Michael Shayne

Created By Brett Halliday
Pseudonym of Davis Dresser, who also wrote as Asa Baker, Mathew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Peter Field, Anthony Scott, Anderson Wayne
(1904-1977)

One of the most popular private detectives ever, red-haired Miami P.I. MICHAEL SHAYNE has had a long, successful, multi-media career. Shayne made his debut in the 1939 novel, Dividend on Death, by Brett Halliday (a pen name of Davis Dresser). Dresser went on to write fifty more Shayne novels as Halliday (with occasional help from ghostwriters such as Ryerson Johnson). Twenty-seven more were written by Robert Terrall and published as paperback originals by Dell, still under the pseudonym Brett Halliday, reaching a tally of 77 novels.

But that’s not counting the 300 or more short stories, a dozen films, radio and television shows, a few comic book appearances and even a play. And a beer.

Not bad for a series whose first novel was reportedly rejected by twenty-one publishers before finally being accepted by Henry Holt & Co. in 1939. The series went on to be highly successful, reprinted in many editions and translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Japanese and Hebrew.

No wonder more than one wag has ventured to call Mike the “Generic Private Eye. That, however,” may be missing the point. The Everyman Detective might be more apt.

According to author L.J. Washburn:

“Shayne may have ended up that way, but he certainly didn’t start out like that. The first half-dozen or so Shayne novels are unlike anything else in the genre I’ve read, a cross between hard-boiled private eye, screwball comedy, and fair-play detection. The screwball angle comes from Phyllis Shayne, Mike Shayne’s beautiful young wife, and their relationship is much like what would have happened if Sam Spade had married Pam North (for those of you who remember Pam and Jerry North).

I think L.J. may be overselling the “comedy” angle, but the books are generally very well plotted, and pleasantly (sometimes bewideringly) complex, if surprisingly traditional in the early entries, with Shayne even occasionally gathering all the suspects together in the end to explain the crime and name the murderer, just like Nero Wolfe or Ellery Queen.

However, Phyllis (née Brighton) was something of a limited character, so Dresser got her out of town (and off screen) in a couple of the books, then finally bumped her off when he sold the movie rights to the series — right about the time the series took a more hard-boiled turn. But don’t think Shayne wasn’t hard-boiled from the start. It was the tricky, twisty plots themselves that couldn’t keep pace — Shayne was plenty hard; a big, hulking redhead with a taste for fisticuffs and brandy (ice water on the side) and an eye for a quick buck; an angle player more than willing to pit the cops and the crooks against each other — particularly if he could stick it to Peter Painter, the Miami Beach police chief. And if he had to fake evidence or cajole a witness, well… he could always count on Will Gentry, Miami Chief of Police, and Tim Rourke, ace reporter for the Miami Daily News, to help him smooth over the rough bits.

Having Phyllis killed off, ironically, led to what some consider the best (or at least darkest) book in the series, Blood on the Black Market (aka Heads You Lose), in which all the comedy angles and con games disappear and Shayne has to deal with Phyllis’s death. Shayne’s characterization in this book is a definite forerunner to such characters as Pronzini’s Nameless and Block’s Matt Scudder.

Once Phyllis was disposed of, Halliday introduced Lucy Hamilton, who served as Mike’s secretary, sometime romantic interest and occasional foil for most of the rest of the series. But Halliday had learned his lesson — despite their lengthy courtship, he never married Shayne off again.

“Of course, after that the Shayne novels do tend to become more standard private eye fare, but I think some of those early novels are very worth of rediscovery,” L.J. Washburn says.

One of those other early novels worth investigating is She Woke to Darkness (1954), wherein Shayne is hired to find an author who’s disappeared while attending a crime writer’s convention. Halliday being one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America, it’s a great opportunity to lampoon (and occasionally pay tribute to) other mystery writers, both real and imagined, and one hell of a book-within-a-book burrow into the writing process. Plus, but it’s the first Shayne novel to be narrated in first person. Not by the detective, though, but by… Brett Halliday himself, who is of course attending the convention, and has been accused of murder. He’s also the author that Shayne’s looking for.

