14 February 2026

She Ain't Sleepin': This Year's Harlequin Valentine

The Window with the Sleeping Nude
Robert Leslie Bellem
Toronto: Harlequin, 1950

A mystery novel, The Window with the Sleeping Nude begins with store detective Barney Cunard – "two hundred pounds of hangover" – arriving at work at Westervelt Department Store. A naked mannequin is lying prone in a display window. Some joke, except that it's not a dummy and is very dead. Martha Deane's body is found upstairs. Then Kitty Cavane goes missing.

Harlequin's cover holds a greater mystery. Nora Gleeson had no navel.

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Posted by Brian Busby at 6:30 AM
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2 comments:

  1. guybrarian14 February, 2026 10:55

    For anyone unfamiliar with his work, Robert Leslie Bellem is an intoxicatingly idiosyncratic spicy pulpster. Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective is his best known creation - lovingly parodied in S.J. Perelman's 1938 New Yorker piece "Somewhere a Roscoe," and many of his tales are available in reprints or electronically on Lulu.

    I won't attempt to do it justice, but you can get a sense of his playfully over-the-top style from this Thrilling Detective profile: https://web.archive.org/web/20110421125118/http://www.thrillingdetective.com/turner.html

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    1. Brian Busby23 February, 2026 17:38

      Thanks! I really liked what I read of it. I think "playfully over-the top" is spot on.

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