Ken Shannon #7

When Ken Shannon escorts his secretary to an art museum, a grotesquely disfigured man emerges with a twisted mission: to destroy every beautiful thing he can find, driven by hatred born from his own ruined face. As the "Ugliest Man" tears through the city's cultural landmarks, Shannon investigates a lead pointing to plastic surgery—and discovers that the destruction masks a darker conspiracy that pulls him into deadly danger. This 1952 crime tale blends hard-boiled detective work with psychological horror as Shannon races to stop a madman caught between revenge and manipulation.

When a dead numbers boss turns up on the waterfront, detective Ken Shannon's old friend—now district attorney Mark Loring—prosecutes a suspect with seemingly airtight evidence. But a mysterious letter arrives claiming the condemned man was framed, and Shannon must dig into a tangle of nightclub girls, ambitious mobsters, and powerful people with everything to hide to uncover who really pulled the trigger. As Shannon closes in on the truth, the people behind the frame-up grow increasingly desperate to keep him quiet—by any means necessary.