Lead With Your Left, first published in 1957, is a classic hard-boiled crime novel, and follows a young NYPD detective over the course of a week in his hunt for the killer of two retired policemen. Author Ed Lacy (a pseudonym for Leonard Zinberg, 1911-1968) was a prolific writer of pulp crime fiction, and is credited with creating the first believable African-American private eye in American fiction, Toussaint Marcus Moore (in Room to Swing, 1957).
Obstreperous Dave Wintino, rookie cop, looks further into the murders of two retired members of the force, presumes that more than just a stick-up is involved, and exhumes a less legitimate deal from the past. Knowing that this job may cost him his wife as well as his life, Dave completes his stubborn search for the killer... Not as original as the first two, but a virile and visceral form of entertainment.
