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Mike Shayne takes a dip in the deadly Florida Keys for a dancer named Sloe Burn He smells her perfume before he walks through the door. It's called Black Sin, and the woman wearing it certainly lives up to the name. Esther Piney, better known as Sloe Burn, is a hard-boiled stripper born and raised in the swamps of the Florida Keys. Where she's from, murder is currency, and bodies disappear never to be found. Her favorite client has vanished, taking a fat bankroll with him, and she knows the only way she'll get him back is to beg a favor from the legendary Mike Shayne. Unfortunately for Sloe Burn, Shayne doesn't make a habit of tracking down missing strip-club regulars. But when a woman comes asking him to find her husband—who just happens to fit the description of Sloe Burn's sugar daddy—Shayne decides it's time to go fishing in the darkest corner of the Keys. Killers from the Keys is the 38th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

When a crime wave grips Miami, Mike Shayne comes home to fight In the city room of the Courier, a reporter blocks out the clatter of typewriters to tell Miami the truth. In the past week, three murders have been committed in Miami Beach, and Timothy Rourke is the only person who sees the connection. As the mayor and the chief of police deny rumors of a crime wave, Rourke hollers from page one: Organized crime has taken over Miami, and the bloodshed has only just begun. Rourke is beaten to a pulp for exposing the mob's dirty dealings, and then he discovers a hot-eyed blonde in his apartment packing a.32. The situation is spinning out of control, and only one man can save the city from itself: Mike Shayne. He left Miami for New Orleans after the death of his beloved—and he will return with all the fury of an avenging angel. Marked for Murder is the 12th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Mike Shayne investigates a murder committed by an amnesiac Arthur Devlin wakes up so hungover that for a moment, he thinks the ship is sinking. As he gets his bearings, he realizes the only storm is inside his own head—and he isn't on a ship at all. The last thing he remembers is being handed another drink at his going-away party. That was twelve days ago. Devlin has awoken in a sleazy hotel room, dressed in a stranger's ratty clothes, with a bump on his forehead and a dead man at his feet. The phone rings: A woman who calls him Joey asks if he went through with the murder. Devlin has no choice but to say yes. To find out if he's really a killer, Devlin hires Mike Shayne. Shayne has twenty-four hours to fill in the gaps of his client's memory—and he will discover things that Devlin would rather stay forgotten. Call for Michael Shayne is the 17th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A pulp writer tumbles into a mystery after an encounter at an awards banquet For more than a decade, Brett Halliday has made a living chronicling the adventures of the hard-nosed private detective Mike Shayne. At the banquet for the 1953 Edgar Awards, Halliday is dismayed to find the pulp field overrun by hacks who think X-rated smut and blood-soaked gore are enough to make a mystery. He's about to head home when he meets Elsie Murray, a beautiful author who appreciates a good whodunit—and who has enough of her own troubles to fill a thousand paperbacks. When Elsie is found murdered in her hotel room, the police suspect the last man she was seen with. Halliday is in a jam, and he knows better than anyone else that the only man who can save him is Mike Shayne. She Woke to Darkness is the 24th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Mike Shayne leaps into danger after a fugitive collapses on his secretary's floor Before she met Mike Shayne, Lucy Hamilton was just another young woman living in New Orleans. She shared an apartment with her best friend, Arlene, a vivacious young thing with a thousand gentleman callers, but none were as debonair as Arlene's brother, Jack Bristow. Since she started working for Shayne, Lucy hasn't had any time for beaus, and she hasn't thought of Bristow in years—not until the day he shows up on her Miami doorstep begging for help. He collapses, blood seeping from a wound in his chest, and Lucy helps him to the bedroom, knowing that he's minutes from death. The police are chasing Bristow for a murder Lucy's sure he didn't commit, and by the time Shayne gets the cops off their backs, Bristow has escaped through a window. Shayne must track down the bleeding man in order to learn what really happened—for both the sake of an old friend and the sake of justice. Death Has Three Lives is the 25th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

