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Richard S. Prather
Full Series List in Order
Shell Scott
1 - The Case of the Vanishing Beauty (1950)2 - Find This Woman (1951)
3 - Everybody Had a Gun (1951)
4 - Bodies in Bedlam (1951)
5 - Way of a Wanton (1952)
6 - Lie Down, Killer (Jul-2017)
7 - Too Many Crooks // Ride a High Horse (1953)
8 - Darling, It's Death (1954)
9 - Always Leave 'em Dying (1954)
10 - Pattern for Panic (1954)
11 - Strip for Murder (1955)
12 - There's a Shroud (Jul-1994)
13 - Slab Happy (1958)
14 - The Scrambled Yeggs (1958)
15 - Take a Murder, Darling (1958)
16 - Over Her Dear Body (1959)
17 - Double in Trouble (1959)
18 - The Wailing Frail (1960)
19 - Dance with the Dead (1960)
20 - Dig That Crazy Grave (1961)
21 - Shell Scott's Seven Slaughters (1961)
22 - Kill the Clown (1962)
23 - Dead Heat (1963)
24 - The Trojan Hearse (1964)
25 - Joker in the Deck (1964)
26 - The Cockeyed Corpse (1964)
27 - Dead Man's Walk (1965)
28 - The Meandering Corpse (Jan-1965)
29 - Kill Him Twice (1965)
30 - Kubla Khan Caper (1966)
31 - Gas Heat (1967)
32 - The Shell Scott Sampler (1969)
33 - The Cheim Manuscript (1969)
34 - Kill Me Tomorrow (1969)
35 - Dead-Bang (May-1971)
36 - The Sweet Ride (1972)
37 - The Sure Thing (1975)
38 - The Amber Effect (Nov-1986)
39 - Shellshock (Nov-1987)
Dagger Of Flesh (Dec-1956)
Have Gat--Will Travel (Jan-1986)
Book List in Order: 53 titles
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The Case of the Vanishing Beauty
- 1950
- / Private Investigator
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Lovely Lina, she's a dame who is so hot she scorches, but somebody wants to put out that fire. When her sister disappears and another woman is gunned down, Lina suspects she is next in line. Shell Scott, an infamous private dick who leaves a trail of...
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Bodies in Bedlam
- 1951
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the...
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Everybody Had a Gun
- 1951
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the...
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Find This Woman
- 1951
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the...
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Way of a Wanton
- 1952
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the...
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Too Many Crooks // Ride a High Horse
- 1953
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the...
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Always Leave 'em Dying
- 1954
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and sex and violence on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help bu...
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Darling, It's Death
- 1954
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the...
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Pattern for Panic
- 1954
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He’s a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world’s public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can’t...
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Strip for Murder
- 1955
- / Private Investigator
-
Suspiciously dangerous accidents were happening, and people were dying, including the private eye I had been sent to replace. I didn't like it. But hey, that's what I'm hired to do, I'm use to murder and mayhem. The real problem came when I had to go...
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Dagger Of Flesh
- Dec-1956
- / Mystery
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When business owner and personal friend Jay Weather is murdereed, all evidence points to P.I. Mark Logan as the killer. Logan knows he didn't do it...or does he? It is his .357 found next to the body, and he can't remember where he was, or what he di...
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The Scrambled Yeggs
- 1958
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the...
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Slab Happy
- 1958
- / Private Investigator
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I wasn't too happy to be looking down the barrel of every gunman in California's pistol and when I heard them humming murder music on their lips, the melody was sour and I knew it was being dedicated to only one man--me. That gangdom had it all plann...
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Take a Murder, Darling
- 1958
- / Private Investigator
-
When a beautiful woman needs a bodyguard, wisecracking private eye Shell Scott is the man for the job in this classic hardboiled mystery. Of course my line of work has its perks—and it should when I lay my life on the line for dangerously darin...
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Double in Trouble
- 1959
- / Private Investigator
-
I'm Shell Scott, the Private Eye. Well at least I have a private eye when it comes to blondes, brunettes or redhead babes are involved, and I can always spot a hot tamale. You can see why I love my work, and when I heard that Chester Drum was operati...
