Helen Nielsen – författare

It was a Tuesday night in November, 1962. Rain fell slow and steady in Manhattan, slanting hard on near-deserted sidewalks and streets pocked by the occasional twin circles of approaching headlamps. Taxis spawned out from Times Square like predatory bugs in search of new feeding grounds, and here and there a truck rolled heavily past sleeping skyscrapers where spotty clusters of bright windows indicated janitors were toiling late on nocturnal rounds. Nature had a conspiracy against Kyle Walker. Tuesday was the night for his extension course at the university, and it had rained every Tuesday since the course began. Kyle Walker was 30, a civil engineer on the city payroll, and a man of ambition far above his present status. Tall, angular, a bit shaggy in his waterproof and fedora, he hunched awkwardly over the steering wheel of the eight-year-old sedan that was taking him home.

A beautiful suspect with an intense desire to kill.The murder of Roger Warren seemed like an open-and-shut case.The evening before, Roger and his dazzling wife Wanda had moved from one bar to another, fighting loudly and publicly. The next morning, the dead figure of Roger was slumped in a living room chair … while Wanda lay sleeping in bed, a bloodied knife on the pillow beside her.At the District Attorney’s office, the bereaved beauty could remember nothing . . . except an intense desire to kill.

A super-cool lady - a passionate murder.Simon Drake hadn’t counted on violence when he asked the super-cool Hannah Lee to manage the Marina Beach mansion. With beautiful Hannah residing as den mother and poker companion, Simon soon found himself host to the most colorful characters on the California coast.And, shortly, he discovered that his lovely home was a haven from everything but passionate murder.

As in her sensational first offering, Helen Nielsen has again come up with a fast-paced and remarkably readable mystery. It begins when a gorgeous girl makes an incredible proposal, and ends when a would-be fall guy unearths some low schemes in high society—while solving a murder to save his own skin. The action is smooth, tough and colorful all the way.

The melody of death...Down at the edge of Mexican town, where the pavement gives out and the yellow dust drifts ankle deep over the hard packed adobe, a radio is moaning a dreamy beat into the night. It is the kind of music that needs two people, but only one is listening—a long legged blonde who keeps time to the music while brushing her glistening hair...She drops the brush and reaches for the tall glass that stands on the dressing table—and then she hesitates, peering into the blackness of the room beyond. There is no doubt about the sound...“Frank?” She stands up and moves through the doorway, the name still on her lips. And then she dies...horribly.

The filming of an American movie set on location in Greece becomes the stage for a far more sinister production in this unputdownable political suspense. Rich and famous movie directors like Harry Avery don’t ordinarily disappear—especially when on a routine flight in a private plane seeking location shots for another film. Yet why was Avery flying so close to the Albanian border? Why had his hitherto reliable plane crashed so unpredictably? And why—once the rescue party reached the spot in the Greek mountains—wasn’t his body found among the wreckage?Brad Smith, back in Los Angeles after active duty in Vietnam, is determined to find Avery. Brad has his own scores to settle with the millionaire director, for not only has Avery stolen some of his original TV scripts, written just before he left for the service, he has also stolen his girlfriend, the now famous actress, Rhona Avery.Upon arrival in Greece, Brad soon realizes that Avery’s ominous disappearance has far greater implication than he anticipated. Soon he is caught up in a dangerous web of plot and counterplot as eh discovers he is not alone in the manhunt: the beautiful actress he once loved seems to have more on her mind than wifely devotion in her frantic search; the CIA as well as the undercover agents of another world power are equally determined to find the missing director. And each, for different reasons, is desperate to track him down first.No one knows better than Helen Nielsen how to keep a complex plot going at a faster-than-the-eye-can-see pace. Danger, intrigue and the guessable conclusion—hallmarks of Miss Nielsen’s suspenses—are evidenced yet again.

In a neatly handled story with a fresh setting, Helen Nielsen introduces Larry Willis, star salesman for an American farm equipment company, who earned a trip to Copenhagen for a business convention. With four days free before its opening, he wandered about in a lonely and bewildered state until a stranger addressed him as “MacDonald” and handing him a package containing three hundred dollars. From that moment on he was the busiest man in Copenhagen. He became the unwilling center of an intrigue that involved illegal smuggling of refugees from Russia, murder, and sundry other matters. In the end it netted him a whole new outlook on life, a girl, and a hero’s part in solving this fascinating puzzle.The characterization, atmosphere, and suspense give Helen Nielsen fans a full measure of her skill as a storyteller and offer the new reader an unexpected pleasure.

Young Marta Cornish was haunted by a heritage of buried scandal and dark desires. Her father—a composer of genius—had died violently and the sinister enigma of his death lingered, poisoning the lives of those who had loved and hated him.Suddenly, past anguish exploded into present terror: a shadowed figure walked, desperate to lay the ghost of Martin Cornish—at the price of his daughter’s life …

Was the crash deliberately contrived, a diabolical piece of sabotage, or was it cruelly fortuitous? Simon Drake—Miss Nielsen’s very personable and popular lawyer-detective—happens to be at the airport at the time of the crash, and notices that some surprising people have been awaiting the ill-fated plane: among them, a gangster boss and a millionaire playboy. He hastens to take his boat out into the bay, to help search for possible survivors, but all he manages to pick up is one piece of hand luggage—a cosmetics case which is identified as belonging to Sigrid Thorsen, a young starlet who was joining her fiancé at Los Angeles. And the severed key concealed in the case is the first of many clues in the extremely dangerous and complex adventure which invades Drake’s life.The mystery develops in many directions, and Drake finds himself and his friens more and more involved. In the background there is the hovering, enigmatic presence of the gangster boss. And from time to time a trio of utterly amoral hippies erupt into the narrative.As we approach the very tense climax, the plot grows darker and more deadly: Miss Nielsen has many surprises in reserve.

Intricacy, expertise, substance—all are here in this latest of Helen Nielsen’s absorbing mysteries.“Homicide, by person or persons unknown,” was the judgment of the coroner’s jury—but for Jaime Dodson, brother of the murdered woman, the ordeal was just beginning. There was that crucial period that had begun when he stood over his sister, enraged, ready to strike. Only one course was open—to investigate for himself the events of the fatal evening, teasing the memory. His young wife, his friends watched in painful fascination; for two of them knew that already, under narcosis in the hospital, Jaime had confessed that he was the killer …

Danny Ross, kid hitch-hiker trapped by circumstantial evidence . . . Now he was a fugitive, alone and friendless . . .His one ally lay on the seat of the stolen car, the gun he’s ripped from the sheriff’s holster when he escaped. The sight of it brought sweat to his forehead, made him want to toss it out the window. But he could not . . .Now it was all he had, and he was going to need it . . .

Barney Amling, president of Pacific Guaranty, disappears. So do a million of the company’s dollars. Ostensibly, he has gone to Mexico City for a monetary conference, but he didn’t arrive and wasn’t expected. His wife calls in the lawyer Simon Drake (Helen Nielsen’s usual and always brilliant detective). Neither she nor Simon, who knows Barney well, can believe that he’s a thief; nor can Captain Reardon, chief of police, who is another old friend. But things don’t look good.Simon probes into Barney’s dubious relationship with Pucci, property speculator and near-gangster, and with Verna, ex-brothel madame and nightclub owner. The trail leads to Buenos Aires, where Barney is seemingly killed in a spectacular car crash. But is he dead? The plot grows increasingly complex, the action quickens, the tension mounts …Helen Nielsen writes as compellingly as ever; her ingenuity is matched by her readability. Her many fans have another treat in store this time.