Beadle's Pocket Library No. 362

Kit, the Bootblack Detective This weekly dime novel from Beadle and Adams follows Kit, a sixteen-year-old Philadelphia newsboy with sharp intelligence, as he embarks on his first detective case. After selling papers on Chestnut Street, Kit becomes intrigued by a suspicious stranger's interest in a reported suicide and reads that a beautiful unidentified seventeen-year-old girl has been found stabbed in a vacant lot. Convinced it was not suicide, Kit befriends young detective Simon Yale and gains access to the city morgue to examine the corpse. The girl's refined features and fine clothing suggest she belongs to a better class, deepening the mystery. Determined to launch a detective career despite his youth, Kit resolves to investigate independently. On his way home via streetcar, he is accosted by a drunken mechanic named Mike McGill, setting up further complications in his developing narrative.