Death to the Brides was completed in 1975 but never released during the author's lifetime, owing to the publisher's objection to its politically charged content. So this is the only unpublished Milo March manuscript left by Ken Crossen—now in print for the first time. The book is distinctive in another way. It is the only Crossen book in which characters from two different series interact. Colonel Kim Locke, featured in three other spy novels by Crossen, lends Milo a miniature-breed military dog for an Intelligence mission. Milo has never worked with a canine before, but man and dog quickly take to each other, and the dog will soon prove himself a valuable friend in a world gone mad. The American war against the Viet Cong is supposedly over now, and the only U.S. personnel in the South are advisors and attachés. Milo arrives under cover as the new military attaché, assigned to rescue an Intelligence man held captive in the highlands of the...

Milo March heads for the historic mining boomtowns of Nevada, but he's planning to dig at people, not rocks. The case involves three men who bought an old gold mine outside Reno. Though it had been abandoned for a century, the mine has miraculously started producing again. Armed with a glowing assay report, the owners persuaded the insurance company to issue a large policy against the mine's running out of gold before they have taken two million dollars in gold from it. You guessed it—a few months later the owners claim the mine has run dry, and they want their payout. The insurance company screams at once for its top investigator, Milo March. Milo first has to solve a riddle: How do you get gold out of a mine that has no gold in it? The easy explanation is the old con job known as salting, but that only involves a sprinkling of gold around a mine to deceive buyers. This mine had a helluva lot more gold than that. So the answer to the riddle must be that you...

Once again, private eye Milo March, a Major in the Army reserves, is recalled by the CIA for a special mission. At a time when relations between the U.S. and Soviet Russia are somewhat relaxed, the Russians have asked a Syndicate-owned American company to send an expert to teach them how to build coin vending machines and plan where to install them. The CIA easily makes a deal with the Syndicate, and Milo is assigned to go undercover in the guise of this expert. Since both the Syndicate and the Soviets know who Milo March is, his identity must be kept secret. The CIA provides Milo with I.D. papers and a history covering his entire life as a gangster named Peter Miloff. After a crash course in vending machines, he is off to Moscow. Never mind that the Russians have his fingerprints on file. He will spend much of his time opening doors with his palm and closing them with his elbow. Milo's mission is twofold. First there's an American agent who disappeared into a Russian...

Samson Hercules Carter is a little man with a big name who has fallen obsessively in love with a diamond. The Tavernier Blue is only a little smaller than a golf ball and worth a fortune. To insurance investigator Milo March, the hunk of carbon doesn't seem as attractive as the equivalent in cash, but he can see why the little man might want to put it in his pocket and take a walk. But the problem is, Carter has also shot a man to death in the process.The insurance company sends Milo to track down the murderer and recover the stolen diamond—a task made all the more urgent because he's got competition. Some of the world's top jewel thieves would also like to get their hands on the diamond, from sinister professionals to a beautiful seductress. In one of Milo's wildest adventures ever, the chase takes him from New York to Lisbon and Madrid, where the thief, a mild-mannered accountant, has transformed himself into a new identity as a cultured gentleman, an alternate...

Insurance companies don't like it when someone puts a match to a house they've insured to the hilt, and in the process burns to death a couple who carry double-indemnity policies. Investigator Milo March sets out to discover who torched the Santa Monica beach house with its owners inside, and who paid them. Did the philandering husband hire a notorious gangster to do the dirty work, and trick a Skid Row bum to stand in for himself as the victim? Three other suspects are an elegant blonde, a steamy redhead, and a shapely young Japanese woman, any of whom Milo might bed or bust—or both—in the course of this fast-paced, action-packed whodunit.

