Sted, Richard - They All Bleed Red (1954)

It's 1954, and meat rationing is in force in New York. Isaac O'Hara, the Circulation Manager on a large NY newspaper, is assisting his son Gerald with an investigation into the black market for meat. (Trouble in Triplicate, anyone?). With the aid of his Prohibition-era contacts, Isaac has learned a little too much, which is why he's due to testify before a Grand Jury -- and why someone is trying to kill him. When Isaac's best friend is bumped off in his place, he starts to take action, and the action rapidly becomes fast and furious.

Sted has no ear for dialogue, but the title is great, and he knows his newspapers. His characters are endearing and the story rattles along at a compelling speed, swinging back and forth between drama and farce. Most of the fun comes from the widowed Isaac's unwilling involvement with two beautiful girls; the mysterious Jill Stacey and the hardboiled Cherub Smith. Sted takes a few digs at a Winchell-like gossip columnist on a rival paper, and the outcome shows clearly the importance of having your own personal gangster. The detection is mostly guesswork, but this is an excellent book which would have made a good film.

Why didn't Sted write more books? 'Richard Sted' was reportedly a pseudonym for Theodore Olin Thackrey, a newspaperman who became editor of the New York Post when he married the publisher. Later he lost both his job and his wife when they fell out over Truman's foreign policy. Did he only have one book in him? Was this one a failure? Was his new career interrupted by death?

Can anyone tell us more?

Jon.