Washburn can certainly claim to know her stuff, having written, or co-written (with her husband, fellow crime writer James M. Reasoner) thirty-seven Mike Shayne stories under the pseudonym of Brett Halliday for Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine (later to be known as Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine) which had been introduced in 1956 by Renown Publications. It continued for almost three decades as one of the few digests to offer detective fiction of a noticeably harder type than was generally available. Each issue featured a Mike Shayne story by “Brett Halliday,” ranging from 7500 word short stories to 20,000 word novellas. Not that “Brett” limited himself to his own magazine–stories featuring Mike popped up in everything from other pulps and digests, such as Black Mask and Mammoth Mystery to “men’s” magazines such as Stag and Argosy.

By this time, however, “Brett Halliday” was not Davis Dresser–he had started to commission other writers, several of them quite accomplished detective writers themselves, to pen some of the Shayne books in 1958, and he stopped writing them completely after selling the series to Dell in 1964. These ghostwriters included Dennis Lynds (aka Michael Collins, the most prolific, with 88 stories), Sam Merwin Jr. (the magazine’s first editor), the previously mentioned Washburn and Reasoner, as well as Michael Avallone, Richard Deming, Robert Turner, Robert Arthur, Frank Belknap Long, Edward Y. Breese, Peter Germano, and the writing teams of Bill Pronzini & Jeff Wallman and Hal Blythe & Charlie Sweet (Hal Charles).

And so the books continued for almost twenty more years, while the short stories and novellas regularly appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine well into the eighties. A big part of the serie’s longevity, it could be argued, was due to the formula Halliday had concocted back in 1939, and to which he had faithfully adhered during his tenure as Shayne’s writer: to imbue the stories with a certain a certain timeless quality.

FILMS

But no matter who was doing the writing, Michael Shayne proved to be a popular character, not only in print, but in film, radio and even television.

In 1940, Michael Shayne, Private Detective, the first of a what would turn out to be a long string of films, was released with Lloyd Nolan playing Shayne, now based in New York City, as a cocky, wise-cracking chucklehead. The comedic elements of the novels, such as they were, were definitely played up, with Shayne and Phyllis going at it in madcap screwball fashion, and Peter Painter along for the ride, as well.

The film was based primarily of the Halliday novel, The Private Practise of Michael Shayne (1940), but it would be the last time one of the Shayne novels would ever be used as source material. Instead, novels by other crime writers were used, including Chandler, Frederick Nebel and Richard Burke; shoehorned into the Shayne mantle, much to Halliday’s dismay.

As a result, neither Phyllis or Painter were never seen again in subsequent films, although assorted girlfriends and wrongheaded cops seemed to be always on hand to complicate Shayne’s life.

Lloyd appeared in seven films for 20th Century Fox, and in 1946, Hugh Beaumont (who would later star in television’s Leave It to Beaver) took over the role for PRC. The PRC films were a definite step down in quality (and budget), but they did bring back Chief Will Gentry and Tim Rourke, as well as Phyllis Hamilton, a composite of sorts of Phyllis and Lucy.

RADIO

A radio show featuring Mike debuted on the Don Lee Network in October 1944 with Wally Maher in the lead. Although mystery writer Brett Halliday got the credit for creating this detective and bringing him to radio, he never actually wrote any scripts — although he was happy enough to pick up the royalty checks. There were three separate versions of this show over the years, and most of them took liberties with the source material, particularly when it camer to tone and setting, with Shayne headquartered in Oakland, New Orleans and finally back in miami.

In October 1946 it went coast-to-coast, lasting until November 1947. It was resurrected on Mutual in July 1948, under the title of The New Adventures of Michael Shayne with Jeff Chandler in the lead, and ran for two years. The last version began in October 1952 on ABC, first with Donald Curtis playing Shayne, and later with Robert Sterling. This third and last series went off the air in July 1953.

