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By Brett Halliday

Michael Shayne Books

Showing 50 of 68 books in this series
Cover for Dividend on Death
ISBN: 440006171

The first Mike Shayne novel.The redheaded private eye meets his wife while solving a murder case.

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Cover for The Private Practice of Michael Shayne

The Private Practice of Michael Shayne c.1940

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Cover for The Uncomplaining Corpses
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Cover for Tickets for Death

From the back jacket...Mayme never gave anything away. This time she was selling information-the low down on a million dollar racket.She was willing to tell Mike everything for a mere thousand in cash...but with a girl like Mayme, the action was more interesting than the talk...

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Cover for Bodies Are Where You Find Them

Private eye Mike Shayne is not one to say no to a gorgeous, rich young doll. But he changes his tune when he finds her cold and lifeless body on his bed. The dead girl's stepfather would be happy to watch Shayne fly for a crime he didn't commit. Shayne knows its a frame-up, but what exactly is the game and who is calling the play?

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Cover for The Case of the Walking / Corpse Came Calling

1st Mayflower 1964 edition paperback, vg In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

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Cover for Murder Wears a Mummer's Mask / In a Deadly Vein

Brett Halliday Mystery book

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Cover for Blood on the Black Market
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Cover for Michael Shayne's Long Chance

A search for a missing girl takes grief-stricken Mike Shayne to New Orleans It was a knife that brought Mike and Phyllis Shayne together—the murder weapon that Mike had to prove Phyllis did not bury in her mother’s back. But years after they met, fell in love, and got married, Phyllis is dead, and the knife is just another blade. Grieving the loss of his wife, Mike decides he has had enough of Miami, where he and his beloved made a life together, and plans to move to New York and start again. But the South is not through with him yet. As Mike prepares to leave Miami for good, a worried father comes to him, begging him to help find his missing daughter. She is a depressive morphine addict who recently tried to take her own life. When that failed, she fled to New Orleans to throw herself into the arms of the drug. In order to help protect the girl from herself, Shayne musters up the strength to go to the Crescent City, but terrible dangers await him in French Quarter. Michael Shayne’s Long Chance is the 9th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for Murder and the Married Virgin

Mike Shayne investigates an impossible murder in the Big Easy It’s not often that Mike Shayne runs with an honorable crowd, but there is a lieutenant in his office mourning the fiancée who killed herself the day before. Honest and heartbroken, he begs this hardened private investigator for help answering one simple, impossible Why? It’s a question Shayne has been asking ever since his wife was murdered in Miami and he moved to New Orleans to escape her memory. For the sake of a soldier, he will put his own mourning aside and try to explain a suicide that looks an awful lot like murder. Katrin Moe was working as a maid in the home of a wealthy New Orleans family when she was found locked in her room, the gas pumping full blast. Coincidentally, a priceless emerald necklace went missing from the house a few days before and the insurance company hired Shayne to find it. On the hunt for a killer, Shayne will find that the necklace and the crook are more closely related than meets the eye.

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Cover for Murder is My Business

MURDER AT THE RIO GRANDE Ten years ago, private eye Mike Shayne did a job for one of the richest men in El Paso, digging up dirt on a boy courting the tycoon’s daughter. Now the daughter’s back, all grown up and dangerous. And so’s Shayne—but this time it’s to investigate murder... * First publication in 20 years * One of the most popular detectives of all time, Mike Shayne starred in more than 70 novels, a dozen movies, a TV series, radio dramas, comic books, and the long-running Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Filmmaker SHANE BLACK, creator of Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, on the Work of BRETT HALLIDAY "In this age of private eyes with cats, funny neighbors, and relationship woes—here’s to 40’s thriller writer Brett Halliday, whose baffling, bullet-paced capers have come to light again. "Halliday’s books were marvels of misdirection. Red herrings, skewed motives, mistaken identities—he did everything but come to your house and bang cymbals. "Halliday’s plots are byzantine gems. This is back when mystery writers were so much smarter than you and me. Want an engrossing read? Pick this one up. "Never heard of this book? No matter. It’s been waiting patiently, poised to dazzle you with raw, ingenious storytelling. Halliday is the king of the baffler novel. Pure pleasure. "How long can Halliday’s best-selling books remain dormant, undiscovered...? The answer: not a minute longer, thanks to Hard Case Crime."

