There are no hoodlums, no gambling halls,no gun battles, and no police chases in this Mike Shayne mystery. Nevertheless, it is a solid pulp mystery read that centers on the mysterious death of an acquaintance of Secretary Lucy Hamilton's. The murdered man's wife has the damnedest alibi. There's evidence pointing to the murdered man being about to flee the country and a briefcase full of money is missing. This one is all about deductive reasoning, about bored drunken housewives throwing themselves at Shayne , and a vivacious inebriated woman who asks no questions about whoever shows up at her door. ( )

Miami detective Mike Shayne is spending a quiet night with Lucy, his secretary, in her apartment, when she gets a frantic phone call. Myra Wallace, a good friend of Lucy's, returned home earlier than usual from a trip. She found her husband, Jim, dead on the floor, with a bullet between the eyes. She begs Lucy to come over.

It looks like Jim was packing for a trip (just before his wife was coming home?). A pair of one-way plane tickets to Rio would lead the average person to think that Jim was planning to run away with someone other than his wife. Myra, and Lucy, begs Mike to look into what's going on without involving the police. The police have to get involved, but Mike manages to stay one or two steps ahead.

Wallace was a partner in a local brokerage firm. Of the other two partners, Tomppkins is a bachelor with an eye for the ladies, who thinks of Shayne as some sort of barbarian, while Martin is the senior partner. In his investigation, Shayne meets up with a couple of women of, shall we say, questionable morals, one of whom, Lola, was in a relationship with Tompkins. A witness reports seeing Wallace in a local bar with Lola a few days previously. The obvious implication is that Lola was going to use the other plane ticket to Rio. Actually, Wallace was offering her money to stay out of Tompkins' life, once and for all. A few hours later, Lola is dead. Suspicion falls on Tompkins, maybe because Wallace was supposedly "interested" in Lola.

I don't read a lot of mysteries, but this one was pretty good. The reader can easily see this as a black and white noir fil, starring someone like Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum. It's worth reading. ( )