Do Not Murder Before Christmas by Jack Iams

Stanley (Rocky) Rockwell is the young city editor of the newspaper The Record which is crusading against the city machine which is run by the Malloy family. It had been a tradition in the city for many years that on Christmas day, Uncle Poot, a local toymaker, would open his shop and give free toys to the children who visited. The Malloys had opened a community center and planned on Christmas to open the center and give a party for the local children at the same time. Rocky was given the assignment to write an article on the two competing Christmas celebrations.

Rocky started his assignment by visiting the new community center which appeared to rather poorly funded by the Malloys. It was run by Jane Hewes, a good looking blonde, who was not really qualified for the job, but Rocky found her very attractive, and they got along quite well with each other. Together they visited Uncle Poot and tried to convince him to change the date of his party to Christmas, but he declined.

On Christmas eve, Uncle Poot was murdered in his toy shop and his money was taken. At first the police accused a mentally challenged man, Loppy O'Shea,  of the murder and the robbery, but Rocky refused to believe that Loppy was guilty. Rocky undertook the job of finding the murderer. He was helped by his friend Lieutenant Bill Hammer who was one the few policemen who was not in the pay of the Malloys, and by the society columnist for The Record, Mrs. Pickett, who writes under the name Debbie Mayfair and who was familiar with the Malloys but not their friend.

I enjoyed this book. It is well written and has some good humorous touches. The main characters undergo many difficulties during the search for Uncle Poot's killer including being arrested, being fired, and engaging in some fist fighting.

This book was written in 1949 by Jack Iams (1910 - 1990). Iams was born in Baltimore, and his name was actually Samuel Harvey Iams Jr. During his lifetime, he was a reporter for the London Daily Mail, The Daily News, and Newsweek. He was also a television critic for the New York Herald Tribune. He wrote 13 books, and some of these were the mystery series with Stanley Rockwell as the detective.