Manslaughter

"I killed a man." Joe Balfour tells wise-cracking PI Stanely Hastings. An opening line like that is sure to get our hero's attention. It did. Balfour goes on to say that he'd been in a bar fight years ago, the other guy died and now someone is blackmailing him. Balfour wants Stan to pretend he's him and meet with the blackmailer. The blackmailer turns out to be a beautiful young woman who gets Stan's blood boiling. He tries to tail her, loses her, but when he next sees her she's Balfour's daughter.You can't blame Stan for being confused. He tails her again, and she leads him to the real blackmailer this time and it turns out that said blackmailer, a guy named Grackle, has the goods on Balfour's whole family. Balfour's wife had posed for dirty pictures a long time ago, and the daughter secretly works as a topless dancer. So they've all, unknown to each other, been paying off Grackle. Then someone kills Grackle and all of a sudden the Balfours are off the hook. Or are they? First Joe, then the daughter, is arrested for the murder, but the wife looks good for it too.Stan should walk away from the whole thing, but he can't. He has to know, besides, he's violated more than one law, like breaking and entering and withholding evidence in a homicide. The only way for him to get off the hook is to find Grackle's real killer and for Stan's sake, his or her last name better not be Balfour.Mr. Hall has a wit about him that he gives to his characters, especially to Stanley and his wife, that makes them a delight to spend time with. He blends humor and mystery, then throws in suspense to boot, plus he keeps you guessing right up till the end.Sophie Cacique Gaul

By his own admission, Stanley Hastings is a dumb private investigator. So he is an ambulance chaser for Richard Rosenberg, negligence lawyer.But then Stanley hits it lucky. He is hired by Joe Balfour to stop a blackmailer. From that point on things begin to go drastically wrong. A few days later the blackmailer, named Philip T. Grackle, is found killed. Enters Joe's daughter Jennifer who also pays blackmail. And so does Joe's wife. We have a ring-around-the-rosy,with every member of the Balfour family protecting the other by paying Grackle.First, Stanley has to find out why there is blackmail. The reason for it changes every few pages, presenting rather outrageous guesswork. Father and son Millsap, legal eagles, are added, to spin the case some more.Luckily, Stanley has the help of his wife Alice and of Sergeant MacAullif and so solves the case. But while the book is quite funny, the ending is rather outrageous. Mr. Hall should be forgiven because he entertained us.