Ronald Tompkins, the playboy whose millions flowed from Chilean copper mines, had married six breathlessly beautiful girls and was ready to elope with the seventh and loveliest when someone terminated his marriage marathon with a .32 calibre bullet. The task of finding a slayer while surrounded by this fascinating array of suspects falls to Detective Mack McGann, former government agent who has set up his own New York City office. McGann’s researches extend from the past of red-headed Shirley Stanton, cigarette girl at The Diamond Corkscrew, to the present of Irma Nelson, the blonde headwaitress, and the future of model Charity Jones, bride No. 7-elect. Dinkman (Dink) Wexton, police reporter, Amos Holton, the funereal lawyer, Frazier Farwell, that dean of disk jockeys, and “Hooker” Hunyak, the heavyweight contender, add punch and rhythm to this fast-moving tale of pub-crawling Gotham where a woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a clue.
