The Quaking Widow

Her fortune was the price on her head

Burt Keating had been trying to make the acquaintance of his pretty red-headed neighbor, but he wasn’t getting very far - until the day she escaped from a strange roadside encounter. For when it turned out that murder had resulted from the affair, she threw herself hysterically into Burt’s arms, pleading for his help. It seems she had inherited a sealed box, whose contents were entirely unknown. Certain parties wanted that box badly. They had offered her a fortune - or sudden death.

Burt knew then that chivalry can go too far, for there was no longer any way out once he’d tangled with the quaking widow.

Robert Colby was the author of more than a dozen crime thriller novels and short stories, most notably The Captain Must Die. Some of his other works include The Deadly Desire and Murder Mistress. He was also a prolific contributor of short stories to Alfred Hitchcock magazine and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine--many were later published into two anthology collections.