Belle Levy was a private detective, an unusual profession for a woman. Crime-solving, however, ran in her family, since her father was a lieutenant with the New York City police force.

Belle Rosenfeld Levy was born in New York City on December 29, 1898, to Ray and Monroe (Wieser) Rosenfeld. She progressed through the city’s public school system and married Charles Levy before her eighteenth birthday. She had one daughter, Madeline.

Levy’s first independent job was designer of children’s clothes, but at age twenty-five, she began working for a private detective agency. In 1927, she formed her own detective agency, the Colonial Detective Service, hunting down missing relatives, cheating spouses, and other miscreants. She was a skilled investigator; her favored methods involved bumping into her targets seemingly by accident and striking up conversations to get as much information as she could. She maintained offices through Manhattan, including West 42^nd Street and Columbus Circle, and employed other women as agents for cases across the country. She was one of the first private investigators licensed by New York State.

Articles and court records indicate that Levy continued as a private investigator at least through 1958. Asked in 1950 about her favorite cases, she said she liked the ones with happy endings, such as one where a man suspected his wife of sneaking off to cheat on him. It turned out she was secretly going to expensive salons to look her best…because she was afraid of losing her husband’s interest.