Before the rise of stat cameras and phototypesetting, it was quicker and cheaper to draw big letters for titles by hand. Often the designers would base the letterforms on existing typefaces. In this case it was Georg Trump’s City (1930) that served as the model. The characteristic unilateral slab serifs and the squarish O were preserved. The only major structural difference is that in the typeface, the vertex of M doesn’t reach the baseline. The question mark and the author’s name appear to be custom creations.
Roy Douglas’s gangster-themed mystery novel was published by J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, in 1937.