Milo March is sipping a martini at the pool of the Far Eastern Hotel, a lovely British blonde on his left and a Chinese beauty on his right, both in bikinis. What more could a man require? But then he is rudely interrupted by a call from Intercontinental Insurance in New York. They have a serious case that only he, their best investigator, can tackle. As usual, many millions of dollars are at stake. A large, well-organized ring is transporting stolen goods from the U.S. to Red China via Hong Kong. Milo doesn’t doubt that organized crime is responsible, and he is determined to put and end to the whole operation—not only the stealing, but the dealing with an enemy country.  Milo persists with plodding but dangerous work, then suddenly, when he gets warm around the edges, he springs into  action. Assuming a secret identity as a tough loner named “John Milo,” he hangs out at a couple of bars frequented by con men. The V.O. and martinis keep flowing as he waits to make a connection to the smuggling ring.  Through an unpleasant police informer described as a “sick bulldog,” Milo makes a deal with a couple of men peddling stolen liquor, as this may lead him to the Syndicate men responsible for the smuggling. It does, but it also lands him in jail, charged with conspiracy to receive stolen property, possession of stolen property, and three counts of burglary—another day in the life of John Milo. Out on bail, Milo continues his quest and manages to land a job as a bagman for a Mafia don. Before closing the case, Milo will spar with some tough customers. A weasel-faced punk will stick a gun in Milo’s back, and someone will get badly injured. Milo will get lucky in Vegas and even luckier with the sensational woman known as the Dragon Lady of Hong Kong. And at the end, Milo will get a promised $20,000 bonus whether he solves the case or not. The latter outcome is highly unlikely…

Once again, private eye Milo March, a Major in the Army reserves, is recalled by the CIA for a special mission. At a time when relations between the U.S. and Soviet Russia are somewhat relaxed, the Russians have asked a Syndicate-owned American company to send an expert to teach them how to build coin vending machines and plan where to install them. The CIA easily makes a deal with the Syndicate, and Milo is assigned to go undercover in the guise of this expert. Since both the Syndicate and the Soviets know who Milo March is, his identity must be kept secret. The CIA provides Milo with I.D. papers and a history covering his entire life as a gangster named Peter Miloff. After a crash course in vending machines, he is off to Moscow. Never mind that the Russians have his fingerprints on file. He will spend much of his time opening doors with his palm and closing them with his elbow. Milo’s mission is twofold. First there’s an American agent who disappeared into a Russian prison somewhere, and Milo has to figure out where he is. The other assignment is to finish that agent’s job: find out whether a master Soviet spy who was believed killed during the war is actually still alive and running a special espionage bureau.  And so our hero arrives in Moscow armed with several 007 gadgets and a gun, without which he would feel naked. He has also been offered the assistance of four double agents, two Russian nationals and two Yugoslavs. Just as Milo is deciding that he cannot expect much from these little helpers—apart from the company of the two who are lovely young women—a warning comes from Washington that one of the four agents is a traitor. But which one? The Russians are good at playing the cat-and-mouse game, and now Milo had become the mouse….

It is the time of the infamous Los Angeles riots of 1965—several days of arson and looting in protest of police mistreatment of black residents of the Watts neighborhood in the southeast of the city. During this tense time, Milo March is summoned to L.A. to investigate because one of the properties that has burnt down is heavily insured, as are two of the three people who were killed Harry Masters, the wealthy owner of the building, and his brother-in-law, who owned a store on the first floor.  Milo questions whether the arson and deaths were truly the work of black rioters. Maybe the arson was separate from the rioting, a setting that merely enabled white men to cover a more serious crime. Focusing on the character and habits of Harry Masters is the key to these questions. No one makes a fortune without also making enemies; could that be why someone torched Masters’ building? People said Masters was a no-good bastard, but good at it. Maybe he had decided he wasn’t satisfied with just making a few million a year. Maybe he wanted to score big and go off somewhere with a delicious broad. It’s possible Masters engineered the whole thing, then, with the help of a couple of cheap punks connected to the Syndicate—the same punks who are now tailing and threatening March. Masters could steal money from his own company, leaving it crippled or destroyed, and disappear. He could start over in another country and might never be found. Milo just has to prove that he did it, how he did it, who helped him, where he was, and how to get him back to face the music. That’s all, nothing to it. But Milo has some helpers, too: One is a girlfriend of Harry’s, a voluptuous stripper who seems determined to drink Milo under the table. The other is a young black hipster from the neighborhood. Once Milo has won his trust, he proves to have access to key information that none of the white people suspect.

Insurance companies don’t like it when someone puts a match to a house they’ve insured to the hilt, and in the process burns to death a couple who carry double-indemnity policies. Investigator Milo March sets out to discover who torched the Santa Monica beach house with its owners inside, and who paid them. Did the philandering husband hire a notorious gangster to do the dirty work, and trick a Skid Row bum to stand in for himself as the victim? Three other suspects are an elegant blonde, a steamy redhead, and a shapely young Japanese woman, any of whom Milo might bed or bust—or both—in the course of this fast-paced, action-packed whodunit.

A man disappeared seven years ago, and his large life insurance policies are ready to come due unless he is found alive. He’s a union boss and gangster who was in the midst of testifying to Congress when he mysteriously vanished. Hoping to save the insurance company a million dollars, Milo March crisscrosses the country to find out if he’s still alive, with a pair of professional killers on his tail, determined to stop the investigation.

An exquisite necklace of Chinese jade is stolen from wealthy New York couple, and the insurance company wants investigator Milo March to get it back so they won’t have to pay out the claim. But the case soon expands from simple theft to international intrigue as Milo’s only clue leads him to Hong Kong in search of a well-organized gang and its criminal mastermind.