Kill Now, Pay Later

She had a glass in one hand, a champagne bottle in the other, and trouble splashed all over her lovely lush body. Something hit me . . . and I blacked out. Right at the wrong time.

The next thing I knew, a not-so-friendly voice belonging to an even less friendly police lieutenant was saying, "Crocked to the gills, lipstick all over your face, and two people dead because you don't know the meaning of the word responsibility. There is nothing I hate more than a lousy private eye, and before I'm finished with you I'm going to have your license."

The fog was rolling in my head. Funny, I thought. What would a cop want with a license to be a private eye? The fog cleared, but I couldn't laugh. The joke was on me.

One of the best private detective series in the "hard-boiled" genre. A must read for any fan of this style of writing.

"Ben Gates is one of few engaging new private investigators, wry, jaunty, saucy and literate."-NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE 1961