A top fashion model is found at a construction site, apparently shot to death. When it is discovered that she was drowned before she was shot, Burke tracks the case back to her ditzy landlady, and then to the heads of the ad agency she…
When a body is discovered dumped alongside the merry-go-round at an amusement park, clues (including a phone number on an old matchbook cover) lead back to the elusive millionaire Emory Flood. Burke is thwarted in his attempts to speak…
When big-game hunter Cable Roberts is found shot by one of his own rifles and ""mounted"" in his trophy room, the suspects include both Roberts' current wife (a predatory animal herself), his ex, an angry taxidermist, another hunter,…
Promoter Harris Crown is killed when the car he is driving goes off a cliff. Burke soon discovers that all the brake fluid had been drained and that the car belonged to Crown's wife (a race car enthusiast) who is involved in a charity…
Hemingwayesque novelist Julian Buck is found dead and Burke checks out the guests at his funeral: his publisher, a former boxer, an ex-lover (who he ""traded"" for a plot), a bartender, a crippled university professor, and a glamorous…
At the opening of The Debonair Key Club, a Playboy-like nightclub/restaurant, Debonair Magazine founder Alex Debbs is found stabbed. The suspects are all connected in some way with the Debonair empire, both the club and the magazine:…
Betsy Richards drinks a lethal martini and Burke investigates the Richards mansion, Betsy's three identical sisters (who may look alike, but who have decidedly different personalities), her wheelchair-bound (and possibly psychotic) aunt,…
Pop recording star Billy Jo Tate is slain in front of all his guests at a party celebrating his latest hit. A ""good-ol' boy"", Billy Jo is surrounded by users and people he used - his agent, his ""best buddy"", a smarmy astrologer, a…
When millionaire Wade Walker's plane explodes mid-air, Burke confronts Walker's business partner, secretary (whom Tim has an eye for), and the four women in his life (a model and beauty pageant queen, a society horse breeder, a starchy,…
Psychiatrist Eric Techman calls Burke to report that he fears one of his patients is a homicidal maniac who plans to kill him. Before he can identify the person in question, he is shot in the back. Burke convinces both Techman's…
A self-proclaimed witch sends Burke a record predicting her murder, along with a list of suspects. When her body is discovered after a fire, she has been disfigured by acid, leaving only a clue of a tattoo. The design of the tattoo…
A missing Siamese cat named Deborah is Burke's prime clue to the killing of Cynthia Royal. The murder victim had just arrived in town from Chicago trying to reunite with her estranged husband. The husband had been wooing a nightclub…
When an unidentified brunette is discovered in a fake electric chair at a run-down amusement park/sideshow run by ""Professor"" Kingston, Burke has to track several elusive clues back to a modeling agency and the three somewhat odd people…
Burke is attending a pool party at tycoon Victor Haggerty's mansion when dashing Beau Sparrow is thrown into the pool by a faulty diving apparatus and dies. The apparatus doesn't seem to have been tampered with and George McLeod can't…
When a shady businessman is found dead, fully clothed, in a hotel shower, surrounded by burned thousand dollar bills, Burke is confronted with a group of men who seem to have absolutely nothing in common - a shipbuilder with a musical…
At a jet-set party, it appears to Tim and Les that the victim of a fatal shooting is - - - - Burke! Was Burke really the victim and who was the shooter among the party guests: a wrestler, a racecar driver, a nightclub pianist, a…
When the president of a bank is shot during a robbery, the only description Burke can get of the killer is that he was ""just ordinary"". Burke interviews a man who passed out during the robbery, and hunts for clues with a local bookie.…
Hotshot lawyer Madison Cooper calls Burke as he dies in a seedy part of town of stab wounds inflicted elsewhere. He had just put a large amount of cash into a newspaper vending booth and Burke finds that Cooper was dying and had been…
Tim's mother is in town for a visit and provides several vital clues that solve the murder of April Adams. Tracking the victim to a carhop-style restaurant, Burke narrows the suspects to April's erratic brother, her cousin, her…
A group of ""junior cadets"" discover the body of a bikini-clad girl wrapped in chains, lying in the surf. The victim, a singer and sometime ""model"", has been linked to a oil tycoon, who is away on business, according to his alcoholic…
The Grand Duke, Maximilian Karol Alexandrei Kadarian, collapses at a banquet. The Grand Duke was famous locally as phony royalty, who owned a fabulous emerald necklace, now missing. The suspects include his former wife, his secretary,…
