The Window with the Sleeping Nude -- Robert Leslie Bellem

I'd been wanting to read this book for years, but I hadn't been able to find an affordable copy. Finally a sort of ratty one turned up on eBay, so I bought it. I was hoping for something along the lines of Bellem's Dan Turner stories, but that's not what I found. Nothing in the novel rises to the level of the divine zaniness of Turner's escapades, and Barney Cunard is no Dan Turner. Still, it's a fast-moving (and short, at 120 pages) story of a nude body in a department store window, with enough complications to keep things interesting. Who knew that deparment stores in the '40s were staffed by so many gorgeous women? Bellem loves describing them, especially their important assets. So the book was fun to read as a period piece, but a little disappointing. Nice cover, though.