What would you do about a beloved pet who had lived too long? This family faced a crisis which could happen in any household...

Eighteen years in organized baseball. How much longer could he be the perennial hot shot? How much longer could he kid them into thinking he was great?

Lovely night-club thrush Laura Lynn hires a man with a ready gun, so that when you next see her name in a column, it won’t be under — obituaries!

There’s wisdom for grown-ups in this poignant story of a youngster who had the courage to...

Considering the late John D. MacDonald’s obvious love for boating and the sea, it’s surprising that so few of his short stories had nautical backgrounds. This one, published in a yachting magazine just a few months after his death, makes fine use of that background while reaffirming MacDonald’s position as one of the leading American mystery writers.

...when a double-crossing dick gets involved with a ritzy blonde and a hypo-happy psychiatrist.

The plan was simple at first, and then, when we started, I knew that this conspiracy to hijack the Syndicate was the master of all of us. But I was smart... so damned smart, and I knew we could play with murder and not get burned!

With a little work I could take care of Barrow’s boat — or his wife...

To trap the murder-mind who turned his frat into a slaughterhouse... brain-boy Arlin and his campus queen — played sitting duck.

Mix politics and police, and the result is poison...

Ex-army intelligence officer Kestrick had nothing to live for — until he got baited by a trouble-bent beauty, mauled by the tin-god politico’s musclemen... and railroaded to jail.

Professor Quotient’s quiz act suddenly pays off in grim murder, with a baffling mystery as the jackpot question!

Hit-and-run is a grisly crime, no matter who is involved. This was one of the worst, with a beautiful girl for the victim — and a beautiful girl for the driver.

A good cop never managed to get tough enough to keep things from getting to him, and stinging the few soft parts he has left inside...

With murder — or worse — in his little black bag he roamed the underworld — the timid little salesman of eternity who gagged at killing — yet killed for a gag!

When lightning plays along the baselines and match point stands between hell and glory — a wrong guy needs more than the right racket — to meet a champion’s thunder!

In the clammy recesses of the cement stairwell, she discovered the terrifying truth: she was the patsy, and her role was to die — screaming!