The Traces of Brillhart Author:Herbert Brean Brill Brillhart, the songwriter, was known as the biggest heel to hit New York in four decades. So the report of his murder was no disappointment. But it was disconcerting when gossip columnists daily recorded his activities: escorting beautiful women to Manhattan's most glamorous nightclubs, writing songs, and otherwise behaving as a person ver... more »y much alive. Crack magazine writer William Deacon set out to unravel the mystery and quickly discovered that he, Deacon, had his own problems about staying alive."
Anthony Boucher review, May 1960: "Brean returns ... to the kind of crime-fantasia in which he first made his mark -- the grandly improbable and apparently impossible situation, with seeming overtones of the supernatural or at very least the paranormal...
BRILLHART (is) a book that only the most incurious clod could fail to finish in one long sitting...a who-, how-, and whydunit in the classic grand manner!"« less
I enjoyed this. It's not exactly from the "golden age," but it fits the mold and has an unusual premise. Brean's "Wilders Walk Away" is more enjoyable and more clever, though.