Burke's Law

A top fashion model is found at a construction site, apparently shot to death. When it is discovered that she was drowned before she was shot, Burke tracks the case back to her ditzy landlady, and then to the heads of the ad agency she was modeling for and the artist who was painting her likeness for a giant ad campaign. Getting involved with another model, Burke soon discovers a plush hideaway owned by three Texas millionaires who ""entertain"" gorgeous young women poolside (where the murder may have taken place). Even though he uncovers a blackmailing butler and information that an older admirer had paid for cosmetic surgery for the model, Burke is suddenly stumped when it is revealed that the water in the dead girl's lungs had orange blossom bath salts in it and not chlorine from the pool.

When a body is discovered dumped alongside the merry-go-round at an amusement park, clues (including a phone number on an old matchbook cover) lead back to the elusive millionaire Emory Flood. Burke is thwarted in his attempts to speak to Flood by the top three men in the Flood empire. Meanwhile, Burke and Tim come to the aid of an elderly woman who is also trying to see Flood, and interview three lovely starlets who are being ""supported"" by Flood (two of whom hate the man, while the third definitely strikes romantic sparks with Burke). Until Burke can identify the dead man, discover the true scene of the crime and locate Flood, he can't find the killer. A photo of Robert Mitchum reveals the clue which proves that the crime was based on a case of mistaken identity.

When big-game hunter Cable Roberts is found shot by one of his own rifles and ""mounted"" in his trophy room, the suspects include both Roberts' current wife (a predatory animal herself), his ex, an angry taxidermist, another hunter, Roberts' secretary, and his extremely sexy maid. Tim notices an interesting point - that Roberts was killed in the same way in which he killed his big game. After two false confessions, Burke discovers that one of the suspects has a more complex relationship to Roberts than first appeared.

An up-and-coming actress dies while surfing, apparently from an obscure medieval poison. But how was it administered? When Burke is faced with an unfamiliar milieu, he sends Tim undercover as a surfer. The victim's grasping mother, a famous novelist, the one-armed owner of a beachfront bar, not one but two bikini-clad young women, and the owner of a surf shop, who had been having an affair with the victim, all come under suspicion. A speargun shoots a little too close to home before the killer is finally uncovered.

The burlesque comedy team of Witt, Watt and Who (now an accountant, a desk clerk and a bartender with a dark secret), a professor of the striptease, a tap dancer, the manager of a hotel for showfolk, a unicyclist - any one of them may have ""killed vaudeville"", but one of them certainly poisoned baggy pants clown Rags McGuire, who was about to be featured in an event at the Hollywood Bowl. But why was Rags killed? He only left a few small bequests and an old battered trunk that no one seems to want. But was that really all? Burke corners the killer at the Hollywood Bowl and almost brings the house down.

After Cassandra Cass is shot in her bed (by a mysterious hooded figure) while her butler draws her bath, it is revealed that she has been blackmailing subscribers to her society Blue Book. One after another of the suspects (a deposed Balkan King, a banker, a drugged out socialite and the head of a ""psychodrama"" society) more or less confesses to the crime, but each of their descriptions of the event varies slightly from the known facts. Meanwhile, Les keeps insisting that ""the butler did it"". With the help of Cassandra's sexy secretary and a health fanatic, Burke concocts a plan to trap the real killer.