Strip For Murder

Shell Scott, a not-so-private investigator, has a new type of case; he has to bare it all. But this case requires no fancy P.I. accessories...in fact, it doesn’t require any accessories: he’s got to find a murderer in a nudist colony. Experienced nudists and adventurous visitors frolic about the colony—-oh, and so does a deranged killer. Wearing nothing but his gun, Shell has to reveal the murderer in this entrancing mystery novel...and that’s the naked truth. One of Prather's personal favorites! Strip for Murder is the 12th book in the Shell Scott Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Colorful characters with murderous motives populate this illustrated mystery in which the heated rivalry between a pair of cartoonists ends in homicide and a stripper-turned-detective and her stepson-partner seek the killer. "Great fun." — Mystery Scene.

In 1953 Manhattan, the Broadway musical version of Hal Rapp's Tall Paul, one of America's most popular comic strips, is threatened by the animosity of Rapp's long-time rival, cartoonist Sam Fizer, and the casting of Fizer's wife, Misty Winters, in the play, a situation that is worsened when Fizer turns up murdered, with all of the evidence making Rapp the prime suspect. Original.

Why is it so much fun to read about death and dismemberment? In Murder Book, lifelong true-crime obsessive and New Yorker cartoonist Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell tries to puzzle out the answer. An unconventional graphic exploration of a lifetime of Ann Rule super-fandom, amateur armchair sleuthing, and a deep dive into the high-profile murders that have fascinated the author for decades, this is a funny, thoughtful, and highly personal blend of memoir, cultural criticism, and true crime with a focus on the often-overlooked victims of notorious killers.

STRIP FOR MURDER Mark Bellew presents himself as a Theatrical Representative, but what he really does is supply strippers for private parties. Years ago he made a mistake, and one of his girls was raped, then killed herself. He got out of the business for a while, but realizing that this is the only business he knows, he now keeps a small office just off Wilshire Boulevard. But someone who knows about his past is now sending him threatening letters. The only person Bellew can ask to investigate these letters is Ed Warne, an insurance adjustor who shares the upper floor with him. Warne agrees to do some checking but gets more than he bargains for-because whoever is writing the letters has now committed murder. And who knows how far they'll go to settle this old score. Also included are two Dolores Hitchens stories from the pages of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.