Mike Barnett, Man Against Crime #3

Mike Barnett heads to the racetrack hunting for a fugitive bank cashier, but his day takes a dark turn when he reconnects with old acquaintances and witnesses the prized thoroughbred Lightning mysteriously collapse during a race—only to discover the horse has been sabotaged with a sponge lodged in his nostril. When Barnett investigates further, he stumbles into a murder scene: the bookmaker Lucky Crane lies dead in his apartment, apparently killed during a robbery, and now the detective must untangle the connection between the fixed race and the killing before the trail goes completely cold.

When Colonel Corn can't pay back a ten-dollar debt, he launches into a bewildering chain of logic that leaves his creditor Korny Kobb utterly baffled—and when the Colonel later needs to remember what medicine to pick up at the drugstore, his muddled reasoning leads to an absolutely groan-worthy punchline that pushes Korny to his breaking point. This 1952 humor story plays the two characters off each other like a vaudeville act, building from wordplay gags to the final, exasperating payoff.

When private detective Mike Barnett's car is forced off the road by a reckless red sedan, he finds himself caught up in something far more sinister—a massive fire at the Mallory Chemical Company, and a man named Hunt Mallory convinced that his vengeful ex-partner Brian Kent is responsible. With arson, murder, and sudden death swirling around him, Barnett must track down Kent and uncover the truth before the damage spreads further. Racing between leads and determined suspects, the hard-boiled detective inches closer to answers—but danger lurks in unexpected places.