Doug Selby starred in nine novels, beginning with "The D.A.Calls it Murder" which traces Selby's investigation into the mysterious death of a clergyman at the Madison Hotel. Selby suspects foul play although the signs point to suicide.

Douglas Selby, the ambitious young District Attorney of the territory around Madison City, had up before him a young man guilty of embezzling a comparatively small sum of money which he had spent gambling. Selby could have locked him up - and perhaps ruined his life. But he wanted to find the how and the why of this otherwise law-abiding young man's gambling. Selby's investigations led him to a hit-and-run motorcycle accident, to blackmail, and to the doorstep of DeWitt Stapleton, the local big-wig, who ran things in that part of the country by and for himself.

When A.B. Carr, the very smooth criminal lawyer, decided to take up residence in Madison City, a number of people protested. Carr's success as a criminal mouthpiece didn't make him Madison City's ideal of a new neighbor. But there is no law against buying a house, even in an exclusive section.

"FIND ANYTHING ON THAT HOBO'S BODY?" District Attorney Doug Selby fired the question at Perkins. The coroner answered, "A billfold with one of those in-case-of-accident cards. He has a brother in Phoenix. Funny thing about that. The man was a hobo but his brother seems to be some pumpkins." The mystery of the hobo's battered corpse is deepened by a telegram from a man who wasn't there. Then a bookkeeper vanishes and a dead man's fingerprints must be where they aren't and can't be where they are. A routine case had grown into a suspense thriller, and Doug Selby found himself up to his neck in clues that look like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Handel mit dem Schicksal - bk1233; Bastei Lübbe; Erle Stanley Gardner; pocket\_book; 1987

Vintage paperback

Major Doug Selby, Madison City’s ex-DA is at the Madison Hotel on leave. When a Kansas lawyer called Roff drinks a coffee laced with cyanide Selby becomes involved. A mystery blonde and Carr, the defence counsel, complicate the mystery further.

Blond Eve Dawson came to Hollywood to be a star and didn't make the grade. But as a party girl she was much in demand - until someone shot her during a wild party given for a lot of prominent politicians. Everyone clammed up and pressure was brought to bear - even on popular D.A. Doug Selby. But Selby and Sheriff Brandon wouldn't hush. The next time beautiful Eve turned up she was a corpse with a carving knife deep in her chest. And even that suave old fox A.B. Carr couldn't stop the D.A. from finding out who killed her and why.

D.A. Doug Selby was in trouble again. 1. An enticing redhead had been murdered. 2. The county newspaper, The Blade, was after his neck. 3. He had an unsolved jewelery theft on his hands. AND 4. That sly, unscrupulous attorney A. B. Carr was running circles around him. Selby knew that somehow or other all four of his troubles were tied up in one explosive bundle. But how could he open the bundle—without setting off more MURDER?