Publisher's Synopsis
Two Complete Novels of Women Facing Unrelenting Terror.... by "Sebastian Blayne," the brilliant detective and Broadway playwright
HOLIDAY IN HELL
Someone wants Moira dead but each horrific attempt, each apparent "accident," has failed so far...and cost others their lives. But she knows that soon her luck will run out...and that the killer, who might even be her own husband, will succeed.
Moira's only hope is Sebastian "Neddy" Blayne...the flamboyant, wealthy, pampered bon vivant... famous playwright, author and brilliant detective.
Blayne is equal parts Nero Wolfe, Simon Templar and Hercule Poirot...and he is aided in his adventures by his bald, Italian valet Beppo, his red-headed secretary Maggie, and his French poodle Misty...and the ever-diligent NYPD homicide detective Simon Fennelley.
But can he save her...and himself... from a holiday in hell?
This book was previously published under the title Gay Ghastly Holiday
TERROR IN THE NIGHT
"A tense, psychological novel of suspense, written in a brittle, sophisticated manner that will keep the reader in a state of fascination." Pensacola News-Journal
Memo from Maggie MacMahon: "I'm going back. I guess I'm too 'lace curtain Irish stubborn' to be scared off. You say I have bride's jitters, but Neddy, I know someone in the dowager house means to kill me. The town will be filled with terror for me and I'll dread the streets at night. I only hope my murderer isn't Curt, because that would mean I'm marrying a psychopath. Remember how we used to drink Courvoisier out of the toothbrush glass? Will you miss me Neddy? Your loving secretary, Maggie."
Is Sebastian Blayne's secretary marrying a psychopathic killer? Will Blayne find the answer before she's killed...or will he die trying?
"These are very unusual, highly entertaining books from the early 1950s that deftly merge 'women in jeopardy' thrillers with the kind of light-hearted crime novels exemplified by THE SAINT. Both books feature Sebastian Blayne, a flamboyant, wealthy, bon vivant playwright and brilliant detective...and presumably also the author of these two tales. It's a shame these are his only two adventures." Lee Goldberg, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Lost Hills and co-author of the Fox & O'Hare novels with Janet Evanovich.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
"Sebastian Blayne" was the pseudonym that writer Jan Huckins adopted for two crime novels written in the early 1950s. She was born in 1911 in Oklahoma City, where her parents owned the Huckins Hotel (her mother later jumped to her death from the 8th floor in 1949). She wrote freelance articles for newspapers and magazines and ghost-wrote the scripts (for writer Irma Phillips) for the popular 1942 radio serial Lonely Woman, which she also novelized. In 1959, she co-authored the novel "Face of My Assassin" under her own name with Carolyn Weston. Huckins died in Santa Monica, California in 1981.
