To Kiss, or Kill

You never can tell what a big, tough Polish boy will do when he finds a nude blonde in his bathroom. Especially if he is a heavyweight fighter who was born back of the yards, is married to a million dollars, and has a psychiatric record. He might do a number of things. He might tell her to get out. He might yell for his wife. He might blow what's left of his top. He might even do what Barney Mandell did, come to his addled senses. . .

Just out of the mental asylum, no one could blame heavyweight boxer, Barney Mandell, a little overindulgence at a tavern. And when a hot little number wanted to sleep with him, well it had been two years since he was a free man. But Barney remembered his wife, Gale, and thinks he told the cheap floozy that he’d have to pass. But Barney’s mind hadn’t been working so well lately. So when he finds her later that night in his hotel room naked and dead, he’s not really sure if he killed her or not. But the police have little doubts and even his friends and wife wonder if Barney did it.

A compulsively readable thriller from 1951 by Noir Master, Day Keene (real name Gunnar Hjerstedt).