Clarence Budington Kelland

It was hard to decide which caused the most talk in the sedate little town of Syracuse that fall of 1869—the arrival of the mysterious Madam Cissy Janeway or the discovery of the fabulous petrified giant in nearby Cardiff. With so much excitement, it wasn't surprising that there was so little curiosity about Orrin Applegate's discovery of the unknown murdered man. And even Orrin, as Madam's lawyer, had more to worry about than an unsolved crime. His client was far too rich and beautiful not to arouse envy and suspicion and she was much too reticent about her past not to worry Orrin when his young neighbor, Lossie, fell completely under her spell. The brilliant society parties and the backroom intrigues of bankers, the titanic battle over the Cardiff Giant and the lusty feats of Erie canalers make a colorful setting for this story of love and violence, and of a woman's fanatically guarded secret.

Published by special arrangement with Harper & Brothers. I am not given to making sociological observations, because my field is electronics-specifically as it applies to high altitude navigation. But I am compelled to remark that a brat can exert a profound influence upon the occupants of the club car of a railroad train.

The Artless Heiress: It's one thing, Miss Columbine Drugget, to handle a classroom full of young girls. It's another thing for a young lady like you to run an Arizona motel for a year at a profit! But that's what your father's will requires. Sam Jones feels a little bit apprehensive about your accepting such responsibility. But how do you think he'd feel if he could see the .38 automatic, the set of burglar's tools, that mummified hand and $40,000 worth of freshly-stolen unset gems in your baggage, or don't you know about all that? Chain of Death: Colin MacLeod's life hangs by a beautifully slender gold chain, a chain given to her in error by that friendly Dr. Fowler on the Guatemala-bound airliner. She had deliberately chosen the off-season to make the flight, and now she is caught in a spider web of intrigue and murder for no good reason! There's a sound in the blackness at her door, a sharp click, then labored breathing. Someone in her room! The slender chain has meant death to four men and terror to a whole country. Is this her rendezvous with death? Without a Trace: Frank Rand is boiling mad! An anonymous note has warned him to stay away from Holly Porter, the girl he loves, because she's "bad trouble". When he races out to see Holly, he finds her and her father tense, frightened, and then her father asks him to stop seeing her! A police sergeant is killed right in front of the Porter house, and a few days later, there's a second killing with the same gun, and Holly Porter is the no. 1 suspect, with a neat stack of evidence against her!

When Chester goes to jail for gun possession, he quickly adapts to life behind bars until he becomes involved in plotting a robbery with another inmate.

Scriptwriter John Miller expected to find plenty of weird characters in Hollywood-but he hadn't counted on being the star of an off-stage murder plot. Who were the enemies out to wreck the Famous Names studio? Why had a powerful racketeer suddenly become interested in the new film company? And what was the truth about the blonde heiress who had her own reasons for keeping John Miller's mind far, far away from the technicalities of movie production? Before either Miller or his pretty leading lady knew it, the shooting was being done with guns instead of cameras, and unexpected corpses were writing themselves into the story. Against a criminal syndicate that kidnapped, killed and had money to burn, the chances of the Famous Names company looked deader than silent pictures.