It is more than slightly disconcerting for a man lying in bed in his fifth-floor hotel room to observe a girl’s tanned legs suddenly dangling over the windowsill. Followed by the rest of her. It is further upsetting if the man is clothed only in a bandage covering a bullet wound — and has $60,000 in illegally acquired currency in a suitcase.

Not that Grofield is really a thief; he merely moonlights in the all-too-frequent intervals when his acting career is interrupted by unemployment.

For a while Grofield and the girl, whose name is Ellen Marie Fitzgerald, swap some fairly preposterous lies about what each of them is doing there in Mexico City. Then Grofield decides to do a switch on the purloined letter bit and puts the truth right out where it can be seen. Ellen’s lies continue, and they are lulus — a story of star-crossed love, two overprotective aunts from whom she is fleeing, and so on. The “aunts,” however, turn out to be very sinister and extremely professional hoods, and Ellen’s most incredible story turns out to be true.

Captured and closely guarded, the damsel and her reluctant protector manage by a masterpiece of inventiveness to escape the armed assassins. Then begins a wild chase down the one and only road to Acapulco, where Ellen must arrive, in a matter of hours in order to prevent a murder that would also destroy the murderer.

With one battalion of hired hoods following them and another headed their way, the going is rough. It has some pleasant intervals, though. Grofield is handsome and virile, and Ellen is pretty and sexy, and...

The story is great fun, as well as wildly suspenseful. The setting — Mexico City, San Miguel, Acapulco, the rugged and lovely countryside — is colorfully drawn, a brilliant background for a dark crime that must be averted.

We are happy to introduce this first hardbound crime story by Richard Stark. His other mysteries in paperback are well known to a wide public and have received an enthusiastic press.

CHEAP AT TWICE THE PRICE?

When the bandages came off, Parker looked in the mirror at a stranger. He nodded to the stranger and looked beyond at the reflection of Dr. Adler.

Parker had been in the sanitarium a little over four weeks now. He had come in with a face that the New York Syndicate wanted to put a bullet in, and now he was going back with a face that meant absolutely nothing to anyone.

It had cost Him $18,000 if it kept him alive long enough to do what he had to do, it would be worth it.