Ken Shannon #1

Private eye Ken Shannon fishes a mysterious young woman named Myra Walsh out of the river—only to learn she's convinced herself cursed by the so-called "Evil Eye of Count Ducrie," a Balkan war refugee claiming genuine supernatural powers. When Ken dismisses the curse as superstitious nonsense, he's nearly killed in a suspicious car accident, forcing him to investigate whether Ducrie's deadly "eye" is genuine magic or a very clever murder scheme masking something far more sinister.

Detective Ken Shannon finds himself tangled with Louie the Lift, a clever pickpocket with a peculiar way of showing gratitude, when a chance alley rescue sets off a chain of complications involving stolen bonds, dangerous criminals, and a locker key that might be Shannon's ticket to a big reward. With the help of some unexpected allies and Louie's uncanny talent for lifting exactly what's needed at exactly the right moment, Shannon has to navigate the underworld to catch a killer and recover the missing loot before Big Al Gates makes good on his threats.

Ken Shannon stumbles onto a smuggling racket when mysterious pigeons carrying message cylinders start appearing over the city, and an unsigned envelope lands on his desk with five grand and a cryptic deadline. When his secretary Dee Dee investigates the pigeons' connection to retired financier Henry Van Zant, she vanishes—and Shannon realizes he's walked straight into a trap set by Fatso Cassidy, a criminal mastermind using Van Zant's prized racing birds to move contraband. Now Shannon must untangle the scheme, rescue his secretary, and survive long enough to collect his fee.