Order of Michael Shayne Books
The Mike Shayne Mysteries/Michael Shayne series is written by Brett Halliday. The name Brett Halliday is actually a pen name used by Davis Dresser.
The author was born in Chicago and grew up in Texas. At the age of 14, he ran away from home and joined the U.S. 5th Cavalry Regiment. He then worked in Border Patrol before returning to school. He wrote the first Michael Shayne and saw it get rejected by over twenty publishers before being accepted. The series went on to be one of the biggest successes of his career. The character would go on to appear in twelve films, a radio series, and an NBC television series.
Publication Order of Michael Shayne Books
| Dividend on Death | (1939) |    |
| The Private Practice of Michael Shayne | (1940) | |
| The Uncomplaining Corpses | (1940) | |
| Tickets for Death | (1941) | |
| Bodies Are Where You Find Them | (1941) | |
| The Case of the Walking / Corpse Came Calling | (1943) | |
| Murder Wears a Mummer's Mask / In a Deadly Vein | (1943) | |
| Blood on the Black Market | (1943) | |
| Michael Shayne's Long Chance | (1944) | |
| Murder and the Married Virgin | (1944) | |
| Murder is My Business | (1945) | |
| Marked For Murder | (1945) | |
| Blood on Biscayne Bay | (1946) | |
| Counterfeit Wife | (1947) | |
| Blood on the Stars / Murder Is a Habit | (1948) | |
| A Taste for Violence | (1949) | |
| Call for Michael Shayne | (1949) | |
| This is it, Michael Shayne | (1950) | |
| Framed in Blood | (1951) | |
| When Dorinda Dances | (1951) | |
| A Taste for Cognac | (1951) | |
| What Really Happened | (1952) | |
| One Night with Nora / The Lady Came By Night | (1953) | |
| She Woke to Darkness | (1954) | |
| Death Has Three Lives | (1955) | |
| Stranger in Town | (1955) | |
| The Blonde Cried Murder | (1956) | |
| Heads You Lose | (1956) | |
| Weep for a Blonde | (1957) | |
| Shoot the works | (1957) | |
| Murder and the Wanton Bride | (1958) | |
| Fit to Kill | (1958) | |
| Date with a Dead Man | (1959) | |
| Target | (1959) | |
| Die Like A Dog | (1959) | |
| Murder Takes No Holiday | (1960) | |
| Dolls Are Deadly | (1960) | |
| The Homicidal Virgin | (1960) | |
| Killers from the Keys | (1961) | |
| Murder in Haste | (1961) | |
| The Careless Corpse | (1961) | |
| Pay-Off in Blood | (1962) | |
| Murder by Proxy | (1962) | |
| Never Kill a Client | (1962) | |
| Too Friendly, Too Dead | (1962) | |
| The Corpse That Never Was | (1963) | |
| The Body Came Back | (1963) | |
| A Redhead | (1964) | |
| Shoot to Kill | (1964) | |
| The Violent World of Michael Shayne | (1965) | |
| Nice Fillies Finish Last | (1965) | |
| Murder Spins the Wheel | (1966) | |
| Armed... Dangerous... | (1966) | |
| Mermaid on the Rocks | (1967) | |
| Guilty as Hell | (1967) | |
| So Lush, So Deadly | (1968) | |
| Lady, be Bad | (1969) | |
| Six Seconds to Kill | (1970) | |
| Count Backwards to Zero | (1971) | |
| I Come To Kill You | (1971) | |
| Caught Dead | (1972) | |
| Kill All the Young Girls | (1973) | |
| Blue Murder | (1973) | |
| Last Seen Hitchhiking | (1974) | |
| At The Point of A .38 | (1974) | |
| Million Dollar Handle | (1976) | |
| Win Some, Lose Some | (1976) | |
If You Like Michael Shayne Books, You’ll Love…
Dividend on Death is the first book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries series. The story begins with Shayne pouring himself a drink when Phyllis Brighton tries to jump out of the window of his apartment. He manages to block her before she does. The woman warned him that she was crazy, but Mike didn’t believe her. Her doctor and stepfather believe that she is suffering from a deadly obsession with her mother. Shayne agrees to help keep Phyllis from killing her mother. That doesn’t stop her mother from dying though, being stabbed in the back with a knife. Everyone thinks Phyllis is guilty, but Shayne isn’t so sure and he sets out to prove it.
Another good book in the series is called The Corpse Came Calling. In this book, Shayne is on the hot seat as he is accused of homicide. An old friend named Jim wants to meet him and heads to his office, but the man is dying as he walks in and dies on the office floor. The police think he did it, but he’ll look to clear his name and find out who really did it.