"The Blonde Cried Murder" is a 1961 mystery novel by John Creighton (which may be a pen name), published as one-half of an Ace Double, along with "Killing Cousins" by Fletcher Flora. "The Blonde Cried Murder" is an example of a hardboiled detective story, featuring a struggling private eye.
"Yellow is for gold, blondes ... and cowards"
the cover tells us, over a picture of a screaming woman and a man's back, running away. Spoiler: while one of the main female characters is blond, I don't remember any gold in this book, and I don't know who the
coward would be. But when I say this is a hardboiled detective story, I mean it is a hardboiled detective story. The first page establishes that when we meet our protagonist, Ed Donovan, drinking at his desk, about to run out of money on his rent, meets a new customer: a beautiful blonde lady with a sad story comes in and offers him an incredible amount of money ($500, this was a while ago) to find her missing husband, an
embezzler who disappeared six months ago. Ed Donovan is hard as nails but with a
heart of gold and even though he usually does small corporate investigations, he takes the case--because he feels sorry for the girl and because he needs some money. He is quickly roughed up by some "Sicillian" thugs, finds himself investigated for murder after a witness he interviews dies, and finds himself in a tangled web of false identity and hidden motives. I found this a fair mystery story because the suspect was telegraphed--but not telegraphed too much. It also had a realistic air of amateur crime and low-level crime---until the final 20 pages, when guns are finally drawn for the first time and we have gun fights on boats and the like, switching from a more atmospheric procedural novel to a more action oriented story.
Overall, I liked it. I have read an Ace Western before, but this is the first Ace Mystery I have read. As I said when I read an Ace Western, it has a big advantage over science-fiction stories in that the author does not have to engage in "world building". We already know what Maryland is and what the state patrol is, so they can launch into the story. And for that matter, this story starts so predictably, that the reader is saved the mental energy of having to understand character motivation. I read this in one sitting, and could probably read many books like this, although if they were all so by the numbers I would probably get bored.
Also, it was interesting, and a little bit cute, for me to read just what was considered hard boiled and jaded in 1960. Despite being about infidelity and seduction, any specific references to sex (beyond commenting on women's figures, which happens a lot) are avoided. There are also no references to drugs other than omnipresent alcohol and tobacco. There is also not much reference to any organized crime beyond small things such as gambling rings, and all police in the story are assumed to be more or less honest. For a noir story, this seems innocent in a way.