And it doesn't take a degree in psychology to find a killer - it takes brains, eyes, and two strong fists. But this hard-boiled private investigator didn't stop someone from jumping out a window just to send her to the electric chair.

Brighton is found with a knife buried in her back, all signs point to the Phyllis's guilt. Shayne agrees to do whatever he can to keep Phyllis from killing her mother, but that doesn't ensure that the woman will live. Her doctor and her new stepfather, on the other hand, both believe Phyllis is suffering from a kind of Electra complex - a fixation with her mother that is so intense that Phyllis would rather kill her than share her with anyone else. She tried to warn him she was crazy, but he didn't listen.

Luckily, he blocks her just before she can launch herself over the sill. Mike Shayne has just poured himself a drink when Phyllis Brighton tries to throw herself out the window of his downtown apartment. Dresser wrote non-series mysteries, westerns and romances under the names Asa Baker, Matthew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Anthony Scott, Peter Field, and Anderson Wayne.Ī girl begs Mike Shayne to help keep her from killing her own mother A pseudonym used by Davis Dresser, Robert Terrallīrett Halliday, primary pen name of Davis Dresser, was an American mystery writer, best known for the long-lived series of Michael Shayne novels he wrote, and later commissioned others to write.

Murder is my business brett halliday