FORGOTTEN BOOKS #489: A REDHEAD FOR MIKE SHAYNE By Brett Halliday



I love the Robert McGinnis cover on A Redhead for Mike Shayne. I’m sure that’s why I bought it so many years ago! This DELL paperback from 1964 is very much a product of its time. Mike Shayne shoots and kills a hood attempting to loot a warehouse Shayne is protecting. But in the melee, the criminal fires his odd weapon: six bullets narrowly miss Shayne’s head. Shayne takes the weapon from the crime scene and discovers it’s a Russian automatic pistol. How did a thug come to own an advanced automatic weapon? In Florida, all roads lead to Cuba and Castro. Shayne starts to unravel this curious case when he’s confronted by a beautiful redhead newspaper columnist, Molly Morgan. As the bodies pile up, Shayne and the redhead butt heads in the investigation. Shayne arranges one of his patented shoot-outs to smoke out the Bad Guys. This is the 48th mystery in the Mike Shayne series, but you can read it without any knowledge of the previous books. GRADE: B

19 thoughts on “FORGOTTEN BOOKS #489: A REDHEAD FOR MIKE SHAYNE By Brett Halliday

    1. george Post author

      Wolf, you are correct. Most of the later MIKE SHAYNE books were written by a variety of writers. These DELL paperbacks–many with Robert McGinnis covers like the one on A REDHEAD FOR MIKE SHAYNE–sold well.

      Reply
  1. Michael Padgett

    Even though I’ve been reading crime novels since the early 60s, I’ve never read one of these, and probably never will. There are some sizable holes in my mystery reading, and this is one of them. Some of the other holes are writers I sort of class with Halliday, such Carter Brown and Richard Prather. I put theses guys, and several others, in what I call the “smug and smirky” category.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Michael, most of the MIKE SHAYNE mysteries I’ve read aren’t “smug” nor “smirky.” Mike Shayne somehow gets whacked on the head in nearly every book! Now “carter brown” wrote many “smug and smirky” books–especially his Al Wheeler mysteries. Richard Prather’s Shell Scott books are more like screwball comedies.

      Reply
      1. Jeff Meyerson

        I read a lot of Prather’s in my early teens (early to mid-60s) and, as George said, they are screwball fun with sexual innuendos but definitely PG.

    2. wolf

      i read a few Carter Brown novels after seeing the provocative covers in the bookstore that I passed on my way to university – seems nobody wanted them so they wer sold cheap.
      That brings back memories:
      The first two semesters I took the train from my small city to the university city of Tübingen every day – it even had an old fashioned steam locomotive at first and third class wooden seats!
      Then I made some money as an “assistant’s assistant” for maths – our jobs were to read and grade the younger students’ papers – and that gave me enough money to rent a room – and to buy all those Mickey Spillane novels! 🙂
      But for serious reading I went to the America House.

      Reply
  2. Cap'n Bob

    Wait! There’s more! You can see episodes of the Michael Shayne TV show on YouTube, starring Richard Denning! Or get the movies with either Lloyd Nolan or Hugh Beaumont! A Jeff Chandler show, too?!

    Reply
  3. JIM DOHERTY

    One of the people who ghosted at least one of the post-1958 Shayne novels (a pretty well-known writer in his own right) told me that Halliday did actually have some input into those books. It might’ve been that he supplied the plot. It might have amounted to no more than a light edit, but he did contribute.

    He might have been trying to keep Halliday (who he knew and liked) from looking bad. But the fact that the novels ended after Halliday passed away suggests he was being straight, and not just doing public relations (and in any case, this was long after Halliday had died).

    Now the sHAYNE short stories that were cover-featured in every issue of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, all of which were bylined “Brett Halliday,” were wholly and completely ghosted, and they continued until the magazine finally folded, years after the death of Dresser/Halliday.

    Reply
  4. tracybham

    I love Robert McGinnis’s covers and bought about 10 Michael Shayne paperbacks at a book sale because of those covers. I don’t have this cover, it is gorgeous. I have since become a fan of the series, have read a few of them. And I bought some of the Lloyd Nolan movies on DVD and we have watched two of them. Enjoyed both. I knew that the original author had not written all of them but that information from Jim Doherty was very interesting.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Tracy, like you I’ve bought many Mike Shayne DELL paperbacks because of the Robert McGinnis covers. I’ve read a couple dozen Mike Shaynes and they vary in quality. You can tell a variety of writers produced the later books. I haven’t seen the Lloyd Nolan movies, but I try to catch them if they show up on TCM given your recommendation.

      Reply
  5. Kent Morgan

    The Mike Shayne books were some of the earliest mysteries I read. While growing up in northern Mnaitoba, the only place that carried paperbacks was the local tobacco store. My father bought the Shayne books as well as Erle Stanley Gardner and George Harmon Coxe. I still have my father’s Shayne books and have added the ones he didn’t have so I have read them all. Last weekend I watched a couple of the black and white movies with Lloyd Nolan playing Shayne. They were fun to watch even if Nolan didn’t look like the redhead in the books. I have not seen the Hugh Beaumont version. I know when I finally am forced to move and downsize my collection, my father’s books will be keepers.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Kent, I love your loyalty to your father’s books! As you might have noticed, the doleful Buffalo Sabres had the NUMBER ONE pick in the NHL Draft and chose potential superstar defenseman, Rasmus Dahlin. Hope springs eternal for Sabres fans!

      Reply

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