An 87th Precinct Mystery / The Pusher / Ed MacBain

A boy was sitting on the camp bed. His face was blue. He was leaning forward at an unnatural angle, and after the initial surprise had passed, Genero wondered why the boy did not fall forward. Only then did he notice the cord. One end was looped around the bars in front of the window, the other around the boy’s neck.” It is two o’clock four on a freezing December night when Constable Dick Genero discovers the boy’s body in a dingy cellar hole on his account walk. But what at first looks like suicide soon turns out to be a cunningly devised murder, with the aim of blackmailing an influential figure through the diabolical power of heroin.