Max Manchester, an All-Pro Miami Dolphin linebacker, was in the living room of his fashionable Key Biscayne home, watching Sunday Night Football on ESPN, when the front door burst open. Max jumped to his feet as three men entered. Two of them were huge, with multi-colored tattoos covering their burly arms. They looked like professional wrestlers. The third was a short, balding, gaudily dressed man in his mid-fifties.
“Who the hell, are you?” Max shouted.
The two large muscle-bound men rushed at him, and then the three, all big men, engaged in a vicious fight. Lamps and vases smashed onto the reddish-brown tiled floor; chairs and tables were overturned; a mirror and several works of art were destroyed. Throughout the melee the short man stood by the open doorway and watched calmly. Max, wild and violent, was holding his own against the two men. After a minute or two the short man, who was evidently in charge, seemed to realize that his goons weren’t going to be able to subdue the strong pro football player. He pulled out a gun and struck Max on the side of the head. Dazed, Max fell to his knees. Through glassy eyes, he looked up at the short man, who struck him again with the gun.
As Max Manchester regained consciousness, he felt himself gagging. Slowly he opened his eyes and spat the liquid in his mouth out; he saw that it was blood. The three intruders were looking down at him. He found he was lying on his back, spread-eagled on his king-size bed with all four limbs tied to the bedposts. He struggled to move his arms and to get up but couldn’t. Then he tried in vain to kick at one of the huge men standing at the foot of the bed.
Puzzle of Death Description:
“Definitely a page turner,” Janet S.
“People are dropping like flies. Who the hell’s murdering them?” asks Private Detective Jake Wayde.
Before his death, the rich and famous Ft. Lauderdale chemist Dr. Fredrick Rhineman leaves sixteen letters. Four are mailed to foreign ambassadors. The other twelve contain a piece of a puzzle and are sent to the people he had hated.
Private detective Jake Wayde’s task is to stop a killing spree triggered by Dr. Rhineman and retrieve the twelve puzzle pieces before they can be reassembled to reveal the whereabouts of a deadly chemical formula, plus ten million dollars in cash. However, there is more than one person looking to solve the puzzle and more than one murderer.
