"In "Black Spider," Loren Mensing makes a detour to visit an old friend and ends up helping to solve her murder. Mensing takes another detour in "The Shape of the Nightmare," this time missing a Christmas cruise and ending up a witness to an airport shooting. In the title story, he is drawn into a case by an old flame, now a famous author, who has hit men after her. Scams abound in stories of con artists attempting everything from impersonating a wealthy heir, to posing as a famous German criminologist, to catching another scam artist who bilked an aging B Western bad guy out of his savings. And Detective Gene Holt must be on his toes when he questions a mystery writer about the disappearance of his wife." --page [4] of cover.