Is it genuine love or is the guy a gold digger? To add to the intrigue, Shell discovers his predecessor on the case, another private eye, was found murdered. Here, Shell finds himself hired by a wealthy mother to investigate the background of a man who her daughter has married rather impulsively. Many readers regard this one as among the best of the Shell Scott novels. But by the time this book was written, I would have thought the character had settled into a more or less consistent style.

Some were more hard-boiled like Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer and others tended toward the outlandish and comedic. The early books were a little inconsistent and one gets the idea that Prather was wrestling with just how he wanted his main character to be. This novel was fairly early in the series, first published in 1956.

There was even a 'Shell Scott Mystery Magazine' that was published for a while in the 1960s. Prather wrote over three dozen Shell Scott novels as well as numerous short stories published in the likes of 'Manhunt' and 'Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine'. Some were more hard-boiled lik Richard S.

Richard s. prather collection