Lust Is No Lady — Michael Avallone

ED NOON MYSTERY #14

Lust Is No Lady

Ed Noon's car blows a tire on Highway 80 in Wyoming, and he is immediately the helpless target for a diving Piper Cub, which bombards him with bricks. He finds Brandy, a naked Indian girl, staked out in the sun, and she leads him to a cabin, where her Uncle Charlie Redwine has been tortured to death. Noon encounters the Riker Gang, which is determined to find a missing gold bullion shipment, dating back to the Civil War. But the main distraction is P.J., the murderous dwarf pilot of the Piper Cub, who has some very bad plans of his own.

The Adventures of Ed Noon, Private Eye, spanning over 30 novels written
between 1953 and 1990. Noon starts out dirt poor with a tiny office in Midtown Manhattan (his “Mouse Auditorium”) but success moves him to better digs, a lovely secretary (Melissa Mercer) and, eventually, the most important client of all: the President of the United States. The series concludes with a daring turn towards science fiction in the last two novels. Through it all, the wisecracking Noon is consistent: a movie and baseball-obsessed romantic who always fights the good fight. And, more often than not, wins.