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Cover for Marked For Murder

210 pages

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Cover for Blood on Biscayne Bay

Mystery

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Cover for Counterfeit Wife

A chance encounter at the airport leads Mike Shayne into a ring of counterfeiters Mike Shayne has been trying to leave Miami for weeks, but something keeps stopping him from returning to New Orleans. He’s about to board the midnight flight to Louisiana when his secretary calls and tells him not to bother. His stalling has cost them another client, and she’s fed up. She quits, and Shayne realizes that she was the only thing tying him to New Orleans. A man approaches Shayne to beg for his ticket, paying for it with two hundred dollar bills that seem too good to be true. Mike Shayne is staying in Miami—but how long will he stay alive? The man’s wife appears at the airport, a jaw-dropping blonde too lovely to be married to such a weasel. Shayne follows her, embarking on a night out on the town that quickly turns deadly. The money may be fake, but the bullets are all too real.

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Cover for Blood on the Stars / Murder Is a Habit

Mike Shayne battles a gang of jewel thieves for a priceless ruby bracelet Mike Shayne is just passing through the jeweler’s when Mark Dustin comes for the rubies. A big shot gambler with expensive taste, Dustin is looking for an anniversary gift for his wife, and he demands the best. For $200,000, he buys the shop’s greatest treasure: a bracelet of flawless rubies, finer than any in the country. The first time his wife puts it on her wrist, however, a gang of thieves rams into their car and snatches the bracelet. The only person who knew about the purchase, the only man who could have organized the robbery, was Mike Shayne. The Miami police have been looking for an excuse to jail Shayne for years, and now they’ll have their chance—all for the sake of six little stones, as red as a woman’s blood. Blood on the Stars is the 15th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for A Taste for Violence

They called their town "the hellhole of all creation," and they were right. The Chief of Police could have given the Gestapo lessons in coercion. The town's leading citizen was waiting to be murdered. His beautiful, thrill-seeking wife was involved with every corrupt schemer in sight. And murder was almost a commonplace event! ~ ~ Then Mike Shayne arrived. He was a temporary citizen who planned some permanent changes, if he could stay out of the crowded cemetery.

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Cover for Call for Michael Shayne

Mike Shayne investigates a murder committed by an amnesiac Arthur Devlin wakes up so hungover that for a moment, he thinks the ship is sinking. As he gets his bearings, he realizes the only storm is inside his own head—and he isn’t on a ship at all. The last thing he remembers is being handed another drink at his going-away party. That was twelve days ago. Devlin has awoken in a sleazy hotel room, dressed in a stranger’s ratty clothes, with a bump on his forehead and a dead man at his feet. The phone rings: A woman who calls him Joey asks if he went through with the murder. Devlin has no choice but to say yes. To find out if he’s really a killer, Devlin hires Mike Shayne. Shayne has twenty-four hours to fill in the gaps of his client’s memory—and he will discover things that Devlin would rather stay forgotten. Call for Michael Shayne is the 17th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for This is it, Michael Shayne

Fiction: Mystery - A scissors-blade slaying rocks Miami, as a torn $500 bill in the hands of a murdered girl prods Michael Shayne into a danger-filled chase.

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Cover for Framed in Blood

Vintage paperback

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Cover for When Dorinda Dances
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Cover for A Taste for Cognac
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Cover for What Really Happened

From title Everyone had a tale to tell Michael Shayne. He had too many suspects to start with, and all of them were over-anxious to link themselves with murder. Some of them had actually come running to him with their stories before the crime was committed!The Shamus had to fill in the details himself and none of them were pretty. They dealt with secret assignations, queer sex exhibitions, blackmail--and brutal death. And the final punch-line was one of the most startling in Mike Shayne's violent career.

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Cover for One Night with Nora / The Lady Came By Night

A Mike Shayne Mystery...

