this is the 84th book in my series of forgotten books
Shoot the Works by Brett Halliday © 1957, Dell #7844, 1965 mass market paperback (second edition), mystery – Mike Shayne #28
Mike Shayne’s secretary Lucy calls Mike and asks him to hurry to the home of her good friend’s mother, who has just returned early from a trip. When Shayne gets there, he finds Jim Marshall lying on the bedroom floor, shot dead through the forehead. On the bed, there is a suitcase, partially packed with clothes and in Marshall’s coat pocket two one way tickets to South America. It seems pretty obvious that Marshall was getting ready to run off with someone, and since his wife wasn’t expected home for another day or more, and since the plane tickets were for the next morning, it wasn’t going to be his wife he left with.
Against his better judgment, Shayne agrees to take the tickets away with him, and then to pretend he got the call to come to the apartment after the police had been called. It was a mistake he would regret throughout the case.
He doesn’t believe Mrs. Marshall shot her husband, but he has no idea who might have done it. The police don’t share this opinion, and though they let Mrs. Marshall leave that night to stay with her daughter, they have an officer stationed outside to watch her. As soon as there is any further evidence, or a hole in her story, she will be arrested.
Shayne knows it’s time for some legwork, starting with tracing the suspects movements, then to talking with the husbands business partners. It’s at the business he finds there is a briefcase with a cool million dollars missing. That’s plenty of motive for anyone who could know or discover it’s whereabouts.
I like these books. They are clever, fast, fun, and usually have just enough twists that I am fooled at least once in my guesses about who did it. This is a good one.
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links to all of this weeks Forgotten Book posts can be found
on Patti Abbott’s blog, Pattinase
Gosh, haven’t read one of these in years. It looks like fun. Love the cover. Patti
I read a bunch of these in my younger days, as well as some of the Mike Shayne Mystery magazine novelettes(I stopped unfortunately before James Reasoner took the reins). Only read a couple in the last few years,
I haven’t read many of these, and none in a long time.
Great cover. I think I’ve read that one, not sure, though.
I’ve read a couple dozen of these, Rick. They’re like potato chips!
I am long overdue to dig into all my Mike Shayne books. I’ve amassed quite a few over the past ten years. I like Helen McCloy’s books and she was married to “Brett Halliday” for several years. I’ve been eager to see if one was an influence on the other as far as plotting went.
True enough, George. I’ve slowly been picking them up over the years at the paperback collector’s show in L.A. but now it’s way to far to go, sadly, since I don’t fly (thanks to the TSA, I prefer not to be mistreated by those cocky idiots, thanks). Still, I have enough to keep me going for a while.
No time like the present, John!
I have a few Shayne books (with nice McGinnis covers) on my pile. As I seem to say a lot, I need to get around to reading one!
I’m still getting follow-up comments. Evrytime I log out and back on, the button seems to be on again. Don’t know whether that’s some new screw-up on WordPress or deliberate.
Randy, seems to be one of those unrequested, unwanted, un-previously notified changes WordPress has gotten fond of making. I’ve tried a change in some settings, try again and then email me with the result, please.
Here we go.
Don’t see anything to make any changes. Mine reply comment has a notify me of any comments box that persistently comes up checked every time I log into the blog.
It seems OK to me.
Randy, I’ve emailed you. If the changes I made worked, then the email tells you how to do what I did to make it go away. Hope it works! Let me know!
We’re not the only WordPress blog having these problems, Richard. I made the mistake on To.com’s blog of entering the Scalzi giveaway, three copies of his forthcoming novel. Just cut on the machine and had 130 emails, all but two of them other respondents to said giveaway. Deleted all and had a group of ten just pop in a moment ago. Sheesh!
I have had no more problems since I made those changes, Randy. I’m always on the alert for those automatic check boxes now, and you’re right, there are a lot of them out there!
Exactly. I’ve had 290 emails to date since I made my entry.