In all versions, Shayne was “that reckless, red-headed Irishman” Halliday originally described, who used brain and brawn equally, though the writers tended to have Mike take the physical approach to solving most problems. Easier to write, I guess. His assistant, a lovely blonde named Phyl Knight, was not prominent in most of the episodes.

TELEVISION

In 1960, Michael Shayne having pretty much conquered almost every other medium, moved onto television, with Richard Denning, who had previously starred in Mr. and Mrs. North, stepping into the gumshoes of Shayne. Patricia Donahue played Lucy Hamilton, but was replaced by Margie Regan about halfway through the show’s first (and only) season.Lieutenant Will Gentry of the Miami Police Department and Tim Rourke of the Miami Tribune were also regulars, as was Dick Hamilton, Lucy’s kid brother, a character who was never in Halliday’s novels.

A few of the shows, however, were actually based on the books (or at least named for them), and a number of episodes were penned by William Link and Richard Levinson. The biggest problem for me? Nice guy Denning was simply too mild-mannered and soft to convincingly play the hard-boiled, conniving Shayne.

COMICS

Turns out there was one more field to conquer, after all. The television show proved popular enough to spin off a Dell comic book tie-in. Surprisingly, perhaps, at least some of the comic stories were actually based on Brett Halliday novels, and not merely adaptations of T.V. episodes. The first issue adapted The Private Practice of Michael Shayne; the second adapted Bodies Are Where You Find Them, wherein a woman ends up dead in Shayne’s bed amid speculation on what she was doing there in the first place (They always claimed “Dell Comics are GOOD comics.”); and the third issue featured Heads…You Lose, where Phyllis dies in childbirth. I’ve always wondered what made Dell choose to go this route. Those early Halliday novels contained material that wasn’t normally found in “good” comics — drugs abounded, adultery was rampant, and the shortages in America during World War II were noted. And having the hero’s wife die in childbirth? Not your typical comic book fare. Dell made similar decisions with Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct comics.

UNDER OATH

“…almost as repellent as Dashiell Hammett”
—The New York Times on Dividend on Death (October 1, 1946)
“Mike Shayne… get results, but his methods are, to say the least, questionable.”
—The New York Times on Tickets for Death (April 27, 1941)
“A typical Michael Shayne yarn with violent action on every other page. The pages in between are reserved for alcoholic refreshment.”
—The New York Times on The Corpse Came Calling (August 2, 1942)
Michael Shayne of Miami is certainly one of the best of the tough sleuths, and the stories about him are tops in the tough class… if you are not a Shayne fan already, these tasles will make you one — provided that you like ’em swift and tough.”
—The New York Times on Michael Shayne Takes Over (omnibus edition of first four novels) (October 11, 1942)

THE EVIDENCE

“With your nerve, I’d hate to have a tooth pulled.”
— Phyllis in 1940 film version of Michael Shayne: Private Detective