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Cover for She Woke to Darkness

A pulp writer tumbles into a mystery after an encounter at an awards banquet For more than a decade, Brett Halliday has made a living chronicling the adventures of the hard-nosed private detective Mike Shayne. At the banquet for the 1953 Edgar Awards, Halliday is dismayed to find the pulp field overrun by hacks who think X-rated smut and blood-soaked gore are enough to make a mystery. He’s about to head home when he meets Elsie Murray, a beautiful author who appreciates a good whodunit—and who has enough of her own troubles to fill a thousand paperbacks. When Elsie is found murdered in her hotel room, the police suspect the last man she was seen with. Halliday is in a jam, and he knows better than anyone else that the only man who can save him is Mike Shayne. She Woke to Darkness is the 24th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Mike Shayne needed time to crack his latest case--just a little more time and a lot more luck. But the cops were getting impatient. They thought Shayne already knew more than he let on--much more--and they wanted in. They knew Shayne knew that Lucy Hamilton was next on the murderer's agenda. Shayne said he would handle it his own way. If Lucy's life and Mike's neck were to be saved, Mike would have to work fast. It would take all his skill to break one of the most cleverly coded messages he had ever run up against. And time was running out...

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Cover for Stranger in Town

Vintage paperback

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Cover for The Blonde Cried Murder

Mike Shayne has 2 hours to solve a murder—or else watch his lover die It’s 2 hours before midnight when the woman in room 360 calls the front desk to report a murder. The house detective sprints upstairs, but finds room 360 totally empty: no killer, no victim, and no woman begging for help. Across town, Mike Shayne is driving back to his office after a romantic evening with Lucy Hamilton. Despite the quiet and the moonlight, in his bones he knows that this is not a night for romance. There’s death in the air. Later, a woman appears at Shayne’s office, claiming her brother was murdered at the Hibiscus Hotel. A man follows in her wake, insisting that he’s her brother, and the woman is insane. Then a killer corners Lucy in her apartment, giving Shayne until midnight to solve the mystery and save his lover’s life. The Blonde Cried Murder is the 27th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for Heads You Lose

After hearing a murder over the phone, Mike Shayne searches for the killer Woken by the telephone, Mike Shayne is disoriented. Though he has been alone since his wife was murdered, he has not gotten used to sleeping by himself. The voice on the other end of the telephone snaps him back into reality. It’s his friend Clem Wilson, calling from a filling station outside of Miami, and there is terror in his voice. He has time for just a few words before Shayne hears the crack of broken glass and the thud of a falling body. By the time he reaches the filling station, the police are already there and Wilson has two bullets in his chest—and either of them would have been enough to kill him. Clem Wilson was mixed up in something he couldn’t handle, and if Mike Shayne can’t set aside his grief and unravel the mystery, his friend will not be the last to die. Heads You Lose is the 8th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for Weep for a Blonde

A Mike Shayne Mystery.

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Cover for Shoot the works

Dell #988. 1958.

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Cover for Murder and the Wanton Bride

Murder and the Wanton Bride by Brett Halliday - A New Mike Shayne Mystery - 1958 Copyright DELL D283

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Cover for Fit to Kill
ISBN: 515098108

Private eye Mike Shayne comes to the aid of his kidnapped reporter friend, Tim Rourke, who had been investigating an underground revolution in Central America

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Cover for Date with a Dead Man

A strange disappearance leads Mike Shayne to investigate a death on the open sea Mike Shayne is savoring a nightcap when his secretary calls in a panic. Lucy Hamilton doesn’t scare easily and as soon as Shayne hears her voice, he knows this must be a matter of life and death. Hamilton’s neighbor has vanished, and only Shayne knows Miami well enough to find him. One of only 2 survivors in a recent plane crash, Jasper Groat had been acting strange ever since his life was spared, and tonight, he walked away and didn’t come back. The “lucky” survivor was carrying a deadly secret. During the 9 days he spent adrift at sea, Groat filled a diary with damning details about the accident and its aftermath. There are people who might kill to get their hands on the incriminating journal—that is, if Shayne doesn’t find it first. Date with a Dead Man is the 32nd book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for Target

FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION, Dell Books #D335, first printing March 1960, published May 1960. Author’s 32 Private Investigator Mike Shayne mystery novel. Front cover illustration by Robert McGinnis with the small face image artwork by Robert Stanley. Original 35 cover price. Disc: Paperback, 224 pages, 17 cm. Original first edition hardcover published by Dodd, Mead in 1959.

