In this entry in the Michael Shayne series at 20th Century Fox Lloyd Nolan is about to be married to Mary Beth Hughes. The plan is to go to Niagara Falls just as soon as he can dig up a proper suit to be married in for the wedding pictures at City Hall.
But Nolan and Hughes stumble into a murder of a theatrical producer and his leading lady at the next door theater where the producer had a private entrance to his suite at the hotel and a few other hideaways and by ways. The man led quite a busy life with the ladies.
In fact the whole thing revolves around a show he produced 25 years earlier and a performer whose wife he stole at the time. But being that the victim was an all around rat there are no shortage of suspects.
Nolan makes a deal with one of the newspapers for an exclusive if he beats the cops to the solution. Not that it is all that hard because William Demarest the chief inspector is from the Keystone Academy of Police. Still there are laws about interfering with a police investigation. Stuff that private detectives like Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe or even Jim Rockford avoid doing or at least get caught at doing Shayne does with abandon.
Other than the fact that the perpetrator commits a third murder of a witness you do feel kind of sorry for him. Nolan fits the role better than the glove fit OJ.
But Nolan and Hughes stumble into a murder of a theatrical producer and his leading lady at the next door theater where the producer had a private entrance to his suite at the hotel and a few other hideaways and by ways. The man led quite a busy life with the ladies.
In fact the whole thing revolves around a show he produced 25 years earlier and a performer whose wife he stole at the time. But being that the victim was an all around rat there are no shortage of suspects.
Nolan makes a deal with one of the newspapers for an exclusive if he beats the cops to the solution. Not that it is all that hard because William Demarest the chief inspector is from the Keystone Academy of Police. Still there are laws about interfering with a police investigation. Stuff that private detectives like Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe or even Jim Rockford avoid doing or at least get caught at doing Shayne does with abandon.
Other than the fact that the perpetrator commits a third murder of a witness you do feel kind of sorry for him. Nolan fits the role better than the glove fit OJ.