Shell Scott Series

SHELL SCOTT, the shamus who has Sherlock whirling in his grave...the wacky knight-errant of gorgeous gals who leaves a trail of beautiful bodies behind him (not all of em dead)...the private eye who's every killer's public enemy. This is the first book in this action-packed mystery series. 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 had left his asbestos suit at home.

J. Harrison Bing after receiving no word from his daughter in nearly a year, went to her home in L.A. only to find she had sold the home and left without a trace. He hired a Los Angeles P. I. named William Carter to track her down and after calling from Vegas, he also disappeared. Now it is Shell Scott's turn. Assuming a simple case of finding a missing person, Shell finds out the hard way that he has bitten into an elephant. When the hoods close in and the bullets start flying Shell discovers he is the target, and there is more to this case than first realized...

"There was a fire in her eyes that was scorching me me, who couldn't tell whether a dame wanted to kiss me or kill me! No matter how you look at it, 362235 are magic numbers. They have a real message for me. I'm Shell Scott, the private eye, and I'm very good at figures. You might say I follow them very carefully. I've been following this one for several days and learned her name is Sherry. I hated to think she was mixed in murder. But somebody was planning to send me to my friendly neighborhood mortician and I had to find out who or die trying."

Shell Scott's mental contemplation was rudely interrupted when his office door was suddenly opened and an unpleasant little man walked in with a .45 caliber automatic pointed right at Shell's midsection. Unknown to Shell Scott, some guy named Sader wanted Shell eliminated permanently. Why, is the question? Shell had never heard of Sader. His answer came in the form of a red-headed bombshell in high heels who distracted the hood long enough for Shell to connect hard on the guy's chin. But before he could get the answers he needed, the red-head disappeared...

A rash of hit and run deaths in Los Angeles has the press in an uproar. The police have no clue as to the primary cause and the deceased are all men who appear to have been brutalized prior to the time of the accident. But there are other aspects to the case and Shell Scott has been hired by a not so upstanding night club owner to investigate. When Shell discovers a murder for hire conspiracy with overtones of blackmail, he finds himself looking down the barrel of a .32 caliber automatic and no apparent method of escape. But Shell Scott doesn't die easily...

Constanza Carmocha was unarmed, that is, she didn't have a gun. Well, she really didn't need one, either. Because she had all the weapons that have ruined men from time immemorial or better said - time immoral. One unlucky guy ended up with his throat slit because of her, and another was about to be bumped off. She was surrounded by a guy who resembled a shaved ape, and he looked as though he could pick himself up with one hand. But the hand isn't always quicker than the private eye, and Shell Scott was sure to get to the bottom of this deadly dame.

They say that even the strongest man secretly wants to feel wanted. He even hopes to have some woman take care of him. Well, my cup was running over. Me? I’m Shell Scott, the human target for every gun in the State of California. And that’s no private eyewash...I was made to feel wanted all right...by the city, county and state police. And there was a woman with a nasty little .32 in her tiny hand, well she was just dying to take care of me, permanently. Every where I turned, somebody was trying to help me plan what to do with the rest of my life...most of them were volunteering to end it for me!

"I'm trying to get back in shape," she said. Man, if her shape got any better she'd be banned for just walking down the street. I'm Shell Scott, private eye, and my job was to guard her day yeah, and night. I didn't have a chance to discuss these points with her because I saw the man walking toward us. There was only one of him but he seemed to outnumber me. He was so big I was surprised his feet didn't leave holes behind him in the concrete. "Shell Scott," he rumbled. "Shake." I hardly dared. "The boss says for you to get out of town. If you don't, he says for me to kill you..."

“The strait jacket’s canvas held my arms tight. My sixtwo was horizontal on a stretcher and the two bruisers carried it and my 205 pounds easily down the long corridor. I was confused as modern art, and being in this stupid asylum didn’t help. I was dumped onto a bed, yelling like a fiend. A needle, a stinging sensation in my neck and it was lights out for me. I awoke with a light beaming upon my face. A blade moved upward through the beam of light. And suddenly I was wide awake, thinking: This idiot is about to stab me! Me? I’m Shell Scott private eye and I’m in a lot of trouble...”

