An old friend of Kent Murdock's is murdered, leaving him to take the fallIt's been two years since Kent Murdock saw Sheila, and it only takes a few minutes to remember her flaws. While the Boston newspaper photographer was away fighting in the European war, Sheila's cold ambition took her out of the newsroom and into the studio, to write a radio show that's about to land her in the big time. The wallflower he once knew is now the center of attention—not all of it pleasant. One night Murdock follows her home for a drink. It proves to be a deadly mistake.   A drugged bottle of Scotch knocks Murdock out, and when he comes to, he finds Sheila dead, strangled on the floor. The Scotch—the only evidence of his innocence—is gone, and Murdock is the natural suspect for the beautiful young writer's death. Which means he's going to have to find the killer himself.

A wealthy psychopath threatens the life of an innocent young manThe note comes during Barry Sanford's dinner. It's to the point, explaining succinctly that very soon, Barry is going to die. Though the note is unsigned, Barry knows that it comes from the desk of King Hubbard. Two years ago, Hubbard's younger brother staggered drunk out of a bar and into the path of Barry's car. Though the courts exonerated the young architect for the killing, King Hubbard has spent the last two years trying to kill Barry Sanford.   His efforts—first a subway accident, then a runaway truck—forced the young architect to flee for Florida. Two months later, three shots rang out from a car parked beside Sanford's, missing him only because fear keeps him vigilant. He wound up in Belize, but now Hubbard has found him once more.    It is time to keep running, or to make a stand.

An amateur appraiser gets trapped in a chaotic diamond dealAfter years trying to make their fortunes in the Guyanese diamond trade, Barry Dawson and Colin Lambert have crossed paths once too often. The last time Lambert hired Barry as an appraiser, Lambert cheated his old friend out of his share. Soured on the diamond business, Barry wants to return to the States and marry his hometown girl. Desperate for travel money, he takes one last job from Lambert. He will find that there is no safe exit from the diamond trade.   For hours Barry sifts through a pile of stones, appraising them for sale to a tough named Hudson. They are the most beautiful diamonds he has ever seen—as a group, worth more than $100,000. The sealed package is pillow-shaped, weighs less than a pound, and will cost the blood of many men.

A routine assignment gets a PI killed, and Kent Murdock dives into the caseA thirty-eight year veteran of the Boston police force, Tom Brady has recently retired, and is beginning a new life as a private investigator. Struggling to make ends meet, he turns to newspaper photographer Kent Murdock, who recommends him to a society woman who is willing to pay big for his services. Brady's just wrapping up the case when he asks Murdock for a favor: photographing fourteen pages of important documents for safekeeping. Murdock agrees not to look too closely while he takes the pictures—a decision he regrets when the negatives are stolen and Tom Brady is found dead.   Normally Murdock stays out of the way of the Boston police, but he gave Brady the assignment. To atone, he must unravel the mystery that cost his friend his life.

A lawyer travels to Barbados to protect an old friend from a swindle. David Payne is only twelve hours from vacation when he gets the fateful summons. Professor John Alison, David's mentor and most prominent client, needs him to go to Barbados — and if he doesn't tread carefully, he may not return. David is charged with checking on a beachfront property owned by the professor — which an unscrupulous rat named Mike Ludlow is trying to swindle away. The professor is too tired to fight, but his daughter has other ideas. She has snuck away to Barbados, and she's brought the professor's gun. David Payne's job is to stop the bloodshed before it starts — but he might not get there in time.

A couple of small favors land Flash Casey in a dangerous mess Flash Casey should know better than to take a roll of film from a desperate man. Stopping for a drink on his way home from work, a fellow news photographer gives him a canister to safeguard. The next morning, Casey wakes up with gunmen in his bedroom, looking for the film that could implicate one of their associates in a killing. To save his friend's life, Casey hands over the negatives, expecting that to be the end of it. He's wrong.   A stockbroker named Donald Farrington spent the night at the same bar, getting into a different kind of trouble—the sort that ends with him being photographed in a hotel room with a woman who isn't his wife. Casey agrees to help him navigate the blackmail, a friendly offer he'll regret very soon.

Trouble struck the schooner Griselda at 9:40 on an April evening. It was not the fault of the weather or the sea or the soundness of her hull. The trouble was human. A woman. Her name was Julia Parks, though in the beginning she insisted it was Lambert.It was hard to blame Howard Crane for bringing her aboard, because Julia always got what she wanted. What she wanted in this case was money. Keith Lambert's—her ex-husband's—money. That there were others too who wanted it was one of the first things that came to the minds of the Barbados police the next morning when Julia was found suffocated in her cabin. But the only trail they had to follow was one of tangled lives and tangled motives that led to jealousy, blackmail, native secrecy, and sudden death — all against the peaceful tropical background of picturesque Barbados.Here is another of the highly polished, tightly knit, and suspenseful mysteries that have made George Harmon Coxe for almost twenty...

While taking pictures at a society wedding, Kent Murdock stumbles upon a murder Every society family has skeletons in its closets, but only the Cannings have a fresh corpse. Kent Murdock finds the dead man while taking pictures at the wedding of Patricia Canning and Roger Armington, scions of Boston's most prominent—and camera-shy—families. Patricia and Murdock have been friends for years, and she invited him to photograph the wedding against her parents' wishes. For the killer, Murdock's appearance is very bad luck indeed.   The dead man turns out to be Patricia's ex-husband, whom she spent three days married to before the family pressured him into an annulment. He traveled to Boston in search of blackmail and found death instead. Whichever Canning killed him had hoped to sweep the murder under the rug. But Kent Murdock's camera has a way of finding the truth, no matter how ugly it may be.

From Mystery Writers of America Grand Master George Harmon Coxe: His job was to protect a friend from suicide, but he didn't count on murder. After a car crash takes his daughter's life, John Gannon doesn't want to live anymore. He tries twice to kill himself—first by jumping, next with pills—but doesn't succeed. His doctors recommend a beach vacation with close supervision. For a week Dave Barnum watches his despondent friend drink, fish, and gamble, and gradually grows sick of his ill temper. Finally, convinced that John Gannon has gotten past his suicidal tendencies, Barnum lets his guard down. The mistake proves fatal. That night, at Club 80, someone drugs Barnum's brandy. By the time he makes it home, Gannon is dead. As he inspects his friend's body, the killer wallops him on the skull and escapes unseen. Barnum's job was to protect John Gannon. He failed, and now it's time for some payback.

A classic novella about crime, lust, murder, and money.