Ken Shannon #1 (1951)

Ken Shannon is drawn into a bizarre mystery when a terrified woman, Myra Walsh, confesses she’s doomed anyone who loves her—blaming the "Evil Eye of Count Ducrie," a mysterious refugee with a deadly curse. As Ken investigates a string of suspicious accidents involving Myra’s past lovers, he confronts the count and his guardian, Ralph Walsh, uncovering a web of deception that blurs the line between madness and murder.

Ken Shannon finds himself tangled in a mystery after a playful pickpocket, known as Louie the Lift, leaves a bouquet of roses and a cryptic note in his locked apartment—along with Bugs Burgan’s stolen wallet. When the detective traces the flowers to a recent robbery and discovers a key in the wallet, he realizes the stolen bonds may be hidden in a locker, setting off a dangerous chase with Big Al Gates’ gang.

In the midst of a baffling case involving dozens of carrier pigeons carrying message cylinders, private eye Ken Shannon is drawn into a web of smuggling and deception after a mysterious envelope demands his presence by noon—or a client will be dead. With his secretary Dee Dee Dawson missing and a list of underworld names hidden in the envelope, Shannon confronts the retired financier Henry Van Zant’s glamorous niece Jean and the gangster Fatso Cassidy, uncovering a smuggling ring using pigeons to move contraband from ships. As the investigation leads him from Van Zant’s pigeon loft to the Saigon Club in Chinatown, Shannon must piece together the truth before it’s too late—though the real danger may be closer than he thinks.