Make mine murder / Robert Sidney Bowen.

Returning to New York after serving in the Second World War, Gerry Barnes finds himself under pressure from his girlfriend Paula to marry and settle down. To her dismay, he shows little desire to do either: instead, he sets himself up as a private detective! Paula half-jokingly vows to find him his first client - not realizing it will be herself. For when she returns to her hotel, she finds the body of a dead man sprawled on her bed, the handle of a knife sticking up out of his throat!