Mermaid on the Rocks

Mike Shayne #55

by Brett Halliday, Robert McGinnis (Illustrator)

Genres: Fiction

156 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

AKA David Dresser
Excerpt from Wikipedia:

Brett Halliday (July 31, 1904 - February 4, 1977), primary pen name of Davis Dresser, was an American mystery writer, best known for the long-lived series of Mike Shayne novels he wrote, and later commissioned others to write. Dresser wrote non-series mysteries, westerns and romances under the names

Asa Baker, Matthew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Anthony Scott, Peter Field, and Anderson Wayne.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Mermaid on the Rocks," published in 1967, and the 55th novel in the series, comes towards the tail end of the series which began in 1939. Halliday had become a house name after 1958 and, although some fairly good writers labored under the name, this one feels flat. It's got all the Mike Shayne ingredients minus the mobsters and Peter Painter, but it has the shootouts and life and death struggles, and damsels in distress. It all takes place on a largely unknown key off the Florida coast, set to be disposed of in a will if the beneficiaries would just stop trying to kill each other. There isn't a real mermaid but Shayne does have a vision of one as he struggles scuba diving. Not a terrible book, but it just seems a bit underpowered.