Shayne isn't one to say no to a gorgeous, rich young doll who gets absolutely everything she wants — and what she wants is him. But he changes his tune when he finds her cold and lifeless body on his bed. The dead girl's stepfather is a slippery politician who'd be happy to watch Shayne fry — for a crime he didn't commit. Mike Shayne knows it's a frame-up. But what exactly is the game… and who's calling the plays?

She was a full blown brunette in a bandanna halter that just covered the essentials. The non-essentials were very impressive too. This was just the kind of case Shayne could enjoy. Keeping an eye on a dish like this and getting paid for it to boot.

A cryptic note concealed in a DEAD MAN’S DIARY causes Mike Shayne to return to the past, to trace the secret of the dead man’s life — and he finds himself dangerously involved in murder, both past and present.

In A TASTE FOR COGNAC, Mike and a copper-haired girl reporter from New York uncover the crime story of the year — but twenty-four terror-filled hours on a gunmen’s island hideaway create some reasonable doubt whether they will live to tell it.

In DINNER AT DUPRE’S, one of Mike Shayne’s clients gets rubbed out in the French Quarter of New Orleans before he can get to Mike’s office. And the client’s untimely death gets Mike into a deep dish of homicide, blackmail, bigamy, kidnaping, and assorted other skulduggery. The cops are after Mike’s blood and nothing but a game of dodge and run saves his license and his skin.

A young Miami insurance executive can’t remember whether or not he’s a killer. He remembers a red-headed man who once said, “Murder is my business.” That’s how Mike Shayne gets into the case of amnesia, alibis, and anguish in Miami Beach and the Florida Keys.