Murray Kirk
Created by Stanley Ellin

Rich, classy man-about-New York MURRAY KIRK is a former hotshot young lawyer who's become the head of New York's very respectable Conmy and Kirk Detective Agency Coldly, ruthlessly efficient and businesslike. No low rent office with a bottle in the drawer for this baby. Yet Murray does have a weak spot -- he's got it bad for a client's lady fair, and instead of working to prove his client's innocence in a court case, Murray's out to nail him.

Short story ace Ellin studied several PI agencies before writing the novel, so The Eighth Circle is a far more authentic look at real PI work than most PI novels. In its way, it anticipates the "private-eye procedural" type of story that Joe Gores would make his stock-in-trade a decade or so later. It's also one of the few P.I. stories to win the MWA Edgar in the top category, Best Mystery Novel.

Ellin went on to write three more PI novels, 1969's The Bind (which became a reputedly awful movie called Sunburn), featuring Jake Dekker, and two novels featuring his only series character John Milano, Star Light, Star Bright and The Dark Fantastic.

UNDER OATH

• "...manages to take the stuffing out of 1950s-style hard-boiled detective novels, while imitating them perfectly."
  (Art Bourgeau, The Mystery Lover's Companion)

NOVELS

• The Eighth Circle (1958)

Much thanks to Jim Doherty for filling in the blanks on this one.

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