Dangerous Legacy

George Harmon Coxe

Nov 2011 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

Hungry for work, an ex–air force pilot takes a deadly assignment in ManilaDIVDespite three years of exemplary service flying for his country in the South Pacific, Spence Rankin can’t find work. He’s losing a bar fight when his old friend Ulio Kane appears. A former companion of Rankin’s, Kane was born in Manila and spent the war organizing guerilla warfare against the Japanese. They killed his family during the occupation, so Kane faked his death and set about preparing for peacetime life./divDIV /divDIVBut now Kane has received a plea for help, signed by his father—who’s supposed to be dead. Is the note genuine, or is it a trap lain by his enemies in the mining business? He must return to Manila to be sure, and wants to hire Spence as a bodyguard. The pilot agrees to take the job, for death in the tropics is preferable to boredom in California./div

About the author

George Harmon Coxe (1901–1984) was an early star of hard-boiled crime fiction, best known for characters he created in the seminal pulp magazine Black Mask. Born in upstate New York, he attended Purdue and Cornell Universities before moving to the West Coast to work in newspapers. In 1922 he began publishing short stories in pulp magazines across various genres, including romance and sports. He would find his greatest success, however, writing crime fiction.DIV /divDIVIn 1934 Coxe, relying on his background in journalism, created his most enduring character: Jack “Flashgun” Casey, a crime photographer. First appearing in “Return Engagement,” a Black Mask short, Casey found success on every platform, including radio, television, and film. Coxe’s other well-known characters include Kent Murdock, another photographer, and Jack Fenner, a PI. Always more interested in character development than a clever plot twist, Coxe was at home in novel-writing, producing sixty-three books in his lifetime. Made a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America in 1964, Coxe died in 1984. /div