Halliday is a new name for me, but there on the cover was the phrase: A Mike Shayne Mystery. This month, I opened the package to find Murder is My Business by Brett Halliday. Some of the selections lean towards pulp, some have an edge of noir, and some are classic crime novels.
The Dreadful Lemon Sky: John D.“He said I should see a private detective and you were the cheapest one in New Orleans.”Īs a member of the Hard Case Crime Book Club, I never know which book is going to appear on my doorstep.The Mike Shayne series by Brett Halliday.In the early books in the series, his tightly-plotted investigations are complemented by humorous episodes involving his wife, offering some relief as he tangles with all sorts of criminals, be they blackmailers ( The Private Practice of Michael Shayne), scammy realtors ( The Uncomplaining Corpses), or murderous politicians ( Bodies Are Where You Find Them). Miami-based Michael Shayne is at once a hardboiled private eye and a methodical, Nero Wolfe-esque classical detective. When I got home I started investigating and discovered that his books will be well worth reading, or at least sampling them to see what I think.
I had no idea if I would want to read these books or just have them for my collection of vintage book covers. The books were not in great condition but the cover illustrations are still lovely and the text is readable which is a big plus. He does have a distinctive style but there were other cover artists with similar styles. Luckily this was identified on the back cover of the books, because even though I have two books about McGinnis's book covers and art in general, I cannot identify them without help. I could not have passed up these books because most of them had covers by Robert McGinnis.
Today I concentrate on the Mike Shayne series by Brett Halliday. There were lots of Mike Shayne mysteries and a good number of Perry Mason or Bertha Lam / Donald Cool mysteries. There may be occasional boxes of paperbacks with one or two vintage paperbacks in them on the tables. That has never happened in all the decades I have been attending the sale.
When I was at the book sale this year I ran into a box full of vintage paperbacks.
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