Insurance investigator Milo March is under pressure to solve a classic whodunit in a small town. Athens, Ohio, is a place full of historic monuments, many of them still walking the streets. But now the excitement of Hollywood has burst on the scene, with a studio shooting a biopic about a rugged pioneer who played a role in the founding of Athens County. Descendants of the story's hero still live in Athens, and are the owners of valuable antiques, books, and other heirlooms passed down to them from the early 1800s. The studio has arranged to use these gems of Americana as props, insuring them with a million-dollar policy. With such a large sum at stake, the insurance company sends Milo to check on the security measures at the little museum where the items are housed under guard.The job seems like a snap—until a bludgeoned body and a lot of smashed-open cases send everyone into a panic. Among the stolen items is a personal diary written by Hanna's wife, which appears to...

When Milo March heads for an island in the sun to recover the stolen copy of a heavily insured manuscript, it's like a one-way ticket to hell: his destination is a brutal Caribbean dictatorship called the "Monican Republic." The manuscript, a scandalous exposé of the government, is in the hands of the dictator himself, who seized it before it could be published. The author is a Monican professor who has been kidnapped on American soil and forced back to his homeland to face the wrath of the dictator. And two other men—one a U.S. citizen—have died under suspicious circumstances in connection with the kidnapping. Milo's assignment is just to get the valuable manuscript back for the insurance company. But he also wants to investigate whether the deaths of two men were murders engineered by the regime. He also wonders what had happened to the large sum that the professor withdrew from a charitable fund for Monican refugees the same day he vanished. It would be...

Milo March is sipping a martini at the pool of the Far Eastern Hotel, a lovely British blonde on his left and a Chinese beauty on his right, both in bikinis. What more could a man require? But then he is rudely interrupted by a call from Intercontinental Insurance in New York. They have a serious case that only he, their best investigator, can tackle. As usual, many millions of dollars are at stake. A large, well-organized ring is transporting stolen goods from the U.S. to Red China via Hong Kong. Milo doesn't doubt that organized crime is responsible, and he is determined to put and end to the whole operation—not only the stealing, but the dealing with an enemy country. Milo persists with plodding but dangerous work, then suddenly, when he gets warm around the edges, he springs into action. Assuming a secret identity as a tough loner named "John Milo," he hangs out at a couple of bars frequented by con men. The V.O. and martinis keep flowing as he waits to...

Three businessmen go to New Orleans to skin-dive off an island where their map indicated there was ancient pirate treasure. They are accompanied by a haughty Creole guide and an African-American diviner whose chatter about spirits and spells is worthy of an Oscar. When two of the treasure seekers go off by themselves and never come back, the third man wants to cash in on the life insurance policies the three men took out, each one payable to the other two survivors.Never eager to pay up too hastily, the insurance company sends Milo March to New Orleans to find out what really happened to the two missing men. It is claimed they were accidentally sucked down into quicksand and buried in it forever―a horrible fate. But what if that's not what happened? Had the survivor killed the two men and disposed of their bodies, either to collect the insurance or get possession of the treasure they found? Had the three men entered into a conspiracy in which two would disappear and the...

At the time, the two naive young women took it as a joke. Wilma and Jane, both bonded employees at a New York brokerage firm, were squares aspiring to be swingers. And so, at the suggestion of their new boyfriends, they left work one day carrying oversized pocketbooks. The next day it was discovered that bonds and securities worth $1.5 million were missing. And so were Wilma and Jane. How would amateurs like Wilma and Jane dispose of stolen securities? The only way is to sell them to someone with connections in the Syndicate. He in turn sells it to one of his connections, who sells it to another connection, and eventually it winds up somewhere in Europe where they can't be traced. The boyfriends must have helped the girls by making these sales. But what if the girls spill the beans? In a way it's no surprise when the Miami cops pull Wilma's body out of the Everglades. Obviously she was murdered so that she couldn't be a witness. The suspect, the man she loved, has an...

