Fire Marshal Ben Pedley was a veteran at double-crossing Death. But this time, with his finger already on the firebug who had hung the butchered torso in Biddonay’s charred refrigerator, Ben didn’t have any more chance than the object that was Suzie’s only prop for her Snowball.Dance in Hell!

How to be famous — in one easy lesson.

Gil Vine is a house officer in a N.Y. city hotel which witnesses the murder of a man in the suite of Tildy Millett, gimmick girl on a video show. From Tildy’s love for Dow Lanerd who plays around but not for keeps, to Lanerd’s murder which is to follow, this turns up other angles- and curves, for a final solution in blackmail and an indiscretion which ended in illegitimacy.

The way to pin a murder rap on an undercover Racket-King is to panic him into doing his own killing.

Here is a fast moving, tough minded mystery for everybody who has ever thrilled to the sound of lire engines screaming down a busy street. The hero is Ben Pedley, Fire Marshal of New York City; the problem, a fire set in a radio star’s dressing room which kills the star’s brother and leads to at least one other killing by fire. Luscious Leila is worth her weight in money and publicity value, and Ben finds himself confronted by radio-and-advertising pressure as well as a singularly brainy murderer.But Ben doesn’t take kindly to pressure and he hates arson with every fibre in his body. So he lashes out against it — with force and good aim — and the story moves rapidly from one high spot to the next, winding up with a climax that has all the excitement of a three-alarm fire next door.Where There’s Smoke is an expertly contrived and smoothly written thriller about fire and people. You’ll like it — and you’ll remember it.