The killing of Jess Flemming, a minor-league hoodlum, brings Dr. Paul Standish, a physician who doubles as the city medical examiner, into an affair that implicates some prominent members of the community. To Police Lieutenant Ballard the case is cut and dried. The obvious suspect is Ralph Estey, a jazz trumpeter who has disappeared. But a second murder alters the situation markedly. Standish, compelled by a desire to learn the truth, not only as a medical examiner but as a man, conducts his own investigation. His inquiry into an accidental death of the previous year, in which Flemming ran his car over a well-known businessman, puts his own life in jeopardy before he is able to piece together the puzzle, which includes some entangled family finances and a surprising love affair.

The odor of familiar perfume greeted him when he turned the knob on the door of Fay’s bedroom, and in that first instant when he saw the limp, crumpled figure in the wicker chair he knew instinctively that his wife was dead. . . . Dave Wallace had come to Trinidad to forget the past and his scheming, predatory estranged wife, Fay. But Fay had reneged on their divorce agreement and had followed him to the island, had moved in on him bag and baggage and begun running around with three different men. Now she was dead—strangled with her own necklace—and Wallace, who had quarreled with her only an hour before, still bore the scratch marks from her fingernails on the back of his hand. He knew that Fay had been winding up her affairs and planning to leave, that she had been playing her favorite game of blackmail, and that someone was paying her off. Steve Rand, the charter-boat captain, Neil Benedict, the gambler and night-club owner, and Joe Anderson, the real estate operator, had good reason to hate her. Yet of the men in Fay’s life, he himself became at once the most logical suspect. For there had been another time when he had resorted to violence and attacked his wife with murder in his heart. If this became known while the police were investigating her death, who would believe he was innocent?In this—his fiftieth—mystery novel, George Harmon Coxe weaves an absorbing and suspenseful tale of murder on a Caribbean island, a puzzler that reveals a top craftsman of crime at his incomparable best.

Trying to help a model, a fashion photographer exposes a sinister plot. The photo in Fashion Parade galls Jerry Nason. It's not the picture itself — an ordinary shot showing off a slim, Spanish-inspired dress and a few pieces of jewelry. It's the model, Linda Courtney, who stood him up for a date a few months earlier. The morning after the magazine's release, the woman who spurned his affection turns up to offer him some work. She's come with the same set of costume jewelry she wore in the Fashion Parade picture, and her bosses, a strange pair of men who claim to work in advertising, want shots of the fake gems. Nason obliges, the two men leave, and Linda begins to tell the truth.

Classic novelette about crime, murder, lurid location, sleazy detectives.

A marina owner gets caught up in a murder investigationThe girl in the water is unfamiliar to Don MacLaren. This is odd since, as the owner of the island's only boat dock, he knows everyone who steps foot on the small spit of land. He hoists the young swimmer out, and is helping her get warm when Oliver Kingsley, the island's wealthiest citizen, comes to collect her, claiming he's her husband. The girl refuses to leave with Kingsley, resulting in a brawl between the two men.   In the morning Kingsley is found dead, and after the cops learn about the fight, they peg MacLaren as their chief suspect. As MacLaren struggles to understand the mystery behind the rich man's death, he finds that even the smallest island can hold deep secrets.

Trying to help a wronged inventor, a friend of Casey's ends up murdered The last thing Flash Casey needs is an apprentice. Turned down by the army because of a bum knee, he agrees to teach a twice-weekly photography class for the American Women's Voluntary Services. One of his students, whose father just happens to have a lot of money invested in Casey's paper, asks to tag along on an assignment. Flash can't say no. An engineer named John Perry has come to beg for help from one of Casey's friends at the paper, crusading news columnist Rosalind Taylor. A few years back, Perry invented an industrial lubricant that should have made him a fortune, but his partner stole his idea and kept the profits for himself. Taylor has agreed to mediate for them, and asks Casey along to document the meeting. When Flash arrives, the apartment is ransacked and Taylor is dead. Casey will find her killers, as long as his little apprentice doesn't get in the way.

One of Kent's pictures holds the secret to a wealthy man's deathNo one has seen titan of industry John Caldwell for nine years when he hires Kent Murdock to take his picture. Caldwell is preparing a landmark announcement, and wants Boston's finest newspaper photographer there to document it. Murdock chafes at the stuffy environment of the Caldwell home—particularly when Caldwell's heir instructs him to take only one picture. Using an infrared flash, Murdock sneaks a second shot. Less than an hour later, John Caldwell is dead.   Murdock makes a print of his second photo, hoping to find something that explains the strange ways of the Caldwell clan. Before he can examine it, the family's thugs assault him in the dark room, destroying the picture. The photo is gone, but there's no stopping Kent Murdock from learning what's rotten in the Caldwell estate.

