Front matter

Books by GEORGE HARMON COXE

Murder with Pictures (1935)

The Barotique Mystery (1936) The Camera Clue (1937)

Four Frightened Women (1939)

Murder for the Asking (1939) The Glass Triangle (1939)

The Lady Is Afraid (1940) No Time to Kill (1941)

Mrs. Murdock Takes a Case (1941)

Silent Are the Dead (1942) Assignment in Guiana (1942)

The Charred Witness (1942)

Alias the Dead (1943) Murder for Two (1943)

Murder in Havana (1943) The Groom Lay Dead (1944)

The Jade Venus (1945)

Woman at Bay (1945) Dangerous Legacy (1946)

The Fifth Key (1947) Fashioned for Murder (1947)

Venturous Lady (1948)

The Hollow Needle (1948) Lady Killer (1949)

Inland Passage (1949) Eye Witness (1950)

The Frightened Fiancée (1950) The Widow Had a Gun (1951)

The Man Who Died Twice (1951)

Never Bet Your Life (1952) The Crimson Clue (1953)

Uninvited Guest (1953) Focus on Murder (1954)

Death at the Isthmus (1954) Top Assignment (1955)

Suddenly a Widow (1956) Man on a Rope (1956)

Murder on Their Minds (1957) One Minute Past Eight (1957)

The Impetuous Mistress (1958) The Big Gamble (1958)

Slack Tide (1959) Triple Exposure (1959) CONTAINING The Glass Triangle, The Jade Venus, & The Fifth Key

One Way Out (1960)

The Last Commandment (1960)

Error of Judgment (1961) Moment of Violence (1961)

The Man Who Died Too Soon (1962) Mission of Fear (1962)

THESE ARE BORZOI BOOKS, PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

MISSION OF FEAR

Sam Adler appeared one afternoon at Marion Hayden’s door trying for the big payoff—Blackmail. The next day he was dead—paid off with a knife in the back—and for the Haydens the nightmare had just begun.

Adler’s story had been stunning enough before—now, with State Police Lieutenant Garvey pushing hard it could mean a murder indictment for both of them. And Garvey kept the questions coming fast—questions that all reduced to one: Was Ted Corbin alive? Ted Corbin—Marion Hayden’s ex-husband, and by every evidence dead these two years in an airplane accident.

Doris Lamar knew some of the answers—but she had her own good reasons for keeping them to herself.

John Hayden didn’t have any answers—yet. But he did have two photographs and a hunch; and that was why he was traveling desperately across the country now—in search of a dead man.

For if Corbin were alive he might know all the answers—might very well be the answer.

This was John Hayden’s last chance: he had to find Corbin ... he had to find him.

The pace and tension build in every page of this tale of greed, jealousy and hatred by the dean of American mystery writers. Here is one of George Harmon Coxe’s neatest, briskest performances.

MISSION OF FEAR

George Harmon Coxe

ALFRED A. KNOPF · New York

1962

L. C. catalog card number: 62-14612

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK,

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

Copyright © 1962 by George Harmon Coxe.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured in the United States of America, and distributed by Random House, Inc. Published simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, by Random House of Canada, Limited.

FIRST EDITION

MISSION OF FEAR