The Brink of Murder

Barney Amling, president of Pacific Guaranty, disappears. So do a million of the company’s dollars. Ostensibly, he has gone to Mexico City for a monetary conference, but he didn’t arrive and wasn’t expected. His wife calls in the lawyer Simon Drake (Helen Nielsen’s usual and always brilliant detective). Neither she nor Simon, who knows Barney well, can believe that he’s a thief; nor can Captain Reardon, chief of police, who is another old friend. But things don’t look good.

Simon probes into...