NOVELS

Dividend on Death (1939) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
The Private Practice of Michael Shayne (1940) | Kindle it!
The Uncomplaining Corpses (1940) | Kindle it!
Tickets for Death (1941) | Kindle it!
Bodies are Where You Find Them (1941) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
The Corpse Came Calling (1942) | Kindle it!
Murder Wears a Mummer’s Mask (1943; aka “In a Deadly Vein”) | Kindle it!
Blood on the Black Market (1943; aka “Heads You Lose”) | Kindle it!
Michael Shayne’s Long Chance (1944) | Kindle it!
Murder and the Married Virgin (1944) | Kindle it!
Murder is My Business (1945) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
Marked for Murder (1945) | Kindle it!
Blood on Biscayne Bay (1946) | Kindle it!
Counterfeit Wife (1947) | Kindle it!
Blood on the Stars (1948) | Kindle it!
A Taste for Violence (1949) | Kindle it!
Call for Michael Shayne (1949) | Kindle it!
This is It, Michael Shayne (1950) | Kindle it!
Framed in Blood (1951) | Kindle it!
What Really Happened (1952) | Kindle it!
When Dorinda Dances (1951) | Kindle it!
One Night with Nora (1953) | Kindle it!
She Woke to Darkness (1954) | Kindle it!
Death Has Three Lives (1955) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
Stranger in Town (1955) | Kindle it!
The Blonde Cried Murder (1956) | Kindle it!
Weep for a Blonde (1957) | Kindle it!
Shoot the Works (1957) | Kindle it!
Murder and the Wanton Bride (1958) | Kindle it!
Fit to Kill (1958) | Kindle it!
Date with a Dead Man (1959) | Kindle it!
Target: Michael Shayne (1959) | Kindle it!
Die Like a Dog (1959) | Kindle it!
Murder Takes No Holiday (1960) | Kindle it!
Dolls are Deadly (1960)
The Homicidal Virgin (1960) | Kindle it!
Killers from the Keys (1961) | Kindle it!
Murder in Haste (1961) | Kindle it!
The Careless Corpse (1961) | Kindle it!
Pay-Off in Blood (1962) | Kindle it!
Murder by Proxy (1962) | Kindle it!
Never Kill a Client (1962) | Kindle it!
Too Friendly, Too Dead (1962) | Kindle it!
The Corpse that Never Was (1963) | Kindle it!
The Body Came Back (1963) | Kindle it!
A Redhead for Michael Shayne (1964) | Kindle it!
Shoot to Kill (1964) | Kindle it!
Michael Shayne’s 50th Case (1964) | Kindle it!
The Violent World of Michael Shayne (1965)
Nice Fillies Finish Last (1965)
Murder Spins the Wheel (1966)
Armed…Dangerous… (1966)
Mermaid on the Rocks (1967)
Guilty as Hell (1967)
So Lush, So Deadly (1968)
Violence is Golden (1968)
Lady, Be Bad (1969)
Six Seconds to Kill (1970)
Fourth Down to Death (1970)
Count Backwards to Zero (1971)
I Come to Kill You (1971)
Caught Dead (1972)
Kill All the Young Girls (1973)
Blue Murder (1973)
Last Seen Hitchhiking (1974)
At the Point of a .38 (1974)
Million Dollar Handle (1976)
Win Some, Lose Some (1976)

