12 Scam

Stanley Hastings client is lying to him. But that's a mere annoyance. The crooked cop framing him for three murders is a problem.“What Mr. Hall does to the private-eye formula is very funny, but it is not frivolous. His puzzles, for all their manic nonsense, are fiendish constructions of sound logic.”—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review“As usual, Hall, like Rumplestiltskin, takes slender material that would serve another writer for a middling short story and spins a gossamer web of riddles by turns puzzling, suspenseful, and hilarious.” Stanley Hastings has a client - a real-life, money-paying client. That's the good news. The bad news is that this client might be the most frustrating thing to come along in years. "I'm being set up," is all that six-foot-six Cranston Pritchert says to Stanley when he first darkens Stanley's doorway. Why is the investment firm partner being set up? How? By whom? Cranston can't seem to answer even the simplest of questions. Instead, he sends Stanley off to an East Side singles bar to track down an unforgettably endowed blonde. Stanley finds his woman, and even finds the theatrical agent behind her. But when he tries to unravel the alleged setup, all clues point to Pritchert himself...and murder. Suddenly, the players in this mystery are falling like dominoes, and a dyspeptic policeman decides that Stanley Hastings is the one to blame. Facing three counts of murder and having your face emblazoned across the television screen is not Stanley's idea of a good time. Going to prison - and maybe the chair - is even worse. Stanley Hastings' investment firm partner, Cranston Pritchert, is a living, breathing, paying client. But when Stanley tries to unravel the set-up which Pritchert claims is being staged against him, all roads seem to lead to Pritchert himself - and ultimately to murder. PI Stanley Hastings of New York is hired by an investment dealer who picked up a woman and got knocked over the head. The dealer suspects he is being set up for a financial scam and wants Hastings to find the woman. The case takes a new turn when the dealer is murdered Stanley Hastings must work to clear his name when the people involved in his most recent case, including his client, start turning up dead.-- (Source of description not identified) Stanley Hastings investigates a client's claim that he's being set up, yet initial sleuthing to try to unravel the alleged setup have all clues pointing to the client himself