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Descubre un mundo infinito de historias

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Brett Halliday

A double shot of iconic Miami PI Mike Shayne—“one of the best of the tough sleuths” (The New York Times).

Dead Man’s Diary: Florida private investigator Mike Shayne’s in New Orleans at the behest of a distraught wife whose war-hero husband, Jasper Groat, has gone missing—along with his diary, a harrowing soon-to-be-published daily account of being set adrift in a lifeboat with two shipmates. Rumor has it it’s also an incriminating confessional. With two corpses—and counting—it looks to Shayne like someone would prefer if Jasper and his damning revelations had been buried at sea.

A Taste for Cognac: One minute, PI Mike Shayne’s having a quick afternoon cocktail in a Miami dive. The next, he’s been solicited to investigate an intoxicating conspiracy involving the parole of an aging bootlegger, a secretive old sea captain tortured to death, a missing female reporter, and two dozen bottles of prewar cognac—vintage, valuable, and apparently worth killing for. If anybody can pop the cork on this case, it’s Shayne.

Brett Halliday’s “fast‐paced world of violence, intrigues, complex twists and voluptuous women” inspired film, radio, and television adaptations, as well as the long-running Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine (The New York Times).

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

The Mike Shayne Mysteries

Dead Man's Diary and A Taste for Cognac: Two Mike Shayne Mysteries

An ordinary chump has been murdered—and Mike Shayne has 36 hours to find the killer

When Linda Fitzgilpin is woken by the sound of the ringing telephone, she finds her husband is missing. For years now, Jerome has always slept in his bed across the room, but last night he didn’t come home. When the phone rings, Linda knows why. A body matching his description has been found at the scene of an accident—Jerome is dead. Uncertain of what to do, Linda asks her downstairs neighbour Lucy Hamilton for help. And Lucy calls her boss, the toughest private detective in Miami: Mike Shayne.

Responding quickly, Shayne takes the newly minted widow to identify the body, and is on hand when the routine procedure turns into an ordeal. Although Linda’s husband’s body was found dead beside a wrecked car, it wasn’t the crash that killed him. It was poison—and Shayne has only 36 hours to find the killer before the trail turns as cold as the body on the slab.

Too Friendly, Too Dead is the 44th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Too Friendly, Too Dead

A desperate want ad draws Mike Shayne into a tangled murder plot

It starts with a post in the classifieds. A woman calls for a red-blooded American, a soldier-of-fortune type willing to do anything if the price is right—even commit murder. This catches the eye of Tim Rourke, hotshot reporter, who passes it on to Mike Shayne, the legendary Miami detective. Rourke believes the ad was placed by a lonely housewife hoping to pay someone to knock off her husband, and he thinks the story could be front-page news. He just needs someone willing to answer the call—and Shayne has the reddest blood in Miami.

Shayne responds to the ad, and finds the situation far stranger than anything he and Rourke could have dreamed up. His new employer is sweet, young, and scared for her life. Plus, there’s $50,000 at stake—and a life on the line.

The Homicidal Virgin is the 37th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

The Homicidal Virgin

A blonde with a rotten husband sends Mike Shayne into the past

Mike Shayne isn’t scared of anyone, but that doesn’t mean he feels comfortable in a tuxedo. He squeezes into the monkey suit for the sake of Lucy Hamilton, his beloved secretary, and grins and bears his way through a meal at the ultra-posh Martinique. The detective is just settling into the evening when he sees a woman who stops his blood cold: Lydia Kane, a friend of his late wife. She’s polite, but her eyes show mortal terror.

The reunion is soon broken up by Lydia’s husband, a squat thug who explodes at Shayne for talking to his wife. The men exchange harsh words, then swift punches, which causes Shayne and Lucy to be kicked out of Martinique. When Lydia is murdered soon after, Shayne suspects her husband is the killer. But how can the detective prove it when the police are hot on his own trail?

Weep for a Blonde is the 28th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Weep for a Blonde

A beachside slaying threatens to put Mike Shayne behind bars

No one at the hotel gives a damn about Walter Carson. There aren’t any letters for him at the front desk or calls at reception. Bellboys, waiters, and bartenders all ignore him. When he reaches out to strangers, they look away. He’s alone in the world—and worse, he’s gripped by an icy terror that follows him everywhere. One night, it catches up to him. Carson, unloved and unknown, is found dead with a bullet between his eyes.

In the dead man’s pocket, the police find a newspaper clipping about Mike Shayne, Miami’s toughest private investigator. The local chief is convinced Shayne was connected to the murder, and he will do whatever is necessary to put the detective behind bars. Shayne can handle the cops—it’s Carson’s widow that he needs to worry about.

