It’s the 1ate 1950s and Shayne’s reporter friend Tim Rourke is on vacation in a Latin American country with a corrupt government when he meets a beautiful blonde claiming to have hot information.
Shayne is at the airport to meet Rourke, who acts out of character. Then Rourke is kidnapped while the girl disappears and Shayne is left with a lot of questions and a typewriter.
The story is okay, it’s not as good as the other two Shayne mysteries I’ve read, but Halliday provides your expected dose of mayhem, danger, and beautiful blondes.
This one suffered for having Shayne out of the picture for the first 30 percent of the book. Rourke isn’t a fun point of view character. Plus in the middle of the book, Rourke gets kind of drunk and those scenes read like poor imitation of Craig Rice’s Mr. Malone. The solution is all a bit unsurprising and it wasn’t well set up.
Overall, Mike Shayne is still good and it’s not a bad read, but Halliday had produced far better books than this one.
Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0
The copy I read plus another Michael Shayne mystery are available on request with the first donation received of $50 or more for listeners in the US or Canada. See details here.
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