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Cover for Die Like A Dog
ISBN: 515098787

Grave-robbing wasn't in private eye Mike Shayne's line - especially the grave of a deceased pet. The death of a Pekinese doesn't seem important - but the death was caused by strychnine, obviously intended for someone else. So Mike went fishing on Biscayne Bay - with Tim Rourke for rowing, two poles for fishing, and a shovel for digging up death.

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Cover for Murder Takes No Holiday

The mild little guy was nervous when he walked into the U.S. Customs Office at Miami. He cheered up when he heard that informers didn't have to testify in court. He said they'd be hearing from him soon. But they never did. A few days later his body was found in Saint Albans, British West Indies, stabbed to death.Was there big money involved? Michael Shayne thought so when he took over the case for the customs' men during his "holiday" in Saint Albans. The trail introduced him to as fascinating a set of characters as he had ever met -- Vivienne Larousse, Parisian dancer, cynical sultry, ready to do anything for an American visa; Paul Slater, trying desperately to conceal his affair with Vivienne from his hard-working wife, Martha; Luis Alvarez, alias the Camel, who was suspected of everything, but who had never been convicted of anything; and Cecil Powys, who claimed he was in Saint Albans to get material for a PhD thesis in anthropology, but who seemed to know a lot more about the usefulness of a straight left to the jaw.Michael Shayne has to be fast on his feet and faster in his thinking to unravel this ingenious tangle of intrigue and passion in a story that moves with jet-speed from one dramatic action to the next and ends with a typical Shayne twist as logical as it is unexpected.

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Cover for Dolls Are Deadly
ISBN: 515100129

192 page paperback Mike Shayne book.

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Cover for The Homicidal Virgin

A Mike Shayne Mystery.

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Cover for Killers from the Keys

Mike Shayne takes a dip in the deadly Florida Keys for a dancer named Sloe Burn He smells her perfume before he walks through the door. It’s called Black Sin, and the woman wearing it certainly lives up to the name. Esther Piney, better known as Sloe Burn, is a hard-boiled stripper born and raised in the swamps of the Florida Keys. Where she’s from, murder is currency, and bodies disappear never to be found. Her favorite client has vanished, taking a fat bankroll with him, and she knows the only way she’ll get him back is to beg a favor from the legendary Mike Shayne. Unfortunately for Sloe Burn, Shayne doesn’t make a habit of tracking down missing strip-club regulars. But when a woman comes asking him to find her husband—who just happens to fit the description of Sloe Burn’s sugar daddy—Shayne decides it’s time to go fishing in the darkest corner of the Keys. Killers from the Keys is the 38th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for Murder in Haste

Triple Jeopardy The first time Mike Shayne saw Rose Heminway, the beautiful and wealthy young widow was in her living room, terror in her eyes and desperate pleading in her voice. The second time, she was emerging fresh and rosy from her shower, a smile on her lips. The third time, she was in her bedroom, a gun in her hand. This gorgeous dish spelled trouble all the way - but when it came in such a tasty package, trouble was Mike Shayne's meat...Mike Shayne, the coolest private eye of them all, swings into red hot action in one of his greatest cases of mystery and mayhem.

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Cover for The Careless Corpse

Another fast-paced Mike Shayne mystery filled with plenty of suspense, great plot twists, and action!! #41 in series.

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Cover for Pay-Off in Blood

mike shayne detectivestory

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Cover for Murder by Proxy
ISBN: 583113338

1968. Reprinted. 159 pages. Pictorial paper covers. Minor foxing and moderate tanning to pages. More prominent to text block edges, lighter to reverse of covers. Hinges are lightly cracked but covers remain firmly attached. Paper covers have light edge-wear and corner curling with mild creasing and scuffing overall. Spine has minor rolling and creasing.

