Williams: Murder in the WPA

"Murder in the WPA by Alexander Williams is an unusual novel of murder and detection, suggested by events that are rating headlines in today’s papers. The setting is the WPA office of a large city, where 250,000 men and women are facing a cut in the relief rolls. In the midst of a demonstration staged by sit-down strikers, Administrator Henry Ireton is murdered at his desk. Outside his office demonstrators are resisting the efforts of guards and police to eject them. In the conference room next door is a group of supervisors, any one of whom has ample cause to murder the administrator. Into this turbulent picture walk Jim Moore, young WPA official from Washington headquarters, and Lieut. Pietro Tonelli, whom readers will recall as the brilliant and hard-boiled sleuth of Mr. Williams’ previous novels. While Reds and Fascists plot and counterplot, Moore and Tonelli unwind the twisted skein after a series of adventures even more baffling and exciting than the original murder." (Honolulu Advertiser, 1937)

Additional

First published in 1937.