The Lizard Fifth

They might be cold-blooded, but they get the job done. Join these four Lizards in finding out who-done-it before they become a pair of boots. This collection includes Scarlet Crop, The Lamarre Curse, The Persian Penguin, The Crystal Screw, and The Lean Male.

Filled with gangsters, cops on the take, and a peregrine desperate to reclaim his territory, Ashton teeters on the brink of an all-out gang war. A Mainland Investigations detective is called into town by Paul Mason, who is murdered before briefing the lizard on the case. Pitting faction against faction, and with a target on his own back, the detective must save Ashton before his number is up.

The lizard, known only as the Mainland Detective, investigates a theft of diamonds only to uncover a tangled web of lies and murder seemingly connected to a family curse. The lizard can’t get away from Odette Wembley because every time he solves one issue, another arises.

Private detective Dean Diamond and his partner, Simon Mills, are hired by the beautiful Mrs. Lavender to track down her sister’s brutish boyfriend, Lenny King. Diamond is dubious, but the pair take the case, and when both Mills and King wind up in body bags within 24 hours, Diamond realizes that there is far more to this case than Lavender had let on.

Monitor lizard, Horace Avraham, has always steered his best friend and boss in the right direction. Only this time, the pit bull is ignoring his advice. Victor Lenox is a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspires to something better: the daughter of Senator Jared Wilson Vale, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebred Dalmatians. Does he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Lenox is innocent, which of his dozens of enemies is doing an awfully good job of framing him? Can Avraham solve the puzzle in time, or will the next stop be the gas chamber?

When an inventor’s secretary is murdered, everyone assumes Mick will take the case because he knows the accused. Why won't the squirrel come out of hiding and talk to the police? Everyone who knows anything does nothing but lie. If not for his wife's taste for adventure, Mick would wash his hands of the whole affair.