Gale Gallagher's father was a New York cop. The police station with its green lights was the place her dad worked, and the Policemen's Ball was the magic Cinderella dance she dreamed about as a little girl. Instead of the Bobbsey Twins, she read the police news and the latest murders as reported in the tabloids.

Today Gale Gallagher has her own business -- the Acme Investigating Agency -- which specializes in collections and skip tracing. Her work is to collect from the bad debtor and to track down the vanishing husband, wife, or child, to find those people who run away from life, from bad debts, and bad decisions.

But every now and then Gale Gallagher's business gets her involved in matters somewhat more serious and dangerous -- sometimes even in murder.

A charming chic young woman, Gale Gallagher insists she is too much of a sentimentalist -- even a romanticist -- to be a first class detective. Besides, says she, she is too femininely impatient to wait for matters to develop, as all good detectives should; she always has to do something about it. However, her files of cases marked S & C (solved and closed) indicate otherwise.

In all events, we asked Gale Gallagher to put down on paper some of her extraordinary experiences in crime. And she agreed. She has chosen for her first book the famous Alexander case -- the story of a frightened woman who put two thousand dollars on Gale Gallagher’s desk and said: "Prove that Bette Alexander is not my child."

It is a tale of intrigue and terror and cruel scheming, an odd brew of romance, deceit, and murder among the smart -- and not so smart -- Manhattaners.