Murder and the Wanton Bride is the 30th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Murder and the Wanton Bride

A strange disappearance leads Mike Shayne to investigate a death on the open sea

Mike Shayne is savouring a nightcap when his secretary calls in a panic. Lucy Hamilton doesn’t scare easily and as soon as Shayne hears her voice, he knows this must be a matter of life and death. Hamilton’s neighbour has vanished, and only Shayne knows Miami well enough to find him. One of only 2 survivors in a recent plane crash, Jasper Groat had been acting strange ever since his life was spared, and tonight, he walked away and didn’t come back. The “lucky” survivor was carrying a deadly secret.

During the 9 days he spent adrift at sea, Groat filled a diary with damning details about the accident and its aftermath. There are people who might kill to get their hands on the incriminating journal—that is, if Shayne doesn’t find it first.

Date with a Dead Man is the 32nd book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Date with a Dead Man

Out of jail and hungry for revenge, a career criminal comes after Mike Shayne

They call him the Actor. An armed robber with a sense of style, Bram Clayton planned every heist with care, slipping so convincingly into the actions and motives of his characters that even experts couldn’t tell him apart from the real thing. He played electricians, salesmen, even a bank examiner, but for the last 13 years he’s been stuck in a single role: jailbird. When Clayton finally earns freedom, he has no trouble convincing the warden he’s going to stay straight, but the Actor is about to pull the greatest heist of his career.

There’s a beautiful woman waiting for Clayton when he gets out. An old friend with an ulterior motive, she comes equipped with a bottle of whiskey, a carton of cigarettes, clean clothes, a gun, and a plan for a $200,000 heist so simple that it’s almost a sure thing—so long as it isn’t upset by Clayton’s hunger for revenge against the man who put him away: legendary detective Mike Shayne.

Target: Mike Shayne is the 33rd book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Target: Mike Shayne

Mike Shayne goes grave robbing in a pet cemetery to solve the case of a millionaire’s murder

It’s 11:00 am, and Mike Shayne has just poured himself a cognac, when Henrietta Rogell strolls into his office. Normally, Shayne would extend no special favors to a wealthy client, but his checking account is nearly empty, and he’s willing to straighten his tie for the sake of a millionaire—especially when she’s come about something as lucrative as murder. Miss Rogell’s brother, John, died 2 days before. The coroner ruled it a heart attack, but Henrietta is convinced he was poisoned, and she will pay handsomely for Shayne to prove it.

His first lead is a murdered dog. Daffy, the beloved Pekinese of John Rogell’s young wife, Anita, dropped dead after eating a bowl of soup laced with strychnine. Every member of the family had a reason to want Rogell out of the picture. To find the killer, Shayne will have to disturb the departed—and dig up the canine victim.

Die Like a Dog is the 34th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Die Like a Dog

Mike Shayne tackles a smuggling ring while on a Caribbean vacation

A car speeds toward the embankment with one of the most ruthless heroin dealers in the country behind the wheel. Beside him is the legendary detective Mike Shayne, who will take control of the car or die trying. They fight—and the car goes sailing off the cliff. The drug pusher dies, but Shayne escapes, battered but unharmed. His doctor releases him from the hospital on condition that he take a vacation, and so Miami’s toughest sleuth reluctantly books a 3-week island getaway. But before the jet takes off, trouble finds him once again.

A customs agent holds the plane to ask Shayne a favor. The island the detective is headed for is a notorious smuggler’s haven, and there have been rumors that a big shipment is on its way. He should know better, but Shayne can’t help but agree to smash the ring, even if it means coming home with more than a few broken ribs.

Murder Takes No Holiday is the 35th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Murder Takes No Holiday

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.

Killers from the Keys

Mike Shayne has 24 hours to find out the truth and save a man from death row 3 years ago, Miami Chief of Detectives Peter Painter made the greatest arrest of his career—one that led to Sam Harris being put on death row for killing Rose Heminway’s husband. 

So when Harris’s wife discovers evidence that she believes could save her husband’s life, Painter does what any corrupt cop would: He sits on the evidence, waiting for the electric chair to do its work. Finally, Mrs. Harris has no choice. She contacts Heminway, who was never fully convinced of Sam’s guilt, though she testified against him, and they take the final course of action of desperate women across Miami: They hire Mike Shayne.

The most daring detective in the United States, Shayne has just 24 hours to clear Harris’s name, or an innocent man will fry. Saving Harris will mean the wrath of the entire Miami police department, but Shayne isn’t worried. He’s tougher than any electric chair.

Murder in Haste is the 39th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Murder in Haste

Mike Shayne battles blackmailers to recover a valuable missing bracelet

The picture in the paper shows one of the most beautiful women in Miami wearing nothing more than a negligee. She’s in her boudoir, posing for police photographers, pointing to where her emerald bracelet used to be. The bauble is worth $110,000, and whoever took it is either brave, crazy, or stupid, because Laura Peralta’s husband is the second most dangerous man in Miami. The most dangerous, of course, is Miami’s toughest private detective, Mike Shayne.

After 3 weeks, the police have gotten nowhere, and Julio Peralta turns to Shayne. But there’s more at stake than a missing bracelet. And for the sake of the lovely Laura, Shayne will have to brave blackmailers, burglars, and a killer with a sense of style.

