two detective novels, The Skyscraper Murder (1928) and Murder in the Gilded Cage (1929), before abandoning the genre – leaving behind two obscure, long out-of-print mystery novels. Obscure, out-of-print but not completely forgotten going by two somewhat modern and very mixed reviews. A 1990 review from William F. Deeck, posted on MysteryFile, dismissed The Skyscraper Murder as hackwork ("show biz has obviously taken its toll on our author"). Mike Grost, on the other hand, praised Murder in the Gilded Cage ("...an entertainingly written mystery story") and called Spewack "an absorbing storyteller." Even drawing an interesting comparison to Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot. So on the wishlist it went.Last year, Spewack's Murder in the Gilded Cage entered the public domain in the US and quickly became available again through sources like Project Gutenberg (free) or the Wildside Press…