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Cover for Never Kill a Client
ISBN: 058311461X
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Cover for Too Friendly, Too Dead

An ordinary chump has been murdered—and Mike Shayne has 36 hours to find the killer When Linda Fitzgilpin is woken by the sound of the ringing telephone, she finds her husband is missing. For years now, Jerome has always slept in his bed across the room, but last night he didn’t come home. When the phone rings, Linda knows why. A body matching his description has been found at the scene of an accident—Jerome is dead. Uncertain of what to do, Linda asks her downstairs neighbor Lucy Hamilton for help. And Lucy calls her boss, the toughest private detective in Miami: Mike Shayne. Responding quickly, Shayne takes the newly minted widow to identify the body, and is on hand when the routine procedure turns into an ordeal. Although Linda’s husband’s body was found dead beside a wrecked car, it wasn’t the crash that killed him. It was poison—and Shayne has only 36 hours to find the killer before the trail turns as cold as the body on the slab. Too Friendly, Too Dead is the 45th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for The Corpse That Never Was

Mike Shayne finds strange secrets hidden beneath the cover of a grisly double suicide It’s 10:30 pm, and Mike Shayne is sipping cognac, ruminating on the perfection of Lucy Hamilton’s fried chicken, when a shotgun fires upstairs. Following the acrid stench of gunpowder to a locked door halfway down the hall, Shayne has no choice but to batter it down, tumbling face first into the scene of a particularly ugly double suicide. The woman lies on the floor in the middle of the sitting room, her face twisted by the deadly kiss of cyanide. A few feet beyond her body is what remains of a man, his head obliterated by the shotgun’s blast. The woman’s father is one of Miami’s power brokers, and he refuses to believe that his daughter would end her life over a silly affair. Isn’t it possible, he asks, that she was murdered? Convinced or not, Shayne is the only man ruthless enough to find out. The Corpse That Never Was is the 45th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for The Body Came Back

A call from a killer sends Mike Shayne hurtling toward the brink A woman sits in the Encanto Hotel on Biscayne Bay, rationing a bottle of scotch and waiting for a call that could change her life. She clutches a marriage announcement that has chilled her to the core. At last, there is a knock at the door, but it isn’t the person she was expecting. Instead she is greeted by a man she thought dead, a man who tortured her for far too long. She offers him a drink and then presses a pistol to his chest and pulls the trigger until the clip is empty and her tormenter is dead. In a state of panic, she calls the only man who can help—Miami’s toughest private detective, Mike Shayne—and lies. She says her name is Carla, that the dead man is her husband, and that it was her daughter, Vicky, who pulled the trigger. She may think she knows how to play the game, but she’ll soon find that Shayne is a dangerous man to toy with—and he doesn’t stay fooled for long. The Body Came Back is the 46th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for A Redhead

Mike Shayne tackles a baffling case of adultery and murder in the suburbs of Miami It’s the 4th and final day of the convention, and Marvin Blake is ready to go home. Dreading the evening’s festivities, he checks out of his hotel early and heads back to Sunray Beach, longing to see his wife, Ellie, and daughter, Sissy. When he reaches home late that night, his bedroom light is on—and his best friend’s car is parked in the driveway. His wife has been unfaithful, and Blake knows what he must do. He checks into a motel, pulls out the stationery, and prepares to take his life. The next morning, Ellie is found in her bedroom, stark naked and strangled to death. Miami reporter Tim Rourke picks up the story and brings in the only man who can untangle this web of lies: Mike Shayne. A seasoned professional, Shayne may think he’s seen it all, but he’ll soon find that, in suburbia, murder is never what it seems. Mike Shayne’s 50th Case is the 49th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Cover for Shoot to Kill
ISBN: 051510177X

Mike Shayne's advice to looker Dorothy Larson was to cut the monkey business before her husband's hot temper drove him to cold-blooded murder. Ralph Larson already has blood on his hands, and his victim is no stranger to police files - because this corpse has already been murdered. Shayne finds himself working ona case where nothing is what it seems.

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Cover for The Violent World of Michael Shayne

Mystery

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