Robert Reeves
A truck driver employed by Murdock Motor Freight, Bookie Barnes is a tough working class hero. Though not a detective per se, he is a rough customer described as 'tall, heavy-chested, with a build you see only in physical culture ads, and, though barely twenty-six, he’d been on the trucks for three years.' He is emblematic of the type of crime fighters found in pulp fiction in that he represents the typical readership of pulp fiction: an average working-class audience. Written by one of the greats of the detective pulps, Robert Reeves-who was tragically killed in World War II-this book collects all of his Bookie Barnes stories: 'Murder in High Gear,' 'Over a Barrel,' and 'Murder Without Death,' as well as his lone, non-series character story, 'Dance Macabre.' 3
