Waylaid in Boston: (A Homer Evans Mystery)

Homer Evans and Finke Maguire, private detectives, are in Boston enjoying an evening with friends, when conversation turns to the methods of detective work. A bet is made–to win, a man must be tailed. But a light-hearted wager turns to mystery with a disappearance, then murder. What, and who, is working behind the scenes? Throw in a love triangle, shady South American financial dealings, and a bag full of snakes, and you’ve got another free-for-all adventure that requires the erudite Homer Evans to untangle a strange puzzle.

Elliot Paul brews another of his lethal literary cocktails in ‘Waylaid in Boston’ … The sophisticated sleuth Homer Evans and his lieutenant Finke Maguire again encounter murder, this time in the very capital of propriety. Characters, outlandish; plot, sheer humorous lunacy. (Ralph Morrissey, 1953)

The Boston scramble starts with a casual bet that one Leverett Bengay, a well known man about town, cannot shadow an unsuspecting citizen for 24 hours. [Homer] Evans gets in on the bet that the amateur sleuth will fumble the ball, then does a fulltime job himself, picking up a murder to solve in the process. It is, indeed, as the book jacket says, a mad and merry murder maze … mostly maze. (1953)