The Great Mail Robbery

Eccentric Characters, Screwball Romance, and Mid-Century Zeitgeist in This Classic Postal Procedural! 
 

"Kelland splits the pages 50-50 between romance and mystery. There are some good details on how the US Postal Office operates in the 1950s which are quite interesting." Goodreads

The hidden movement of mail…Post Office procedure is the backbone, and the story behind the story, of U.S. Postal Inspector Will Scarlet's hunt for the fiend plotting to loot the mail. When a few very expensive packages mailed within the Manhattan area go missing, Scarlet suspects a rehearsal is underway for a much more ambitious theft—possibly worth millions. Scarlet begins with a little New York dress shop whose order of gowns has has gone missing. There Scarlet meets the store's intriguing manager, Mabel Brown, who remembers seeing a woman wearing one of the stolen dresses. This hot tip takes Scarlet to a nightclub, where he is introduced to Jahala Vidmar, a sensational dancer whose shows have taken the town by storm and who has drawn the attention of many a shady character. At this point in the case, Scarlet has accumulated a few noteworthy suspects: 

Chinner DePew, an easygoing underworld jokester who managed fighters—and also managed to have friends on every side; 

Marquis Downs, a man with a shady past and a shady future. Not one for slapdash work, he took the time to try to bribe a government agent on the way to one of the greatest criminal double-crosses in history; 

Jacques Forgeron, an all-around tough guy and Jahala's fierce protector. In the end, he will give her the greatest gift any man could; 

The Trenton Terror, a naïve boxer whose handlers were grooming him for the World Heavyweight Championship—but was that was not all they were preparing him for.