This is a sixty-year-old book holds up pretty well. Frankly, if you remember the days before the Internet and before cell phones, you’ll only find one jarring dated note in the book: an evening postal delivery? Come on!<\/em><\/p>\n Mike Shayne, the red-haired and rangy Miami detective, is called to the hotel room of an investigative syndicate reporter who fears for her life. When he gets there, she’s murdered–and has half of a torn $500 bill in her hand. Since she’d already sent the other half as a retainer, Mike Shayne takes it upon himself to find out who killed her. Was it her ex-husband? The crime boss whose gambling halls she was shuttering? Or someone else.<\/p>\n If you’re like me, you know it’s someone else and you know who way early. But the final plot twist didn’t twist exactly like I expected. And it’s good late pulp crime fiction. This is a Red Badge Mystery, which means there’s another set out there I could accidentally start to collect.<\/p>\n (Previous Mike Shayne reports: Murder Spins the Wheel<\/em><\/a> and The Careless Corpse<\/em><\/a>.)<\/p>\n