1948 Edgar Award Winner Ed Hunter is eighteen, and he isn't happy. He doesn't want to end up like his father, a linotype operator and a drunk, married to a harridan, with a harridan-in-training stepdaughter. Ed wants out, he wants to live, he wants to see the world before it's too late. Then his father doesn't come home one night, and Ed finds out how good he had it. The bulk of the book has Ed teaming up with Uncle Ambrose, a former carny worker, and trying to find out who killed Ed's dad. But the title is as much a coming-of-age tale as it is a pulp. Author Brown won the Edgar award in 1947 for this spectacular first-effort.

Three murders were too many for Ed Hunter. Not even a dazzling redhead from the carnival's girl show could keep Ed altogether happy—not with a murderer running loose. Then Ed found it was up to him and his Uncle Am to find the killer among the freaks and strippers of the carnival—a killer who chose his victims according to size! Ed and his Uncle Am are back, working in a travelling carnival through the Midwest. Bodies, though smallish in stature, keep piling up, and Ed finds himself head over heels in love. Fascinating for the insights into carnival life that this book provides.

Ed and Am have gotten away from the Carney life. These days, they're working for the Starlock Detective Agency. Ed's first case is a wealthy client trying to sound out whether an investment's worth it. But then he finds a body with its throat cut, and hears some external howling that might just be from a werewolf.

Uncle Am is kidnapped! Ed Hunter's partner-in-crime was just out on a routine case, a man who'd skipped out on some car payments, when the old fellow vanishes. There's also a fortuneteller who claims to know how to pick the daily "number," a gangster who'd like more info about same, a love interest for young Ed, and a Fortean collector of Ambroses, who might just be responsible for Uncle Am's disappearance.

Fifth in the Ed and Am series, but last for several years (Brown worked on other projects from '52-58.) Having opened their own detective agency, Ed and Am start by taking cases passed along by former employer Starlock. One day a girl walks into their door, in fear of murder caused by Martians. The pair don't take her too seriously... until she winds up dead.

A dead man and a pile of missing money have two Chicago detectives investigating the deceased’s daughter in this entry in the Edgar Award–winning series. Tens of thousands of dollars have disappeared from the city of Chicago’s coffers, and the late Jason Rogers is the likely embezzler. So Rogers’s daughter seems to be the one to interview to determine where the funds are stashed. But the nephew-and-uncle team of Ed and Ambrose Hunter is hitting a brick wall as the woman remains tight-lipped and loyal. The pair of private detectives is going to have to dig deeper if they want to balance the books of justice . . . “[Fredric Brown is] a real pro—a natural storyteller.” — The New York Times Book Review