There was poison in the glass-and it was the detective in the case who drank it! But for the attentions of a conscientious drug-store attendant there would have been one dark handsome stranger the less to spend his free time on blondes! Glenn Bowman had been asked by District Attorney Eric Webster to find his eighteen year old son, who had vanished after being jailed for twenty eight days for dangerous driving. Webster was up for re-election and could not afford a scandal, so Bowman's investigations in the Los Angeles district had to be secret. The attempt on his life proved that they were not. Before Bowman solves Paul Webster's disappearance, and links it up with a particularly vicious racket, more deadly events occur. Dynamic action on the part of Bowman is called for and he rises to the occasion in a fast-moving story which Hartley Howard handles superbly.

Edwin Newsome was pretty worried about his brother's health - so worried that he hired Glenn Bowman to work his way into Harold Newsome's household to do some unofficial sleuthing. Harold was suffering from an obscure sickness, and though he's recently married a pretty girl much younger than him, Edwin didn't think it was just blonde fever!In fact, he suspects that the lovely Moira is taking a short-cut to wealthy widowhood by putting poison in her husband's food. Bowman's first step forward brings him up against a corpse, and even he can't make a dead man talk.This is only the beginning of a dramatic case that takes Bowman down a dark and slippery road to a startling denoument.There are some mysterious undercurrents beneath the surface involving family and staff alike, leading to a conclusion much more sinister than a scheming wife after her husband's money...

First published in 1952, Death of Cecilia begins with a telephone conversation, started with a conventional greeting, but to Glenn Bowman the voice seemed to carry a note of cold menace. It went on to warn him not to take a personal interest in a certain dead woman unless he wanted a lethal dose of lead poisoning. This was a challenge no self-respecting crime investigator could ignore.

The girl in the black velvet gown looked to be very drunk - she also looked to be in plenty of trouble... Bowman liked neither her type of escort not the way she was being manhandled into the sedan parked outside Morry's Bar. He like even less the smack on the jaw he got when he intervened. This is the start of a new, high-pressure adventure with a tremendous climax. The Bowman Touch has all the streamlined pace and suspense to be expected from that master of the modern thriller - Hartley Howard.

Glenn Bowman, the toughest and most cynical private investigator in New York, lands himself up to the chin in trouble by witnessing the disposal of a gravely injured man. Bowman plays it straight, calls the police, and finds he is caught between two fires. The law takes a mean view of private operators in general and Bowman in particular; the Opposition, running a large-scale extortion racket, realise that he knows too much. "Either they get you," says the man who hires him, "or they go out of business. You know which they'll choose."With Extortion, first published in 1960, Hartley Howard and Glenn Bowman add another outstanding thriller to their long list of successes.

Pull up a chair and relax. We'd like you to meet Glenn Bowman, one of the toughest-and smartest- private eyes in New York. This time he's got himself involved in trying to keep alive the current heart-throb of Broadway-Pierre Dupray. Dupray is so certain that he's going to be bumped off between cocktail time and the time he boards the night plane for Hollywood that he is paying Bowman 2,000 dollars to keep him breathing. First published in 1954, this is a tough, rough story with the inimitable Bowman on top of his form in one of the grimmest assignments of his career.

A Phone call for Bowman at two a.m.... A honeyed, velvet voice of invitation... A trip across town in the small hours... A grim discovery in a swanky apartment... From these tense beginnings, Hartley Howard-past-master of the suspense story-constructs a tight web of excitement, of sudden death, and of lovely women playing forhigh stakes in an onrushing tale that will keep you enthralled until the very last page.