The Careless Corpse is the 40th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

The Careless Corpse

A desperate doctor hires Mike Shayne for a case that starts with blackmail and ends with murder

Back when Mike Shayne was living in New Orleans, his best friend, Tim Rourke, got shot on Miami Beach. Rourke, star reporter for the Miami News, was working on the story of his career when gunmen pumped him full of lead. It took quick work by the brilliant Dr. Ambrose to save him. So when the good doctor finds himself in mortal danger, Rourke repays the debt the only way he knows how: He calls Mike Shayne.

Ambrose’s trouble started at the gambling tables. Now, he’s in the clutches of a blackmailer who intends to bleed $1,000 from him every month until the poor surgeon drops dead. At stake are Ambrose’s practice, his marriage, and his life. In an act of desperation, he asks Shayne to help him make the blackmail payoff, which the detective outright refuses to do. But when the doctor’s trouble turns into a murder case, Shayne will find himself unable to turn his back on the man who saved his friend’s life.

Pay-Off in Blood is the 41st book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Pay-Off in Blood

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.

Murder by Proxy

Mike Shayne finds himself caught up in a strange conspiracy when he’s invited to Los Angeles by a terrified woman

It’s the end of summer and Miami is as quiet as the grave. To Mike Shayne, the city’s most notorious private detective, it seems as though he’ll never have another case like the ones that made his reputation: matters of life and death that can only be solved by quick thinking, fast fists, and an itchy trigger finger. And then comes the letter from Los Angeles. It holds a plane ticket, half a $1,000 bill, and a desperate appeal. Come to L. A. , begs the woman who penned the letter, or it will be my death sentence.

Before he even lands in L. A. , Shayne is enmeshed in a plot straight out of Hollywood. And when his mysterious client proves impossible to find, the detective worries he’s been lured into a deadly trap.

Never Kill a Client is the 43rd book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Never Kill a Client

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.

The Corpse That Never Was

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.

The Body Came Back

A warehouse robbery pulls Mike Shayne into a daring international conspiracy

 It’s been years since Mike Shayne last subjected himself to a stakeout. Miami’s most infamous private detective simply doesn’t have time to waste sitting in a car, drinking cold coffee and waiting for excitement that will never come. But the Acme Bonding Company is one of his oldest clients, and when his stand-in falls through, he’s obliged to keep watch himself.
 
 A string of warehouse robberies, timed to coincide with hurricanes, has put Miami’s business community on the alert. So when a tropical storm closes in, Acme asks Shayne to keep a lookout for burglars. He waits with his pistol in hand.
 
 The burglars enter the warehouse quietly, like professionals, but Shayne still sees them coming—and his trigger finger is itchy. A shootout leaves 1 burglar dead and the others on the lam. But when he searches the city for the rest of the gang, Shayne finds that Miami is about to get hit by something far deadlier than a tropical storm.
 
 A Redhead for Mike Shayne is the 47th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A Redhead for Mike Shayne

Mike Shayne investigates the connection between a flirtatious wife, a husband blinded by jealousy, and a murdered boss

Just 3 years ago, Ralph Larson and his wife were newlyweds, the happiest young couple in Miami. But since Larson went to work for Wesley Ames, his life has been hell. He’s convinced his wife has fallen in love with his boss, and the jealousy is driving him mad. Hoping to avoid a murder, private detective Mike Shayne tells Larson’s wife to knock off the flirting before her husband’s envy leads to tragedy. But it’s too late: Death is at the door.

When Shayne learns that Larson is headed to Ames’s apartment, pistol in hand, he races there hoping to prevent bloodshed. He finds Larson standing over his boss’s corpse, ready to confess to murder. But there’s more here than meets the eye—and more to this murder than a resentful husband holding a smoking gun.

Shoot to Kill is the 48th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Shoot to Kill

Mike Shayne tackles a baffling case of adultery and murder in the suburbs of Miami

 It’s the 4th and final day of the convention, and Marvin Blake is ready to go home. Dreading the evening’s festivities, he checks out of his hotel early and heads back to Sunray Beach, longing to see his wife, Ellie, and daughter, Sissy. When he reaches home late that night, his bedroom light is on—and his best friend’s car is parked in the driveway. His wife has been unfaithful, and Blake knows what he must do. He checks into a motel, pulls out the stationery, and prepares to take his life.
 
 The next morning, Ellie is found in her bedroom, stark naked and strangled to death. Miami reporter Tim Rourke picks up the story and brings in the only man who can untangle this web of lies: Mike Shayne. A seasoned professional, Shayne may think he’s seen it all, but he’ll soon find that, in suburbia, murder is never what it seems.
 
 Mike Shayne’s 50th Case is the 49th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

The Mike Shayne Mysteries - La serie de libros

The Mike Shayne Mysteries - La serie de libros

The Mike Shayne Mysteries libros en orden

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