The fighter bent to see in the moonlight. The face in the canvas was his own . . .

The fighter was Luke Pilgrim, middleweight champion of the world. Luke could handle any man in the ring. He also could handle the hoods who were trying to muscle in on his next fight . . . But...

Thursday, he took the examination for lieutenant and had a lot of trouble with it . . .

Friday, his aunt died and left him more money than he bothered to count . . .

Then Joe Burke, a sergeant out of Central Homicide, Los Angeles, turned in his badge. He bought a house, a car, good liquor, and even went in for amateur theater - just in time for a bloody off-stage killing. Joe found himself back on the homicide detail, unofficially this time, in a case that was to teach him more...

What looks like a typical rackets murder turns out to be a dangerous deal for the private eye. He tussles with some trigger-happy punks and a couple of lethal beauties.

Then in one quick leap from mattress to mat he finds himself in a clinch with a murderer who's still fighting, still hating, still bent . . . on the kill.

It sounded like a joke, but the old dame was scared stiff when one of her girls didn't show up for work that night. And this one was her prettiest - and most profitable.

''Find her, shamus, '' she said. ''And fast ''

''My pleasure, '' I said.

My name is Joe Puma. I call myself a detective and I get a hundred bucks a day.

The girl's name was Jean Talsman. She called herself an entertainer and she got a hundred bucks a night.

The job had delightful possibilities - until some joker started making corpses out of the customers, and I found a...

The note was lying on the front seat of my car. It was on an engraved card - scented. Deborah Huntington's.

I got mad. Who did she think she was anyway? I didn't bother to answer. I knew damn well who she was. She was rich, spoiled and beautiful - and I was bewitched, bothered and bewildered, and just the thought of her next to me had me to my eyebrows in a sweat of excitement.

But she was also a suspect for murder. And I was being paid to find the killer.

My good sense kept...

Ex-bookie Tom Spears, framed for the murder of his wife, breaks out of prison and heads for Mexico and freedom. En route, he learns that the lawyer (and friend) who defended him has been murdered. He also discovers that his beloved wife had been unfaithful, that his lawyer friend had been one of her lovers, and that his defense had been deliberately botched. Resolving to unravel the mystery, Spears becomes entangled with his former associates and finds himself caught up in the crossfire between rival gambling syndicates.

She was rich, red-haired and ready for anything. Her name was Fidelia and she was a tempting bit of woman even without the three million dollars she was to inherit. Only wherever she went - and she went everywhere - murder seemed to follow.

That's how I came into the picture. My name is Joe Puma. I'm a private investigator.

.She hired me to scare off the wolves. I'm big for my age, handy with my fists and a fool for trouble - especially when it looks at me the way Fidelia did. It wasn't any picnic, though.

Three million bucks wrapped in a prize...