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Over Her Dear Body
- 1959
- / Private Investigator
-
Dancing the fox trot with a client could be considered unethical-then again, a lot of what my job leads me to do is unethical-but I believe in adding a personal touch to my work. And boy did that ferocious feline of a lady make me crazy about my job....
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Dance with the Dead
- 1960
- / Private Investigator
-
This case couldn't have been more up Shell Scott's alley. Twelve naked, luscious beauties, one for each month of the year, were Scott's next assignment. They were called the "Wow" pinup girls and, man, were they wow! Scott's mission: find four freckl...
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The Wailing Frail
- 1960
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but to take ...
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Dig That Crazy Grave
- 1961
- / Private Investigator
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"As far as I'm concerned, Richard S. Prather was the King of the paperback P.I writers of the 60s. Shell Scott should be in the Top Ten of any readers list of favorite private eyes." --Robert J. Randisi For four decades, Richard S. Prather publishe...
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Shell Scott's Seven Slaughters
- 1961
- / Private Investigator
-
No one other than Shell Scott has the ability to dodge a bullet while magnetized to a magical mistress or engage in dangerous games of both love and war simultaneously. This sleuth has the touch that touches every broad -- and with his private eye, h...
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Kill the Clown
- 1962
- / Private Investigator
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When danger rolls into town I have one eye open -- my most private eye - while the other is focusing on a fiery fury of a lady. Surrounded by more underworld celebrities than San Quentin and Sing Sing combined, can you believe that I was the King of ...
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The Cockeyed Corpse
- 1964
- / Private Investigator
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The Wild West is not your regular western movie but it is wild! Any movie that involves four beautiful starlets without any clothes is bound to be wild and to attract the attention of Shell Scott, P.I., especially if one of the girls is thought to ha...
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Joker in the Deck
- 1964
- / Private Investigator
-
Shell Scott has been dealt a really lousy hand and the stakes are somebody's life--probably his. What will the luck of the draw bring to our hard-boiled hero? Will Shell find the culprit in this full house of crooks and cons or will the queen of hear...
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The Trojan Hearse
- 1964
- / Private Investigator
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With a national election going on, Shell Scott's timing might have been less than perfect. Perhaps he did prevent the victory for the shoo-in candidate, but a lot of strange things were happening. There was Polly Plank whom he encountered in her psyc...
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The Meandering Corpse
- Jan-1965
- / Private Investigator
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I could see the beach robe Zazu had been wearing, but couldn't see her. Then the pool's surface rippled and tossed darts of sunlight at my eyes, and I could see Zazu quite well. She was wearing either the latest thing in jazzy bathing suits or nothin...
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Dead Man's Walk
- 1965
- / Private Investigator
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The island couldn't be more charming with its stretches of white beaches, crystalline lagoons, and exotic bikini-clad beauties. But with three dead bodies and a voodoo priest, I had a hard time concentrating on sightseeing. It seemed superstitious to...
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Kill Him Twice
- 1965
- / Private Investigator
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It was a bright and shiny Beverly Hills afternoon when Shell Scott opened his door to find intrigue laying at the foot of his apartment ...in the form of a corpse! Just another day in the sun for the private eye with a nose for danger. He's got to do...
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Kubla Khan Caper
- 1966
- / Private Investigator
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It's not exactly Xanadu but the Kubla Khan, Ormand Monaco's new super-luxury hotel in Palm Desert, California is designed and built to transport visitors to what such a palace would be like. He's planned a beauty contest as part of the gr...
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The Cheim Manuscript
- 1969
- / Private Investigator
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Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe is nowhere to be found. And the person missing him most, his ex-wife, hires Shell Scott to find him. Though alimony payments may be her motive to pursue his trail, Hollywood producer, Gideon Cheim, has another reason for ca...
