The Case of the Violent Virgin — Michael Avallone

ED NOON MYSTERY #7

"My eyes met hers and stopped. They had to. You just didn't look into eyes like those and turn away. Her voice was one thing. Her eyes were something else again. And she wasn't looking through me this time. I was getting a long once-over too."--Ed Noon, Private Eye

A deluxe express train to Chicago is the setting for a missing rare object d'art, the legendary statue known as the Violent Virgin and an equally fabulous diamond, the Blue Green. Noon mixes with a lovely lost blonde, a rich redhead with a dachshund, a polysyllabic bigwig and a venomous pair of remorseless killers. This case is author Avallone's tribute to The Lady Vanishes and The Maltese Falcon.

ED NOON SERIES

The Adventures of Ed Noon, Private Eye, span over 30 novels written between 1953 and 1990. Noon starts out dirt poor with a tiny office in Midtown Manhattan (his "Mouse Auditorium") but success moves him to better digs, a lovely secretary (Melissa Mercer) and, eventually, the most important client of all: the President of the United States. The series concludes with a daring turn toward science fiction in the last two novels. Through it all, the wisecracking Noon is consistent: a movie and baseball-obsessed romantic who always fights the good fight. And, more often than not, wins.

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