Book description
On the day they gave the money away . . . the shopping center was a
scene of confusion. A carnival had been set up nearby, and now a clown
was throwing coins and bills to the eager crowd.
Suddenly the gay scene changed to nightmare. A man clutched his
stomach and dropped to the ground. A clown was shot; a young mother
was killed by a stray bullet. The merrymakers were no longer the
audience, but unwilling pawns in a dangerous game - with life or death
as the stakes.
Born Gunard Hjerstedt in Chicago in 1903, Day Keene became
an actor in repertory theater in the early 1920's. When his actor
friends decided to try film, he instead turned to writing, and during
the 1930's was a principal writer for the Little Orphan Annie radio
show, as well as contributing to the pulps. After he moved to the west
coast of Florida, he began writing paperback originals in the late
1940's, mostly fast-paced crime stories. By the 1960's, he had
abandoned mysteries for mainstream novels. He died in North Hollywood
in 1969.