The scarlet bikini which had covered a minimum of the eyepopping curves on the dead woman, lay at her feet, and my eyes focussed on her as glassily as did the dead man’s next to her. He was dead, all right. He had been shot, poisoned, stabbed, and strangled. Either somebody really had it in for him or four people had killed him. Or else it was the cleverest suicide I’d ever heard of. Me? I’m Shell Scott, private detective and I’m wondering why anybody in his right mind would commit such a complicated murder, but I’m certainly going to find out...

Shell Scott is hired to help State Senator Paul Hershey gather information against Joe Blake, one of the biggest crooks Los Angeles has ever produced. Joe Blake is the kingpin behind the opposition party to Paul Hershey’s re-election. Blake is backing the candidate against Hershey, a Blake pawn, and using smear and innuendo in an increasingly vicious campaign. Hershey’s only defense against this onslaught is to get the information that will put Blake behind bars. That’s where Shell Scott comes in. But crossing Joe Blake was usually Russian roulette with no empty chambers and you first. So Shell was particularly careful about preventing his investigation from leaking out. Unfortunately it already has...

We were dancing, my client and I. But it was much more than just a dance. It was like doing the fox trot and getting your pants pressed at the same time. Or an anatomy lesson in four-four rhythm. I believe in the personal touch when it comes to a client and man, oh man, this was one time I meant to put my theory into practice. I'm Shell Scott, a private investigator with 20-20 vision, particularly when I have a 36-22-36 assignment. This assignment was a chaste girl who was being chaste-by me. And I was being chased, too, by an unfriendly hired gun who wanted to make me a headline on the obituary page. Gangdom's funeral directors had decided I was going to be their next client.

Amador Montalba, Mexico City guide, and good friend of Shell Scott, alerts Scott to a wealthy woman in Mexico City who needs help. Shell is in Mexico City winding up another case and decides to follow up on the lead. Senora Lopez, wife of a prominent Mexican General, was secretly filmed during an extramarital sex liaison with another man. After several payoffs to a blackmailer, she decides to turn the case over to Shell Scott. But the case is not one of simple blackmail. Communists appear to be involved, and the local police want Shell Scott in their jail...permanently..

She yanked the door open with a crash and said, "Gran--," but then stopped and stared at me. She was nude as a noodle. "You're not Grandma!" I said, "No, I'm Shell Scott, and you're not grandma either!" She slammed the door in my face. I've practically made a career out of babes, but this one really hit me. She had a shape like a three-dimensional dream, and I hugged that vision with my mind. Right from that first glance I had memorized her. She was the key --uhm -- "figure" in a sensational investigation leading all the way to the U. S. Congress. And me? I'm the shamus prepared to pursue both her and the clues to the ends of the earth, if only for the rear view. She's a living doll, and I mean to keep her that way, even if it kills me.

Every bloodthirsty hoodlum, every trigger-happy gunman in the state of California had that song on his lips. I didn't like it. I'm no music lover and, what's more, I was the rascal they were dying to kill. Me. Shell Scott. "Where there's death, there's hope" - that was gangdom's newest slogan. I was measured for a grave and I was supposed to share it with a gorgeous redhead named Coral. Man, this was just about the first time I haven't been willing to share something with a gorgeous redhead.

Suspicious and dangerous accidents were happening. People were dying, including the private eye I had been sent to replace. I didn't like it. But hey, that's what I'm hired to do. I deal daily with murder and mayhem. The real problem was when I had to go undercover and UNCOVERED in a nudist camp, or as they called themselves "naturalist." Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against naked, especially when it comes in the form of one gorgeous blond tomato, but how did they expect me to protect anyone, when I have nowhere to conceal my gun?

There were twelve of them. Bottoms, that is. Au naturel. The most eye-wrecking collection of derrieres ever to pop out of a printed page. The "WOW' pin-up girls...one for each month of the year. No faces, no names, not even swaddling clothes...just September, October, December, like that. Man, you should have seen January. Every inch a torrid zone. And wouldn't you know I'd get to work through the whole calendar? Well, they don't call me Shell Scott for nothing. Nossirree. I get paid for this kind of work. One of these luscious young pin-ups had the clue to a headline murder right on her little old back page. Four freckles. You think looking for a needle in a haystack is something?