Called to an urgent meeting at a mysterious shack in the middle of nowhere, attorney Bill Angell finds his brother-in-law, traveling salesman Joe Wilson, stabbed. With Joe's dying breath, he manages to convey that his murderer was a veiled woman. Was it the wild-eyed woman who had sped past Bill on his way up the dark road to the shack? To help him unravel the mystery, Bill calls on his old friend Ellery Queen. But first Queen will have to unravel the victim's double life - starting with the shack where he's been found dead, smack dab between two very different worlds.

ANATOMY OF A KILLER Sam Jordan never lets emotion interfere with his work. He is a precise and ruthless killing machine, dealing out death for hire. But his last job had ended wrong for Jordan, and now Sandy is sending him out again--without a break, yet--to take care of someone named Kemp. Hell, he even has to case the job himself. The whole thing feels jinxed. That's when Jordan meets Betty, who works at the diner. To her he is Mr. Smith, a button salesman. But to Jordan, Betty is a sweet moment in his life, a safe haven. And that's where he makes his first mistake--he allows himself to feel human. A SHROUD FOR JESSO Jack Jesso knows that Gluck wants him out of the syndicate. Still, when Gluck sends him on an errand to find a missing guy named Snell for a shady client of his, Johannes Kator, Jesso doesn't figure it to be anything more than a test. He finds the guy alright--sick and rambling--but Gluck double-crosses him, and tosses Jesso onto a Europe-bound steamer with Kator's crew, their orders to kill him. Jesso quickly realizes that he holds the key to a big money deal in Snell's ramblings, information that Kator desperately needs. All he has to do to stay alive is keep Kator interested. It's a simple enough scheme--until Jesso meets Kator's beautiful sister, Renette.