SHORT STORIES & NOVELLAS

All published as by “Brett Halliday”
“Death Rides a Winner” (January 6, 1940, Detective Fiction Weekly)
“Corpse on the Loose” (July 1941, Detective Fiction Weekly)
“Death Goes to the Post” (January 1943, Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine)
“Death Goes to the Post” (1943; also 1959, Murder in Miami)
“A Taste for Cognac” (November 1944, Black Mask)
“The Dead Don’t Cry” (December 1944, Thrilling Detective)
“Murder Is My Business” (July 1945, Mystery Book Magazine)
“Don’t Fence Me Out” (August 1945, Mammoth Detective)
“Dead Man’s Diary” (September 1945, Black Mask)
“The Vanishing Blonde” (December 1945, Mystery Book Magazine)
“Blood on Biscayne Bay” (July 1946, Mystery Book Magazine)
“Dinner at Dupre’s” (September 1946, Mystery Book Magazine)
“The Counterfeit Wife” (May 17, 1947, Star Weekly)
“Murder Is a Habit” (Summer 1948, Mystery Book Magazine)
“Murder Before Midnight” (March 1950, Popular Detective)
“A Taste for Cognac” (1951)
Published as part of Dell’s 10-cent paperback line
“The Naked Frame” (February 1953, Bluebook)
“Dead Man’s Code” (Nov 28 1954, This Week; aka “Not–Tonight–Danger”; by Helen McCloy)
“Bring Back a Corpse” (September, 1956, MSMM)
The very first issue of MSMM
“Payoff Girl” (December 1956, Stag)
“Not-Tonight-Danger (unknown; also 1992, The Armchair Detective)
“Weep for a Blonde, Part 1” (February 1957, MSMM)
“Weep for a Blonde, Part 2” (April 1957, MSMM)
“Weep for a Blonde, Part 3” (June 1957, MSMM)
“Target for Trouble” (March/April 1958, MSMM [Australian edition])
“Death Dives Deep” (January 1959, MSMM; by Robert Arthur; also 1961, Mike Shayne’s Torrid Twelve)
“Target: Mike Shayne” (April 1959, MSMM)
Later expanded into novel of same name
“Bullet for a Blonde” (March 1960, MSMM)
“Odds on Murder” (April 1960, MSMM)
“A Case for Michael Shayne” (May 1960, MSMM)
“The Debt of Death” (June 1960, MSMM)
“Murder on Jungle Key” (July 1960, MSMM)
“Blood of an Orange” (August 1960, MSMM)
“The Homicidal Virgin” (October 1960, MSMM)
Later expanded into novel of same name.
“Murder in Haste” (March 1961, Argosy)
“The Careless Corpse” (August 1961, Argosy)
“The Deadly Stripper” (January 1962, Man’s Magazine)
“Payoff in Blood” (January 1962, Argosy)
“Murder by Proxy” (June 1962, Argosy)
“The Friendly Corpse” (September 1962, MSMM; by Dennis Lynds)
Later expanded into Shayne novel Too Friendly, Too Dead
“The Guilty Bystander” (October 1962, MSMM)
“The Girl Cried Murder” (November 1962, MSMM)
“Never Kill a Client” (November 1962, Argosy)
“Strip for Death” (1962, Man’s Magazine Fall Annual; a reprint of “The Deadly Stripper”)
“The Fourth Man” (February 1963, MSMM)
“Gallows Highway” (March 1963, MSMM)
“The Corpse That Never Was” (May 1963, Argosy)
“Death of a Dead Man” (June 1963, MSMM; by Dennis Lynds; also 1964, Mink is for a Minx)
“The Body Came Back, Part 1” (December 1963, MSMM)
“The Body Came Back, Part 2” (January 1964, MSMM)
“The Milk Run Murder” (February 1964, MSMM)
“The Body Came Back, Part 3” (February 1964, MSMM)
“Drink Up–And Die!” (March 1964, MSMM)
“A Redhead for Mike Shayne” (March 1964, Argosy)
“String of Pearls” (May 1965, MSMM)
“Inside Job” (June 1965, MSMM)
“Shoot to Kill” (July 1964, Argosy)
“Murder Spins the Wheel” (January 1966, Argosy)
“Armed, Dangerous” (July 1966, Argosy)
“Guilty as Hell” in ARGOSY, April 1967, Argosy)
“So Lush, So Deadly” (January 1968, Argosy)
A Wild Young Corpse” (January 1970, MSMM)
“Twas the Night Before Murder” (February 1970, MSMM)
“Count Downward to Zero” (April 1971, Argosy)
“Shadow of Fear” (January 1972, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“Sweet Dreams–Of Death” (February 1972, MSMM)
“A Man of Violence” (March 1972, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“Danger–Michael Shayne at Work” (April 1972, MSMM; by Bill Pronzini & Jeff Wallman; their only Shayne story for MSMM)
“Blood Runs Red” (June 1972, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
‘To Kill a Cop” (August 1972, MSMM; by David Mazroff)
“The Half Million Dollar Diamond Caper” (September 1972, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Mafia Pays a Ransom” (November 1972, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“Kill Mike Shayne” (1972, MSMM Annual)
“The Spy Who Came Home” (January 1973, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Harmless Killer” (February 1973, MSMM)
“Murder at Dondo Beach” (March 1973, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Strychnine Smile” (May 1973, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“Snatch a Dead Man…” (July 1973, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“Short Cut to Murder” (September 1973, MSMM)
“Blue Murder” (October 1973, MSMM)
“Death Strolls in Flamingo Park” (November 1973, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Las Vegas Courier” (1973, MSMM Annual; by Max van derVeer)
“Death of an Innocent” (January 1974; by Max van derVeer)
“Double Date with Death” (March 1974; by Max van derVeer)
“A Perfect Woman to Murder” (May 1974, MSMM)
“Who Killed Baby Sister” (June 1974, MSMM)
“Death Rides The Black Market” (July 1974, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Murder of a Ghost” (August 1974, MSMM)
“The Clue of the Peking Man” (September 1974, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“Three Dolls, Three Caskets” (March 1975, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“Timetable for Terror” (June 1975, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Rich Die, Too” (October 1975, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Bleeding Shadows” (February 1976, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Corpse That Walked Away” (March 1976, MSMM)