After a party celebrating his marriage to an Italian movie starlet, producer Marty Kelso falls down a flight of stairs and gets a letter opener stuck in his neck. His bodyguard/manservant calls the police and informs Burke that Kelso's…
Burke follows a mournful song, an odd-looking key and an elusive young girl in white, after industrial designer Avery Lord is stabbed to death. The suspects are all his current clients: a playgirl whose compact is found at the crime…
When pop artist Andy Zygmunt is discovered impaled on one of his works, Burke finds that several of Zygmunt's paintings contain materials used in a blackmail scheme. A vicious practical joker, the victim was hated by one and all: his…
During Chinese New Year celebrations, a car crashes into a street full of revelers. After the Chinese woman behind the wheel flees the scene with a little girl, leaving behind her shoe, a tourist discovers a dead body in the trunk.…
A rose-covered cottage is the scene for the death of a seemingly ordinary housewife. Burke and Tim (who is contemplating settling down with his current girlfriend) soon discover that all is not what it seems in suburbia. The dead…
One of the riders at a fashionable fox hunt must have bludgeoned wealthy W. H. O. IV (pronounced ""Who Four"") to death with a horseshoe. The suspects in the Hunt Club include an old flame of Burke's and her arrogant husband (who never…
When Annie Foran's body is discovered in the back seat of a car parked at a fashionable night spot, suspicion falls on baseball star Eddie Dineen. As evidence mounts against the man, Burke wonders if Eddie is really guilty. Perhaps he…
When an old flame of Burke's is gunned down, he uncovers the darker side of her relationship with several men. The former chauffeur for the victim's father, an old friend of the family, an philandering astronomer and his embittered wife,…
A notorious homewrecker is discovered dead in a mud bath at a fashionable spa. Burke soon learns that every other guest at the spa, including the owner, had a strong motive for murder. The strongest case is against the woman whose…
Don Pablo Ortega's skewered corpse replaces the wax figure in a museum during a Spanish festival. The historic plaza is in danger of being demolished for ""progress"" and suspects (pro and con in the matter) include the guide at the…
The co-owner of a fashion house is killed in an elevator collapse that may not have been an accident. Les is convinced that it is the work of a madman, since no one could have determined who would be in the elevator. In the midst of…
An up-and-coming actress dies while surfing, apparently from an obscure medieval poison. But how was it administered? When Burke is faced with an unfamiliar milieu, he sends Tim undercover as a surfer. The victim's grasping mother, a…
The burlesque comedy team of Witt, Watt and Who (now an accountant, a desk clerk and a bartender with a dark secret), a professor of the striptease, a tap dancer, the manager of a hotel for showfolk, a unicyclist - any one of them may…
After Cassandra Cass is shot in her bed (by a mysterious hooded figure) while her butler draws her bath, it is revealed that she has been blackmailing subscribers to her society Blue Book. One after another of the suspects (a deposed…
A sniper kills the head of a model agency during a fashionable lawn party. The suspects include the victim's business partner, his disc jockey brother, one of his top models and her estranged husband. During the course of the…
A showgirl jumps out of a cake at a stag party, only to discover all the guests dead. Each of the four wealthy men had a wife who had good reason to murder her own husband (one husband was abusive, one a ""weakling"", one was vulgar and…
Burke goes cowboy at a tourist-style Old West town, after the hanging of Emerson Cartwheel at a coin auction. The clue is a valuable rare coin used to kill the victim, but before Burke can investigate, he's tossed in the hoosegow by the…
A hotel tycoon is electrocuted while climbing out of his swimming pool. A scrap of plaid cloth from a coat lining and a St. Christopher's medal are Burke's clues as he investigates the passengers on a round-the-world flight the tycoon…
Wealthy Lenore is blown away by a shotgun blast while sailing on a barge in her pool, dressed as Cleopatra, and is discovered by one of the men she has befriended from the local mission. Wealthy after several marriages, but coming from…
A sniper fires through the window of the suite of the richest man in the world, who is planning on selling an oil lease to one of several bidders, each of whom was an expert marksman. Burke is informed that the bullet missed its intended…
The lead singer in a sister trio act is poisoned. Both the surviving sisters hated the victim, but others had motive as well: the nightclub owner, the trio's former arranger, the girls' agent, their stepfather, and a real estate agent…
Merlin the Great's famous escape-from-a-coffin trick backfires when it is discovered that he has been shot while ""buried"" in a hotel pool - but how was it done? and which of the rival magicians has a deadly trick up their sleeve? The…
