George Harmon Coxe

Jim Russell had always known that some day he would have to pay off the debt he owed Max Darrow. That this obligation, incurred on the island of Luzon in 1945, should take him to Panama City nine years later didn't seem particularly strange. Yet once there, Darrow seemed reluctant to talk, and by the time he changed his mind, things had broken wide open. First there was the slim girl with the high-cheekboned face and the suntanned legs. Then the man with the tinted glasses and his friend with the gun. Finally there was the indestructible Max Darrow, indestructible no longer, sprawled on the floor of his apartment in front of his rifled safe. Jim's promise to Darrow was hard to explain to the police, but he was most concerned about the girl. Emeralds, gunrunning and jealousy mixed together make a dangerous brew, and too many people seemed to have sampled it.

When Jack Casey, number one photographer at the Morning Express, dropped in at the Melody Lounge he wasn't looking for trouble. But this time, as they so often did, people who were already in trouble came to him. The first was Shirley Farrington, who asked Casey to escort her home from the party where her husband was rapidly getting drunk. The second was Donald Farrington himself. Casey knew Farrington as a wealthy stockbroker whose private life was impeccable. Now someone was trying a little game of blackmail and Farrington needed help. When Casey started asking questions, the answers didn't add up. Who was Shirley seeing at the Melody Lounge? Why had Farrington's sister paid $1,000 to a sleazy private eye on Meridian Street? In the next few days, the trail led Casey from the top strata of society to the shabby underworld of showgirls and scandal photographers. Then the game got rough. A man was found dead, and Casey was caught between the cops and an unknown killer—with a story he couldn't tell to anyone until he had all the answers.

Shortly after the accident that snuffed out her beloved husband's life, young Charlotte Mason realized that someone was trying to kill her.... Unable to go to the police, Charlotte turned to the only two men who could help her: Martin, the taciturn accountant who had handled Harry Mason's business, and Philip, the zany young photographer who lived upstairs. While neither man trusted the other, Charlotte trusted them both - until something happened and she knew one of them was a cold-blooded killer. But which one? And why?

The headquarters of Segurnal—short for Seguridad Nacional, sometimes known as the secret police—was the last place Jeff Lane had expected to be his first night in Caracas. He'd arrived earlier that evening and had gone directly to the Hotel Tucan to meet Baker, the private detective who'd cabled he'd found Arnold Grayson, but by that time Baker could no longer talk. Grayson however was there at Segurnal too, still uncommitted, despite the trick at the Miami Airport which had cost Jeff twelve hours and had given Karen Holmes an all-important lead over him. For Jeff and Karen it was to become a game of cat-and-mouse in a strange land among strange people. There were, for instance, Pedro Vidal, head man of Segurnal ; Carl Webb, hood, gambler, and collection-man for a missing hundred and twenty thousand dollars; Muriel Miranda, who had the height to complement her curves; but not the depth to restrain her dreams; and Julio Cordovez, soft-spoken, good friend, and perhaps the most dangerous of all.

WHEN "FLASH" CASEY, newspaper photographer, was instructed by his Chief to take Karen Harding (amateur photographer and the daughter of one of the Directors) with him and show her the ropes, he little thought he would be leading her into murder on their first assignment. Rosalind Taylor, newspaper reporter, well known for her championing of the under-dog, is on the eve of exposing Matt Lawson, racketeer, and arranges to meet Casey to discuss the matter. When she fails to keep the appointment Casey goes to her apartment, where he finds Rosalind's secretary, Helen McKay, bound and gagged, but no sign of Rosalind. Rosalind is later found shot in her car, and Casey, shocked by the murder of a colleague with whom he had always got on well, pledges himself to find the murderer. Karen, who has her own reasons for wanting the murderer found, proves of invaluable help, and their consequent adventures and hair-breadth escapes, hold the reader's unswerving interest to the very end.

She saw the sheet of paper as she turned the corner into the corridor. "Ann. This is to warn you that when you open the door I will be dead," it read-and went on to accuse her of things as shocking as they were untrue. In his room John Harrington's sprawled figure lay oddly twisted on the bed, his graying hair tousled, his face tinged with more color than it had held in life. The family thought it was his heart-the doctor had warned them that another coronary would be his last. Ann, who had destroyed the note, thought it was suicide-out of anger and bitterness at her. The police said it was murder! Either way Ann had to find out, for either way the finger of guilt was pointed directly at her.

vii, 400 pages : 24 cm

Barry Dawson's role in the diamond transaction between Lambert and Hudson had seemed legitimate enough; only the fact that he had been called in as the appraiser instead of one of the local diamond firms suggested that the deal itself was a secret one. It was to prove of particular interest to the police, too, when, that evening, Colin Lambert was found shot to death in his bungalow, the drawer safe into which he had put the diamonds still locked but the stones gone. Man on a Rope is a tense story of hot diamonds and hot money, and a man's attempt to clear himself of circumstantial evidence, played out against a background of hate and viciousness and murder and greed.

He yelled, and took a breath, standing with his face no more than a foot from hers, seeing the ugly distortion of her features and knowing that his own must be equally twisted and stiff. She hit him then, an openhanded swinging blow that caught him on the cheekbone. Instantly his own hand moved in reflex. He saw her head rock, watched her stagger off balance, sit down on the edge of the divan, and then skid off to the floor. For a long and silent moment he stared down at her, horrified. Then he wheeled and started out the door as she found her voice. When Rick Sheridan came back, he thought the room was empty. Then he saw the crumpled figure on the floor. The two years that he and his wife had been separated had cooled even whatever feelings had once existed. She had been a problem for so long. And now, now, she was to remain a problem. The slowly dawning knowledge that there had been other men in her life was the only clue Rick had to follow. With which one had she been the impetuous—and dangerous mistress?

A new murder-mystery by a writer who is now standard and whose enthusiastic following is steadily expanding. This one is set in the vineyards and wineries of the Finger Lakes region of New York State, and involves a U. S. Marine officer invalided out after action at Guadalcanal, the girl he was supposed to marry but didn't, the rich man the girl did marry, and their entourage of friends. And above all it involves the mysterious and magnetic head of a weird cult— and the way he used the cult as a racket. To those who have read and enjoyed any of Mr. Coxe's previous stories nothing need here be added about the fast pace, the sustained excitement, and the interesting characters that make this, like his other books, Grade A in the field.

"In the looming shadows of an old barn where New York actors are producing plays for summer vacationers, mystery rewrites the script--with terror and death as the stars. Suspense runs high, with a sock at the end to surprise even the most astute reader"--Back cover.