“Crime Without Punishment” (April 1976, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“The Bronze Statue Murders” (August 1976, MSMM; by Max van derVeer)
“A Climate for Murder” (September 1976, by Max van derVeer)
“A Pattern for Terror” (April 1978, MSMM)
“Night of the White Hunter” (May 1978, MSMM)
“Diamonds Are Deadly” (January 1980, MSMM)
“Murder by the Bay” (February 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Payoff in Blood” (March 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“The Golden Buddha Caper” (April 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“The Bedlam File” (May 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Murder in Paradise” (June 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Encore for Death” (July 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“The Viper Conspiracy” (August 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Yesterday’s Angel” (September 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner & L. J. Washburn)
“Mayhem in the Magic City” (October 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner & L. J. Washburn)
“Killer’s Eve” (November 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“All the Faces of Fear” (December 1980, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner & L. J. Washburn)
“Black Lotus” (January 1981, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Odds on Death” (February 1981, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Three Strikes-You’re Dead!” (March 1981, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“The Stalker of Biscayne Bay” (May ‘1981, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner & L. J. Washburn)
“Byline for Murder” (June 1981, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Death from the Sky” (July 1981, MSMM)
“Killer’s Cruise” (September 1981, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“The Full Moon Means Murder” (October 1981, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“A Cry in the Night” (November 1981, MSMM; by L. J. Washburn)
“Death in the Dailies” (December 1981, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Beautiful But Dead” (January 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Doomsday Island” (February 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Havoc in High Places” (March 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Deadly Queen” (April 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“The Medici Casket” (May 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“The Assassination of Michael Shayne” (June 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Book of the Dead” (July 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Deadly Visitor” (August 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Death in Texas” (September 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Murder from Beyond the Grave” (October 1982, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Terror Resort” (November 1982, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“The Black Death” (December 1982, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“The Return of the Beach Butcher” (January 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“A Dirty Business” (February 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Search and Destroy” (March 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Shadow of Death” (April 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“The Hunting of Mike Shayne” (May1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Murder in Paradise” (June 1983, MSMM)
“Deadly Memories” (July 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Graven Image” (August 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Hellhole” (September 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Death Stalks the Campus” (October 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Death on Skull Mountain” (November 1983, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Silent Death” (December 1983, MSMM)
“Dead Ringer” (January 1984, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Sandcastles” (February 1984, MSMM)
“All in a Day’s Work” (March 1984, MSMM; with “Mike Shayne;” by Tim Rourke)
“Yesterday’s Hero” (May 1984, MSMM)
“Day of Revenge” (April 1984, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Devil Dust and Death” (June 1984, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Sharks” (July 1984, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Shadows of the Past” (August 1984, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Key of Death” (September 1984, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Killing Time” (October 1984, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Death Takes a Pilgrimage” (November 1984, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Fishing for Murder” (December 1984, MSMM; by James M. Reasoner)
“Death Tops the Charts” (January 1985, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“The Quick and the Dead” (February 1985, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Deadly Visions” (March 1985, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Thy Will Be Done” (May 1985, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“The Sting of Death” (June 1985, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“A Night in Hell” (July 1985, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)
“Wilde Weekend” (August 1985, MSMM; by Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet)

COLLECTIONS

Michael Shayne Investigates (1943)
Michael Shayne Takes a Hand (1944)
Michael Shayne’s Triple Mystery (1948)
Michael Shayne Takes Over (1941) | Buy the book
Omnibus edition collects first four novels.
Dead Man’s Diary and A Taste for Cognac (1945) | Kindle it!
Dead Man’s Diary and Dinner at Dupree’s (1950)