As in her sensational first offering, Helen Nielsen has again come up with a fast-paced and remarkably readable mystery. It begins when a gorgeous girl makes an incredible proposal, and ends when a would-be fall guy unearths some low schemes in high society—while solving a murder to save his own skin. The action is smooth, tough and colorful all the way.

A beautiful suspect with an intense desire to kill. The murder of Roger Warren seemed like an open-and-shut case. The evening before, Roger and his dazzling wife Wanda had moved from one bar to another, fighting loudly and publicly. The next morning, the dead figure of Roger was slumped in a living room chair … while Wanda lay sleeping in bed, a bloodied knife on the pillow beside her. At the District Attorney’s office, the bereaved beauty could remember nothing . . . except an intense desire to kill.

It was a Tuesday night in November, 1962. Rain fell slow and steady in Manhattan, slanting hard on near-deserted sidewalks and streets pocked by the occasional twin circles of approaching headlamps. Taxis spawned out from Times Square like predatory bugs in search of new feeding grounds, and here and there a truck rolled heavily past sleeping skyscrapers where spotty clusters of bright windows indicated janitors were toiling late on nocturnal rounds. Nature had a conspiracy against Kyle Walker. Tuesday was the night for his extension course at the university, and it had rained every Tuesday since the course began. Kyle Walker was 30, a civil engineer on the city payroll, and a man of ambition far above his present status. Tall, angular, a bit shaggy in his waterproof and fedora, he hunched awkwardly over the steering wheel of the eight-year-old sedan that was taking him home.

Simon Drake hadn't counted on violence when he asked the super-cool Hannah Lee to manage the Marina Beach mansion. With beautiful Hannah residing as den mother and poker companion, Simon soon found himself host to the most colorful characters on the California coast. And shortly, he discovered his lovely home was a haven from everything but passionate murder.

Was the crash deliberately contrived, a diabolical piece of sabotage, or was it cruelly fortuitous? Simon Drake—Miss Nielsen’s very personable and popular lawyer-detective—happens to be at the airport at the time of the crash, and notices that some surprising people have been awaiting the ill-fated plane: among them, a gangster boss and a millionaire playboy. He hastens to take his boat out into the bay, to help search for possible survivors, but all he manages to pick up is one piece of hand luggage—a cosmetics case which is identified as belonging to Sigrid Thorsen, a young starlet who was joining her fiancé at Los Angeles. And the severed key concealed in the case is the first of many clues in the extremely dangerous and complex adventure which invades Drake’s life. The mystery develops in many directions, and Drake finds himself and his friens more and more involved. In the background there is the hovering, enigmatic presence of the gangster boss. And from time to time a trio of utterly amoral hippies erupt into the narrative. As we approach the very tense climax, the plot grows darker and more deadly: Miss Nielsen has many surprises in reserve.

Barney Amling, president of Pacific Guaranty, disappears. So do a million of the company's dollars. Ostensibly, he has gone to Mexico City for a monetary conference, but he didn't arrive and wasn't expected. His wife calls in the lawyer Simon Drake (Helen Nielsen's usual and always brilliant detective). Neither she nor Simon, who knows Barney well, can believe that he's a thief; nor can Captain Reardon, chief of police, who is another old friend. But things don't look good.Simon probes into Barney's dubious relationship with Pucci, property speculator and near-gangster, and with Verna, ex-brothel madame and nightclub owner. The trail leads to Buenos Aires, where Barney is seemingly killed in a spectacular car crash. But is he dead? The plot grows increasingly complex, the action quickens, the tension mounts ...Helen Nielsen writes as compellingly as ever; her ingenuity is matched by her readability. Her many fans have another treat in store this time.