A target's wife makes a cold-hearted assassin question his work The hitman adjusts his rifle sight in an apartment across the street from his mark. For thirty minutes he peers through his scope, watching the man he is about to kill. He waits patiently, for assassinations demand focus. One bullet is all he needs. When the job is done, he disappears.   This is an ordinary working day for Richard Breckner, a hired gun on the payroll of one of America's...

An insurance investigator chases a vanished heiress- and a huge payday One of the richest girls on Park Avenue is missing. Cynthia Brandon left her father's apartment on Monday, and three days later has not been seen anywhere on the respectable side of town. She may have been kidnapped, or murdered. Or she may have simply gotten bored with her pampered life in a twenty-two-room apartment, and split.   Harvey Krim wouldn't care about Cynthia if it...

Targeted by a mysterious conspiracy, a clever young woman fights back If Shirley is surprised that someone wants to kill her, she does not let the gunmen know. As far as she knows, Shirley is no different from any other employee at the Bushwick Brothers plastics factory. So why has she been forced from her home and shoved into the front seat of a kidnapper's car?   There is no time to wonder why. Shirley Campbel has not cried since she was ten, and...

A small-town girl flees from the assassin she hired to kill her When the doctor in her small hometown tells Sally Dillman that she has six months to live, the quiet young schoolteacher sells her house and moves to New York City. She comes not to see the sights, not for one last thrill, but to die as quickly as possible. Savings in hand, she pays a mobster $3,000 to put a contract out on her life. She wants to be killed before leukemia saps her strength,...

Detective Masuto investigates a Hollywood kidnapping that leads to a shocking conspiracy Angel is Hollywood royalty. Her husband, Mike Barton, is one of the silver screen's most bankable stars, and their marriage has all the hallmarks of a Beverly Hills fairy tale. But everything about Angel's past is kept secret, including her real name. When reporters ask why Mike dubbed her Angel, she says that she must have fallen from heaven. No one knows where...

Detective Masuto investigates a string of strange Southern California crimes that lead all the way back to Nazi Germany Returning from a funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Briggs find their Beverly Hills mansion ransacked. As they wait for the police, they discover something unusual: Despite the chaos, nothing appears to be missing-a fact that greatly interests Beverly Hills police detective Masao Masuto. But the Zen detective only has a few minutes to ponder...

A rare California deluge unearths a hidden body-and a decades-old crime Rain has spoiled Masao Masuto's vacation. For six days the storm has trapped the Zen Buddhist detective and his family inside their Los Angeles cottage. By the morning of his vacation's final day, he is so stir crazy that the call to come to work is a relief. Detective Masuto knows no better cure for boredom than a puzzling murder.   Nothing remains of the deceased man but his...

A hard-boiled insurance investigator upends New York in search of a perfect diamond necklace Death follows the Sarbine necklace. Its eleven diamonds are flawless, and all cut from the same stone-one of the largest ever unearthed from the mines of South Africa. But lately this most elegant piece of jewelry has become a bad luck charm. Its original owner killed himself, and his daughter, who was meant to inherit the piece at eighteen, died shortly after....