An ordinary office worker finds a whole lot of money—and winds up running for his life—in this twist-filled thriller by a mystery master. Jim Morgan can’t afford the briefcase. His wife’s spending has strangled him with debt, and he’s down to his last $20. But the briefcase in the leather shop calls to him. It looks like something an executive would own. It smells like success. When he buys it, he feels a confidence he hasn’t felt in years. He tells off the office bully. He talks his way into a raise. The briefcase has made him a new man—and soon, it will be his downfall. Stopping on his way home for a cocktail, Morgan sets the briefcase on the barroom floor. When he picks it up, it’s filled with cash. He’s walked off with $100,000 in stolen money. And getting rid of it will turn his life upside down—or end it.
Author
aka Barnaby Ross. "Ellery Queen" was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971), as well as the name of their most famous detective. Born in Brooklyn, they spent forty two years writing, editing, and anthologizing under the name, gaining a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age "fair play" mystery. Although eventually famous on television and radio, Queen's first appearance came in 1928 when the cousins won a mystery-writing contest with the book that would eventually be published as The Roman Hat Mystery. Their character was an amateur detective who used his spare time to assist his police inspector father in solving baffling crimes. Besides writing the Queen novels, Dannay and Lee cofounded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. Although Dannay outlived his cousin by nine years, he retired Queen upon Lee's death. Several of the later "Ellery Queen" books were written by other authors, including Jack Vance, Avram Davidson, and Theodore Sturgeon.
