Helen Nielsen: 13 books

Barney Amling, president of Pacific Guaranty, disappears. So do a million of the company’s dollars. Ostensibly, he has gone to Mexico City for a monetary conference, but he didn’t arrive and wasn’t expected. His wife calls in the lawyer Simon Drake (Helen Nielsen’s usual and always brilliant...

In a neatly handled story with a fresh setting, Helen Nielsen introduces Larry Willis, star salesman for an American farm equipment company, who earned a trip to Copenhagen for a business convention. With four days free before its opening, he wandered about in a lonely and bewildered state until a...

The filming of an American movie set on location in Greece becomes the stage for a far more sinister production in this unputdownable political suspense. Rich and famous movie directors like Harry Avery don’t ordinarily disappear—especially when on a routine flight in a private plane seeking location...

As in her sensational first offering, Helen Nielsen has again come up with a fast-paced and remarkably readable mystery. It begins when a gorgeous girl makes an incredible proposal, and ends when a would-be fall guy unearths some low schemes in high society—while solving a murder to save his own skin. The action is smooth, tough and colorful all the way.

Intricacy, expertise, substance—all are here in this latest of Helen Nielsen’s absorbing mysteries. “Homicide, by person or persons unknown,” was the judgment of the coroner’s jury—but for Jaime Dodson, brother of the murdered woman, the ordeal was just beginning. There was that...

Was the crash deliberately contrived, a diabolical piece of sabotage, or was it cruelly fortuitous? Simon Drake—Miss Nielsen’s very personable and popular lawyer-detective—happens to be at the airport at the time of the crash, and notices that some surprising people have been awaiting the ill-fated...

A super-cool lady - a passionate murder. Simon Drake hadn’t counted on violence when he asked the super-cool Hannah Lee to manage the Marina Beach mansion. With beautiful Hannah residing as den mother and poker companion, Simon soon found himself host to the most colorful characters on the...

A beautiful suspect with an intense desire to kill. The murder of Roger Warren seemed like an open-and-shut case. The evening before, Roger and his dazzling wife Wanda had moved from one bar to another, fighting loudly and publicly. The next morning, the dead figure of Roger was slumped...

Danny Ross, kid hitch-hiker trapped by circumstantial evidence . . . Now he was a fugitive, alone and friendless . . . His one ally lay on the seat of the stolen car, the gun he’s ripped from the sheriff’s holster when he escaped. The sight of it brought sweat to his forehead, made him...

Young Marta Cornish was haunted by a heritage of buried scandal and dark desires. Her father—a composer of genius—had died violently and the sinister enigma of his death lingered, poisoning the lives of those who had loved and hated him. Suddenly, past anguish exploded into present terror:...

The melody of death... Down at the edge of Mexican town, where the pavement gives out and the yellow dust drifts ankle deep over the hard packed adobe, a radio is moaning a dreamy beat into the night. It is the kind of music that needs two people, but only one is listening—a long legged blonde...

It was a Tuesday night in November, 1962. Rain fell slow and steady in Manhattan, slanting hard on near-deserted sidewalks and streets pocked by the occasional twin circles of approaching headlamps. Taxis spawned out from Times Square like predatory bugs in search of new feeding grounds, and here...

Flora Annie Steel (1847–1929) was a contemporary of Rudyard Kipling and rivaled his popularity as a writer during her lifetime, but her legacy faded due to gender-biased politics. She spent 22 years in India, mainly in the Punjab. This collection is the first to focus entirely on this “unconventional...