Kin Platt: 10 books

Sixteen-year-old Oliver Puckle, news gatherer for the Concord Freeman in the summer of 1846, has his work cut out for him when word arrives of a gruesome murder at Walden Pond. It seems the only citizen who is not a suspect is the poetphilosopher Henry David Thoreau, who spent the night locked in...

Felix Witter is the reigning Mr. Universe. He is in training for the current international body-building competition—just another dedicated weight lifter with extraordinary muscular development. He is murdered during his last workout on the day preceding the annual competition, and it just...

Big, brash, good-looking Hondo Kenyon is one of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ best pitchers, a southpaw screwballer with the necessary skills and fastball to keep the opposition from tearing his head off, and the team is counting on the ex-small town Pennsylvania boy for help in their pennant run. On...

Max Roper is one of the new-fangled breed who includes murder in his arsenal of security activities. In The Pushbutton Butterfly, he has to track a missing girl through a myriad of fascinating, violent, and potentially evil people, including an idealistic student rebel at Berkeley; the most fashionable...

The games are tennis and murder … and private eye Max Roper has a bevy of beautiful tennis competitors to turn his head when he goes after the murderer of lovely Aussie tennis star Wendy Cliff. It was set up to look as if it was one of her opponents in the Los Angeles ladies pro tournament who did...

Max Roper, durable investigator, is sapped, doped and imprisoned on a boat apparently used by a mysterious Oriental for business purposes. The point of this caper is to have Max carry a warning to basketball superstar Jo-Jo Gonzaga that he must throw the championship play-off. When Gonzaga is shot...

Big Bill Stanwood is a lost man since his beloved wife, Katie, died. He has left his job in the homicide division of the Los Angeles Police Department; detective work has no interest for him anymore But Bill must keep the promise he made to Katie. He must travel to Ireland, find his wife’s younger...

When Donald Lawson, successful mystery-story writer, is murdered, suspects include almost everyone who ever knew him. He was a man who had no friends and deserved to have none. After his death, it was discovered that he had abandoned his wife, betrayed his friends, and double-crossed every human being...

When millionaire jockey Willie Rich is murdered immediately after winning the $100,000 Princess Stakes, his old friend Max Roper, successful investigator, decides to find out who-dunit. It was set up to look like an accidental death--Willie drowned in his own pool--but Max didn't believe that. Fortunately...

Max Roper is compelled to use all of his resources to stay alive long enough to last through the mystery of The Kissing Gourami. What starts out a fairly simple and even downgrading assignment, quickly becomes an obsessive search for a brutal killer, leading Roper a skill-numbing chase from Los Angeles...