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16009823Ed Noon wouldn’t normally object when a woman asked him to take off his clothes. Especially a good-looking blonde. But when she’s pointing a .45 at him with an ugly esxpression on her face.

It started on the day Ed Noon was to get his P.I. license and back after a year of suspension. Noon’s friend, Captain Mike Monks had called him and said he had something he needed help with.

As he stepped onto the street of his office building. someone opened up with a Tommy gun. Noon goes down as does a blind man and the two little China dolls, daaughters of the laundry man next door and favorites of Noon, who constantly slipped them lollipops.

Noon took two in the chest and two glancing blows. The blind man was dead, as one was of the little Chinese girls. The other wound up with a permanently crippled arm.

Three weeks later when Noon gets out of the hospital, he’s mugged by that gorgeous blond who thinks he has something she wants. Noon can’t convince her or get her to say what it is. She just believes he’s stalling.

It’s all tied in with what Monks wanted help with: a murdered, unidentified body, a man horribly mutilated and left naked in a car.

We soon get a bomb in a laundry, more dead bodies, and Noon no closer to any sort of solution.

Another fine P.I. tale from Michael Avallone.