Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but to take the job, even when the case is a killer.
Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but to take the job, even when the case is a killer. There...
When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, Shell Scott can't help but take the job. Sherry is lady luck in the flesh. Her figures, 36-22-35, are Shell's favorite numbers. Somebody is trying kill the lady's favorite private dick, but Shell still hasn't pulled his final card from his ...
Shell Scott is a sucker for lovely gams on a lovely dame. Jay is dead, and his corpse points a stiff finger directly at our tenderhearted private dick. Is it possible that he has been hypnotized? If so, then maybe the cops won't mind that lie about his whereabouts that night. Was she a figment of...
Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the job, even when the case is a killer. Shell kno...
In the cutthroat world of organized crime, Tony Romero was headed straight for the top. His territory: the brothels of San Francisco. But the path was littered with bodies and broken dreams - some of them his. 1952 under alias Douglas Ring. 1963 as self Richard S. Prather.
The Case of the Vanishing Beauty began when one beauty vanished from sight and another died in a hail of bullets. Next on the murder list was lovely Lina...Lina who was hotter than a welder's torch...and Shell Scott, the shamus who has Sherlock whirling in his grave, had left his asbestos suit at...
Both names fitted her well enough, I supposed. Anybody with eyeballs could tell she looked very jazzy indeed; and I could personally attest that she smelled splendid. I knew she smelled splendid, because on two previous occasions within the past week, both of them at her soon closed—and locked, a...
Prather Chapter One SHE LOOKED HOTTER than a welder's torch and much, much more interesting. Up till now the floor show had been getting less attention than the rest- rooms—a Mexican hat dance, some Mexican troubadors gnashing their teeth through "La Cucaracha" and "Cielito Lindo," and a swar...
Part of the time I was thinking about Doc and Buff, part about the different things that had happened, and part about me. I forced myself to calm down all I could. I still had the dizziness, the cold skin, the shortness of breath, but it seemed to remain fairly constant; at least I was still aliv...
No question about that. I punched the rewind button, stopped the machine, started playing the tape for the second time. Not from the beginning. The end of the plastic tape was stretched and torn—undoubtedly by Jenkins in his haste to get away from wherever he’d been—and the whole thing played for...
Not from the Christians but to the girlies. Because, by the time I got to the spot where I had earlier parked my Cad, my Cad was no longer parked there. It was zooming away down the road. I watched it zooming away, feeling sick. There went my Cadillac, filled with girlies. Ten of them. All naked ...
She was three lemons, and you get arrested for putting a lead nickel in the machine. Moments after I rang the bell at the front door of the middle-bracket-nice house on a tree-shaded street, curtains fluttered behind a window on my left. Peeking out at me, I thought. Probably this gorgeous babe i...
And in that strange quietness I was seeing again, vividly, the appealing brown face of Jock-Jock, thick lips parted and curving into what looked like a smile. In an odd jerky fraction of a second before the Gourmet Room, Dane, all the rest came back from wherever they’d gone, I saw the brown head...
Prather Table of Contents Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eightee...
I'd heard much about the showcase, and seen half a dozen dumps like it. It was one of those phonily “artistic” dives, where pale poets quote blank verse to blank people, where bands honk “modern” dissonances as background to sonorous verbiage. Here gathered painters and writers and poets and scul...
Foo leaned over the table and said something to Garlic, then they both leaned back and watched the show. Or pretended to. At least they weren't going to charge across the dance floor at me. Well, I was here, and I meant to stay. At least until I had a chat with Juanita. And maybe with Foo and his...