Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator — 1951

A crusading newspaperman who keeps printing that a boxer threw his fight hires Craig as a bodyguard -- and to help pin down who fixed it.

Craig's own tailor is being squeezed for weekly protection money, and a desperate phone call drags the investigator into the racket.

A bail bondsman staring down a $50,000 loss hires Craig to run down the small-time hood who jumped bail.

A diary hidden inside an old clock points Craig toward a lunatic -- and a murder.

A case leads Craig to an amusement-park wax exhibit, where the newest figure looks a little too lifelike.

Hired to recover a stolen string of pearls, Craig finds the necklace nearly becomes the noose meant to hang him.

A publisher's $50,000 first-novel prize vanishes when the only copy of the winning manuscript is stolen, and Craig is paid to get it back.

A man back from the dead haunts a wife who has been 'dead' nearly as long, in an insurance scheme Craig has to unravel.

Craig pulls a young woman out of the water and tangles with an unhinged songwriter whose latest lyric is all about murder.