"Death Wears a Gardenia" by Zelda Popkin (1938)

Death Wears a White Gardenia was the first novel by Zelda Popkin, published in 1938, and introduces her series sleuth Mary Carner. Carner is an absolute gem of a character, a fast-talking, sharp-witted New York City department store detective. She's as tough and street smart as the Big Apple, and more crafty than the thieves she busts.

In this first outing, Carner and her boss, Chris Whittaker, have to solve the murder of Andrew McAndrew, the credit manager of Jeremiah Blankfort and Company department store, whose corpse found stuffed in a sample room near a suitcase of stolen merchandise belonging to Joseph Swayzey, a notorious thief and cocaine addict who Whittaker has dealt with before. Adding to the pandemonium, it is the store's fifty-first anniversary and they are hosting a big sale and ribbon cutting ceremony with the governor's wife, and Mr. Blankfort doesn't want murder—or the NYPD—to close down the store or disturb the customers. Carner and Whittaker have their hands full, and their biggest clue is the white gardenia in the dead man's hands.