Smuggling leads to murder, with Kent Murdock caught in the middleWhen the Kemnora, a stately liner on her maiden voyage, docks in Boston, Kent Murdock is there to cover the story. He's joined by Harry Felton, a reporter and one-time foreign correspondent in France. As they leave the port, Murdock notices customs officials working over some passengers, but leaves without a second thought. After all, reporters are never bothered at customs.   Only later does Murdock learn that he left with a small package in his camera bag, hidden there by someone on the ship—and retrieved later by Felton. He goes to ask Felton why he was used as an unwitting smuggler, but finds the reporter dead on the floor of his apartment. Whatever was in that package was worth killing for, and Murdock will find it, even if it means becoming a target himself.

A jilted lover finds himself implicated in a murder. When John Holland proposed to his girlfriend, Tracy, she imposed a 31-day waiting period before they could see each other again. It's day 30, and Holland travels to her Long Island home for their reunion, only to receive the shock of his life when he meets Tracy's fiancé, Roger Drake. Tracy's mother invites Holland to stay there and win back Tracy's love, and within a few hours, Drake is dead. As it turns out, Drake was a private detective hired by Tracy as a test for her beloved — and it looks like Holland failed. Meanwhile, Drake's boss, hardnosed detective Sam Crombie, descends on the home, looking to avenge his comrade.

At approximately eight o'clock private detective Harry Baker stumbled onto something big. At exactly one minute past eight, Baker was dead. The local police had figured that out for themselves. Now they wanted to know the rest from Jeff Lane. But what could Jeff tell them? He had sent Baker to locate his missing step-brother in Caracas. When baker cabled he had news, Jeff went to Venezuela himself. Now Baker was dead. And, a few days later, so was Lane's step-brother.

Hungry for work, an ex–air force pilot takes a deadly assignment in ManilaDespite three years of exemplary service flying for his country in the South Pacific, Spence Rankin can't find work. He's losing a bar fight when his old friend Ulio Kane appears. A former companion of Rankin's, Kane was born in Manila and spent the war organizing guerilla warfare against the Japanese. They killed his family during the occupation, so Kane faked his death and set about preparing for peacetime life.   But now Kane has received a plea for help, signed by his father—who's supposed to be dead. Is the note genuine, or is it a trap lain by his enemies in the mining business? He must return to Manila to be sure, and wants to hire Spence as a bodyguard. The pilot agrees to take the job, for death in the tropics is preferable to boredom in California.

FOLEY, THE RED-FACED, uniformed deputy on duty in the hall, peeked through one of the glass ovals inset in the leather-covered courtroom doors and said: "Hey, the jury's comin, out!" A concentrated and irritable sigh from the group of news-photographers lounging in the hall greeted the announcement. There was an intangible flurry of movement, a casual shifting of stances. Brant, of the News, sighed wearily. "Boy, it's about time." Tobacco smoke, the residue of a four-hour harvest from an apparently inexhaustible supply of cigarettes, choked the air with a stale stuffy smell and hung suspended in a hazy, pale-blue blanket that shrouded the arched ceiling. Cigarette butts, matches, crumpled paper holders littered the ash-strewn floor. Cameras and bulky black plate-cases were stacked in a row along one wall. Foley said: "It won't be long now," and kept his eye glued to the little glass window. Brant sighed again. ...

A reporter is drawn into a German refugee's story of conspiracyThe photo contest is an ancient circulation gimmick. Each day, the Morning Bulletin publishes a candid photo of one of Boston's citizenry, offering a cash reward if they see themselves in the paper within twenty-four hours of publication. It's not a bad way to sell papers, but it could mean a death sentence for Ethel Kovalik.   When she comes to collect her prize money she begs Larry Palmer, the reporter who handles the contest, not to print her name or address. She has come to the city looking for her husband, a GI whom she fell in love with in Germany in 1946, before he mysteriously disappeared. Now a Communist agent is chasing her, and publicity will only help him find her. Unsure of her far-fetched tale, Palmer checks up on Ethel. What he learns could mean death—or the scoop of a lifetime.

Doing a favor for an old friend gets Kent Murdock involved in a murderNewspaper photographer Kent Murdock goes to Union City for the sake of Helen Farnsley, an old friend whose marriage is in trouble. Long ago he warned her against marrying Lee, and now that their life together has turned sour he wants to help her escape it. But the trouble in Union City starts as soon as he gets to his hotel room.   Behind the mirror, Murdock finds a diamond bracelet belonging to the room's previous resident, a talent agent named Harry who returns a few minutes later to collect it. That night, Murdock sits down with Helen's husband, who asks for a few hours alone in the room to think. When Murdock returns, Lee has been murdered, and the police are looking for the room's owner. Kent doesn't stop to talk to the cops. It would be much easier to find the killer himself.

Hoodlums steal a worthless painting, and Kent Murdock wants to know whyA collection of valuable Italian paintings finds its way to Boston, placed in the care of Professor Andrade. Before passing them to a museum, the professor hires newspaper photographer Kent Murdock to document them. On his way to the assignment, Murdock is stopped by a gunman named Erloff, who steals the reporter's identification—and pays his own visit to the professor.   But Erloff is not after the expensive stuff. He cracks Andrade on the skull and leaves with nothing but a worthless painting of a green-hued Venus. Murdock is perplexed. Why all the trouble for an ugly piece of modern art? But the jade Venus holds a terrible secret—and blood will flow before it comes to light.