This victim was scheduled to go before a grand jury but was slain in a hotel elevator before he could testify. The solution to the crime must be in his hotel room, 711, but in order to solve the case, Burke goes undercover as a maitre…
The five greatest detectives in the world become murder suspects when Police Chief Gaynor is murdered in a locked room right under the noses of his bodyguards - Tim and Les. As if that isn't bad enough, a huge diamond, belonging to one…
Someone seems to be systematically killing a group of individuals on a list. One name on the list - Amos Burke. What is the connection between these people? One possible suspect (who's name also appears on the list) is badly beaten, and…
A shipping tycoon's corpse is discovered draped over his yacht's anchor when it is hoisted out of the water. The tycoon's intended merger would ruin several of the guests on his current cruise. A large earring is a major clue - did it…
A famous wrestler is slain during a charity match and the killer is one of five people seated in the ""Gold Row"": the victim's sister (who has a split personality), his wrestling rival, a fashionable socialite, a ""method""…
The beloved author of a series of children's books is strangled with her typewriter ribbon. Burke determines that the victim meant to leave a clue by pointing to a page in a book of nursery rhymes. But who does the clue lead to: the…
Granny Grabber, the not-so-nice head of a toy firm, is blown sky high by a bomb placed in his giant toy soldier cigar lighter. The killer had to be one of five people who were photographed coming into his office that day (Granny was…
Why would anyone kill sweet old Rosie Sunset, who sold maps to the movie stars homes? An heiress who was seen giving Rosie a ride, Rosie's neighbor (a Russian sculptor with a sexy sister, whose work mysteriously has appeared in Rosie's…
An ace shot by a tennis star blows up in his face at a charity event, after one of his tennis balls has been loaded with explosives. Burke scours the local country club for clues while trying to avoid the ""help"" of an eager ball boy,…
A big business wheeler-dealer, formerly part of a carny consortium, meets his end after injesting cyanide - but he didn't eat or drink anything that had been tampered with. The suspects all formerly worked with the victim in the carnival…
Cowboy movie star Clayton Steele is grand marshall at the rodeo, but in the final parade, he rides into the arena, already dead, his neck broken. Burke questions his megalomaniac rival, his former stunt man, his ""Indian"" sidekick, a…
At Raff's International Circus, 13 clowns pile into a tiny car, but only 12 come out alive. The thirteenth has been skewered. It turns out that he had been blackmailing several members of the circus troupe. Was the killer a fellow…
With Burke out of town, Tim, Les and Sgt. Ames have to discover who is responsible for the murder of a blackmailer found propped among the mannequins in a department store window. Les is intrigued by the store owner's executive secretary,…
Burke's vacation south of the border is anything but restful when he is jailed for the murder of a gossip columnist and a popular local fisherman. With the help of his vacation date and the ever-faithful Henry, Burke escapes from prison,…
Burke's mentor is slain in a dark alley. His killer may be a suspect from one of his former cases who got off, but who was actually guilty. But why would Officer Robin confront the killer without backup? Can Burke decide which (if any)…
Author Graham Tree is poisoned at a party celebrating the publication of his new book. Tree miraculously survives and now it is Burke's job to find the killer before there is a second - successful - attempt on Tree's life. But Tree…
Burke attends the opening night of ""Hamlet"" and later discovers that someone has arranged for the star, Roland Trivers, NOT ""to be"". The suspects include the arrogant director, the actress playing Gertrude, ""Polonius"" (who is in…
When a wealthy physician is shot, his wife disappears. It seems she has a habit of running away when things get tough. Is she the murderer or another victim? Burke finds out more about her unhappy history from her sister at an amusement…
When a wealthy banker is found murdered in a seedy hotel, it becomes a race to see who will catch the killer first - Burke or glamorous private eye Honey West, who had been hired by the victim. The banker had been planning on skipping…
Pianist Artur Bachner's concert ends with a bang when his piano explodes, killing him. Anyone could have tampered with it during the backstage party before the concert - his abused ex-wife, a rival concert pianist, his personal manager,…
The head of a greeting card firm was killed, but not by the arrow protruding from his body. It was slow, methodical arsenic poisoning. His flirtatious teenage assistant takes a shine to Burke, but he's afraid she may be the prime…
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