Dead Man's Diary and A Taste for Cognac(1959)

Brett Halliday

A double shot of iconic Miami PI Mike Shayne--"one of the best of the tough sleuths" (The New York Times).

Dead Man's Diary: Florida private investigator Mike Shayne's in New Orleans at the behest of a distraught wife whose war-hero husband, Jasper Groat, has gone missing--along with his diary, a harrowing soon-to-be-published daily account of being set adrift in a lifeboat with two shipmates. Rumor has it it's also an incriminating confessional. With two corpses--and counting--it looks to Shayne like someone would prefer if Jasper and his damning revelations had been buried at sea.

A Taste for Cognac: One minute, PI Mike Shayne's having a quick afternoon cocktail in a Miami dive. The next, he's been solicited to investigate an intoxicating conspiracy involving the parole of an aging bootlegger, a secretive old sea captain tortured to death, a missing female reporter, and two dozen bottles of prewar cognac--vintage, valuable, and apparently worth killing for. If anybody can pop the cork on this case, it's Shayne.

Brett Halliday's "fast‐paced world of violence, intrigues, complex twists and voluptuous women" inspired film, radio, and television adaptations, as well as the long-running Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine (The New York Times).