Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine, September 1956

# Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine, September 1956

This inaugural issue presents seven short stories and three novelets across 160 pages. The featured novelet "Bring Back a Corpse" by Brett Halliday introduces television star Homer Wilde, who hires Miami detective Michael Shayne to locate his missing business manager, Ben Felton. The disappearance entangles Shayne with Copey Cottrell, a Las Vegas racketeer pressuring Wilde over a twenty-million-dollar hotel syndicate deal requiring Felton's signature. Craig Rice contributes "The Quiet Life," a John J. Malone novelet. Additional novelets include Hal Ellson's "Walk Away Fast" and Kenneth Fearing's "Three Wives Too Many." Short story contributors include Robert Bloch ("Water's Edge"), Charles Irving, John E. Hasty, Louis Trimble, Carter Sprague, Matthew Lee, and Norman Daniels. Editor Brett Halliday's introduction notes this marks Mike Shayne's expansion across multiple publication media following fourteen years of successful novels.