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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.

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.

A beautiful woman vanishes while on vacation in Miami, and it's up to Mike Shayne to find her When Ellen Harris leaves New York for her 2-week trip to Miami, her husband playfully reminds her to be careful. In a city famous for playboys, loan sharks, and gigolos, a beautiful woman can find trouble—and Ellen wants all the trouble she can get. Although she adores her husband, she intends to have fun, and that means flirting with every man she sees, from bellhops to bartenders and everyone in between. From all outward appearances, it looks like she plans to have a different man in her room every night she's there, but the very first morning, the maid finds her bed undisturbed. Ellen's husband arrives 5 days later, desperate to find out why his wife hasn't been answering his calls. She hasn't been seen at the hotel since just after checking in, and the only man who can track her down is Miami's toughest detective: Mike Shayne. Murder by Proxy is the 42nd book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Mike Shayne receives a tip off from a desperate drunk concerning corruption at the racetrack Marriage hasn't stopped Mike Shayne's phone from ringing. Every night it seems there's some troubled dame calling up with a problem that only Miami's toughest PI can solve. Thankfully, Phyllis Shane isn't the jealous type. She simply passes along the messages and lets her husband get himself into trouble. Tonight the call comes from the notorious Red Rose Apartments, home to the city's least discreet women. Someone has been cashing counterfeit tickets at the local greyhound track, taking the owners for thousands of dollars every night, and Mayme Martin, resident of the Red Rose Apartments, has an idea about who's responsible. But drunk and haggard, she won't be able to tell Shayne everything he needs to know in time. Mr. and Mrs. Shayne are on their way to the racetrack, but they may have to kill if they are to escape alive. Tickets for Death is the 4th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A disappearing corpse draws Miami PI Mike Shayne into a deadly political conspiracy in this hardboiled mystery that inspired the film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. A year after marrying the toughest PI in Miami, Phyllis Shayne longs for a few weeks alone with her husband. She and Mike are about to board a train to New York when a client shows up at the door. Her face gray and her voice slurred, the mysterious woman passes out before she's able to get through her story. Mike carries the stranger to his spare bedroom and, trying to save his wife from worry, tells Phyllis to go on to the train station without him; he'll meet her in a few days. When he goes back to check on the woman, she is dead, with one of her stockings wrapped tightly around her throat. Something is fishy, but it's about to get far more complicated when the body disappears. The woman arrived just after Mike took a call from Sam Marsh, a close friend who's in a mayoral race that's about to turn bloody. To save his friend's campaign and keep himself out of jail, Mike will have to find the killer—but he'll have to find the body first. Bodies Are Where You Find Them is the 5th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

MURDER AT THE RIO GRANDETen years ago, private eye Mike Shayne did a job for one of the richest men in El Paso, digging up dirt on a boy courting the tycoon's daughter. Now the daughter's back, all grown up and dangerous. And so's Shayne – but this time it's to investigate murder…