In this classic crime novel from the creator of Mike Shayne, a writer and an El Paso cop chase a serial killer who taunts them with ads in the local paper. Action Western novelist Asa Baker is in bad need of a good story when he gets a call from his old friend, Jerry Burke. One of El Paso's top cops, Burke is about to drag Baker into a plot more dangerous—and outrageous—than anything the Old West has to offer. A troubling personal ad has appeared in the local paper. Addressed to Burke, it warns that someone will die tonight at 11:41 p.m. And as promised, the body appears at 11:41 sharp—setting Burke and Baker on the hunt for an ingenious serial killer who advertises murder, always delivers on time, and never leaves a trail. Praise for Brett Halliday's Mike Shayne Mysteries “[Mike Shayne is] one of the best of the tough sleuths.” —The New York Times “Unlike anything else in the genre.” —L. J. Washburn, author of For Whom the Funeral Bell Tolls “Raw, ingenious storytelling... Pure pleasure.” —Shane Black, creator of Lethal Weapon and writer/director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, on Murder Is My Business

When an author finds his friend murdered, he calls on hardboiled cop Jerry Burke to track down the killer In a lonely canyon high above El Paso, a ruthless millionaire and a hardline socialist live side by side. Raymond Dwight makes money mercilessly and Leslie Young hates the rich with a passion, but the men have coexisted peacefully—so far. But when Western novelist Asa Baker escapes to Young's cabin for a weekend of writing, he can sense tension in the air. His friend has always muttered about tossing a few bombs at Dwight's estate, but his jokes have stopped being funny. Baker has seen enough bloodshed to know that there is murder on the horizon. When he finds Young dead on the floor, a strange mark on his cheek, Baker calls the only man who can help: Jerry Burke, the toughest cop in El Paso. In the shadowy corners of this Texas canyon lie secrets that someone will kill to protect—and Burke is the only man daring enough to uncover the truth.

A call from a killer sends Mike Shayne hurtling toward the brink A woman sits in the Encanto Hotel on Biscayne Bay, rationing a bottle of scotch and waiting for a call that could change her life. She clutches a marriage announcement that has chilled her to the core. At last, there is a knock at the door, but it isn't the person she was expecting. Instead she is greeted by a man she thought dead, a man who tortured her for far too long. She offers him a drink and then presses a pistol to his chest and pulls the trigger until the clip is empty and her tormenter is dead. In a state of panic, she calls the only man who can help—Miami's toughest private detective, Mike Shayne—and lies. She says her name is Carla, that the dead man is her husband, and that it was her daughter, Vicky, who pulled the trigger. She may think she knows how to play the game, but she'll soon find that Shayne is a dangerous man to toy with—and he doesn't stay fooled for long. The Body Came Back is the 46th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Mike Shayne finds strange secrets hidden beneath the cover of a grisly double suicide It's 10:30 pm, and Mike Shayne is sipping cognac, ruminating on the perfection of Lucy Hamilton's fried chicken, when a shotgun fires upstairs. Following the acrid stench of gunpowder to a locked door halfway down the hall, Shayne has no choice but to batter it down, tumbling face first into the scene of a particularly ugly double suicide. The woman lies on the floor in the middle of the sitting room, her face twisted by the deadly kiss of cyanide. A few feet beyond her body is what remains of a man, his head obliterated by the shotgun's blast. The woman's father is one of Miami's power brokers, and he refuses to believe that his daughter would end her life over a silly affair. Isn't it possible, he asks, that she was murdered? Convinced or not, Shayne is the only man ruthless enough to find out. The Corpse That Never Was is the 45th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Hours before his retirement, Powder Valley's chief lawman stumbles upon a deadly scheme Pat Stevens never wanted to be sheriff. But when old Ed Grimes was killed, Pat was the only man in Powder Valley with a quick enough gun hand to avenge his predecessor's death and take on the badge. Now, after years of wearing the silver star, Pat is too old to continue to risk his neck. He only has a few hours before a new sheriff takes over—but a lot of blood can flow in a short amount of time. A well-dressed con artist steps off the stagecoach into the sheriff's office. Mistaking Pat for the replacement officer, he hints at an evil bargain between sheriff and thief—a scheme of murderous corruption that could destroy Pat's closest friend. Pat has just a few hours to stop the killers, and he'll do it with or without his badge.