Showing results by author "Richard S. Prather" in All Categories

J. Harrison Bing after receiving no word from his daughter in nearly a year, went to her home in L.A. only to find she had sold the home and left without a trace. He hired a Los Angeles P. I. named William Carter to track her down and after calling from Vegas, he also disappeared. Now it is Shell Scott's turn. Assuming a simple case of finding a missing person, Shell finds out the hard way that he has bitten into an elephant.

Shell Scott, the shamus who has Sherlock whirling in his grave...the wacky knight-errant of gorgeous gals who leaves a trail of beautiful bodies behind him (not all of em dead)...the private eye who's every killer's public enemy.... This is the first book in this action-packed mystery series. The Case of the Vanishing Beauty began when one beauty vanished from sight and another died in a hail of bullets. Next on the murder list was lovely Lina....

"....I didn't like it. But hey, that's what I'm hired to do. I deal daily with murder and mayhem. The real problem was when I had to go undercover and UNCOVERED in a nudist camp, or as they called themselves 'naturalist'. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against naked, especially when it comes in the form of one gorgeous blond tomato, but how did they expect me to protect anyone, when I have nowhere to conceal my gun?"

"I've practically made a career out of babes, but this one really hit me. She had a shape like a three-dimensional dream, and I hugged that vision with my mind. Right from that first glance I had memorized her. She was the key - uhm - 'figure' in a sensational investigation leading all the way to the U.S. Congress. And me? I'm the shamus prepared to pursue both her and the clues to the ends of the earth, if only for the rear view."

“The strait jacket’s canvas held my arms tight. My six-two was horizontal on a stretcher and the two bruisers carried it and my 205 pounds easily down the long corridor. I was confused as modern art, and being in this stupid asylum didn’t help. I was dumped onto a bed, yelling like a fiend. A needle, a stinging sensation in my neck and it was lights out for me. I awoke with a light beaming upon my face. A blade moved upward through the beam of light. And suddenly I was wide awake, thinking: This idiot is about to stab me! Me? I’m Shell Scott private eye and I’m in a lot of trouble...”

I'm no music lover and, what's more, I was the rascal they were dying to kill. Me. Shell Scott. "Where there's death, there's hope" - that was gangdom's newest slogan. I was measured for a grave and I was supposed to share it with a gorgeous redhead named Coral.

Constanza Carmocha was unarmed - that is, she didn't have a gun. Well, she really didn't need one, either. Because she had all the weapons that have ruined men from time immemorial or better said - time immoral. One unlucky guy ended up with his throat slit because of her, and another was about to be bumped off. Shell Scott was sure to get to the bottom of this deadly dame....

"There was a fire in her eyes that was scorching me - me, who couldn't tell whether a dame wanted to kiss me or kill me! No matter how you look at it, 36-22-35 are magic numbers. They have a real message for me. I'm Shell Scott, the private eye, and I'm very good at figures. You might say I follow them very carefully. I've been following this one for several days and learned her name is Sherry. I hated to think she was mixed in murder. But somebody was planning to send me to my friendly neighborhood mortician and I had to find out who - or die trying."

"'I'm trying to get back in shape,'" she said. Man, if her shape got any better she'd be banned for just walking down the street. I'm Shell Scott, private eye, and my job was to guard her day - yeah, and night. I didn't have a chance to discuss these points with her because I saw the man walking toward us. There was only one of him but he seemed to outnumber me. He was so big I was surprised his feet didn't leave holes behind him in the concrete. "Shell Scott," he rumbled. "Shake." I hardly dared....

'The scarlet bikini which had covered a minimum of the eye-popping curves on the dead woman, lay at her feet, and my eyes focussed on her as glassily as did the dead man’s next to her. He was dead, all right. He had been shot, poisoned, stabbed, and strangled. Either somebody really had it in for him or four people had killed him. Or else it was the cleverest suicide I’d ever heard of. Me? I’m Shell Scott, private detective and I’m wondering why anybody in his right mind would commit such a complicated murder....'

Shell Scott is hired to help State Senator Paul Hershey gather information against Joe Blake, one of the biggest crooks Los Angeles has ever produced. Joe Blake is the kingpin behind the opposition party to Paul Hershey’s re-election. Blake is backing the candidate against Hershey, a Blake pawn, and using smear and innuendo in an increasingly vicious campaign. Hershey’s only defense against this onslaught is to get the information that will put Blake behind bars. That’s where Shell Scott comes in.

"I'm Shell Scott, a private investigator with 20-20 vision, particularly when I have a 36-22-36 assignment. This assignment was a chaste girl who was being chaste-by me. And I was being chased, too, by an unfriendly hired gun who wanted to make me a headline on the obituary page. Gangdom's funeral directors had decided I was going to be their next client."

They say that even the strongest man secretly wants to feel wanted. He even hopes to have some woman take care of him. Well, my cup was running over. Me? I’m Shell Scott, the human target for every gun in the State of California. And that’s no private eyewash...I was made to feel wanted all right...by the city, county and state police. And there was a woman with a nasty little .32 in her tiny hand, well she was just dying to take care of me, permanently. Everywhere I turned, somebody was trying to help me plan what to do with the rest of my life....

Amador Montalba, Mexico City guide, and good friend of Shell Scott, alerts Scott to a wealthy woman in Mexico City who needs help. Shell is in Mexico City winding up another case and decides to follow up on the lead. Senora Lopez, wife of a prominent Mexican General, was secretly filmed during an extra-marital sex liaison with another man. After several payoffs to a blackmailer, she decides to turn the case over to Shell Scott. But the case is not one of simple blackmail. Communists appear to be involved.

Shell Scott's mental contemplation was rudely interrupted when his office door was suddenly opened and an unpleasant little man walked in with a .45 caliber automatic pointed right at Shell's midsection. Unknown to Shell Scott, some guy named Sader wanted Shell eliminated permanently. Why, is the question

A rash of hit and run deaths in Los Angeles has the press in an uproar. The police have no clue as to the primary cause and the deceased are all men who appear to have been brutalized prior to the time of the accident. But there are other aspects to the case and Shell Scott has been hired by a not so upstanding night club owner to investigate.