Milo March, Madison Avenue insurance detective, is sent to Rome to investigate the double-indemnity claim on the policy of a young woman who may have been murdered. Anna Maria went walking on a beach, allegedly to bathe in the healing seawater. A few hours later she was found lying nude on the sand, with no apparent signs of violence to the body. An accidental drowning, says the medical report, and the family puts in a claim for the large benefit. The insurance company, understandably, would like to confirm that the death was indeed an accident.Although the case is quickly closed by the police, the whispers of Rome will not be silenced. They insist that the girl was murdered, that she'd been consorting with VIPs at a wild drug party, that she was pregnant and the guilty man did not want any trouble. It is rumored that politicians made the police hush up the truth, lest a scandal topple the Christian-Democrat government, allowing the Communists to take over.Milo is...

It is the time of the infamous Los Angeles riots of 1965—several days of arson and looting in protest of police mistreatment of black residents of the Watts neighborhood in the southeast of the city. During this tense time, Milo March is summoned to L.A. to investigate because one of the properties that has burnt down is heavily insured, as are two of the three people who were killed Harry Masters, the wealthy owner of the building, and his brother-in-law, who owned a store on the first floor. Milo questions whether the arson and deaths were truly the work of black rioters. Maybe the arson was separate from the rioting, a setting that merely enabled white men to cover a more serious crime. Focusing on the character and habits of Harry Masters is the key to these questions. No one makes a fortune without also making enemies; could that be why someone torched Masters' building? People said Masters was a no-good bastard, but good at it. Maybe he had decided he wasn't...

For the first time in book form—six stories from vintage men's magazines (1952–1961) featuring Milo March, the shrewd insurance investigator and brazen secret agent created by M.E. Chaber: "The Jelly Roll Heist." A series of thefts in Denver has the insurance executives biting their nails. Judging by the loss of a belly dancer's navel gem, it looks like a seducer is preying on ladies with sparkly things. Or is there a more sinister gang behind it? "Hair the Color of Blood." Milo's on vacation at a swank Santa Monica hotel when he hears a scream. He rushes to save the damsel in distress, and the next thing he knows, he's waking up in bed with the naked body of a red-haired corpse! "The Hot Ice Blues." A new jewel robbery occurs every night, while Milo sits around playing Dixieland platters with a real gone chick. Is the insurance company's star investigator really goofing off? "Murder for Madame." Someone...

It's been two years since Milo March sneaked into East Germany to capture a valuable Western deserter. Now, as a major in the Army Reserves, he is recalled to tackle a much weirder case. No one knows why Hermann Gruss, head of the counterespionage police in West Germany, disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. Did he defect voluntarily, or was he taken by force? Either way, Milo has to get him back before he reveals secrets that the U.S. shared with him.Some say Gruss suffers from a dread disease and is being treated in East Berlin with the latest wonder drug by his friend Dr. Oderbruch. Milo suspects that Oderbruch, a former Nazi, is experimenting on Gruss, bouncing him in and out of insanity like a yo-yo by dosing him with LSD, then healing his "schizophrenia" with an antidote. Withholding the antidote is a handy way to squeeze information out of Gruss, and the drug experiments are part of a larger, fiendish project involving mind control of the military.In his effort...

Milo March, a tough private eye from Denver, is sent to Aragon City (which could be Hollywood) to help the City Betterment Committee wipe out the gangsters and hoodlums controlling brothels, bookies, gamblers, shady nightclubs, and the dope traffic. He just has to uncover "Mr. X," the mystery man who's been raking in a tidy little income by providing protection to the Syndicate. But can Milo accomplish that without stumbling over something even more dangerous—like who pays Mr. X, and why? Milo is well equipped for the job. He has plenty of gall, good looks, an unlimited expense account, a fishtail Cadillac, and ample experience with lawbreakers—and beautiful, willing women, of whom there are several, but only one who is the girl next door. As March starts his snooping, he is surprised to discover a sexy, naked blonde in his hotel room. And there are other, more painful things complicating his life—things like beatings and fistfights and gun battles, and a...