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Kill Me Tomorrow
- 1969
- / Private Investigator
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In the retirement wastelands of Arizona, Shell Scott does a favor for an Italian starlet The bar goes silent when actress Lucrezia Brizante enters. Shell Scott has no idea why this Italian beauty is walking toward him, but he’s about to find out...
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The Shell Scott Sampler
- 1969
- / Private Investigator
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Shell Scott finds himself pressed up against seductive women in deadly situations like no other hard-boiled L.A. sleuth. This collection of five adventures delivers all the action and excitement Shell Scott readers know to anticipate. Follow him thro...
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The Sweet Ride
- 1972
- / Private Investigator
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A femme fatale flirts with foul play in the series that “bring[s] back the 1950s in a good-natured and rather innocent way” (Mystery Scene Magazine). Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The cri...
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The Sure Thing
- 1975
- / Private Investigator
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A petroleum magnate--a snake oil salesman at heart--finds himself in a gusher of a business deal with a shifty-eyed Sheik. The businessman needs some leverage but how do you get at a guy who has everything? You could kidnap his wife but he has six! S...
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Have Gat--Will Travel
- Jan-1986
- / Mystery
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Shell Scott'll slay you?with leers, tears and pistol packin' dears. Meet Shell Scott and his entourage of hoodlums, beauties, and dangerous killers. It doesn't take much for this ferocious fireball to pack a punch to all corners of the underworld, bu...
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The Amber Effect
- Nov-1986
- / Private Investigator
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Just when surefire shamus Shell Scott was thinking that unannounced naked women don't show up on his doorstep frequently enough, a Ms. Naked USA contestant and next-door neighbor comes knocking with nothing on. But the real knockout is her story: som...
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Shellshock
- Nov-1987
- / Private Investigator
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An Arizona attorney has a client with a problem. It's no ordinary problem and this is no ordinary client. Luckily this legal eagle happens to be friends with the hawkish private eye, Shell Scott. Scott is a sure-fire shamus with no shame and a pocket...
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The Peddler
- Dec-2006
- / Suspense
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HIS WOMEN OFFERED PARADISE – FOR A PRICE
In the cutthroat world of organized crime, Tony Romero was headed straight for the top. His territory: the brothels of San Francisco.
But on the way to the top, he’d le... -
The Sleeper Caper
- Jul-2009
- / General Fiction
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Richard S. Prather's creation, Shell Scott, was the second most popular private detective (after Spillane's Mike Hammer) of the 1950s. With over 40 million books sold. The Shell Scott stories were as powerful as a gut-wrenching Spillane story, but us...
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The Death Gods
- Oct-2011
- / Mystery
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In “The Death Gods,” happy-go-lucky, Los Angeles Private Eye, Shell Scott, bulldozes his way thru thugs, often with light-hearted humor, and with a beauty or two along the way, in this final novel of the long-running Shell Scott Series by Richard...
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Three's a Shroud
- Apr-2014
- / Mystery
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Three tales of murder and mystery from everyone’s favorite dick: With a name like Shell Scott, you can imagine a lot of peculiar things creep up on me -- even murder. Especially when there are minor -- er, major -- distractions that keep me from sl...
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Too Many Crooks
- Apr-2014
- / Mystery
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Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but take the...
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Lie Down, Killer
- Jul-2017
- / Private Investigator
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HE STARED AT THE TWO COPS IN BEWILDERMENT "What's this all about? You guys playing a joke or something?" The big one twisted his head around. He wasn't grinning and his voice was thin and vicious. "That's what it is," he said. "A joke. A big one....
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Crime of Passion
- Jun-2018
- / General Fiction
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A classic entry in the Shell Scott series! This was a warm Sunday afternoon; Sheldon Scott, Investigations -- my downtown L.A. office -- was closed, and I was invited to a party. A Hawaiian party at that: luau, roast pig, the works. From behind the h...
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The Comfortable Coffin
FIFTEEN CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES THAT WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH UNTIL YOU DIE…Humor is often found in unlikely places, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Mystery Writers of America's latest classic anthology, edited by master raconteur Ri...
