F.O.B. Murder

Collins and McKechnie, special agents of the railroad police in Los Angeles, had a number of problems on their hands. There was the matter of that starving, badly beaten young Mexican whom Collins had found in the refrigerator car. He had whispered, "Joya" -- Spanish for "jewelry." And then there was the blonde who reported $75 worth of baggage stolen, undervaluing her loss by many thousands of dollars. McKechnie's case involved a shapely, violet-eyed number who demanded to know what had really happened to her father in the freight yards. And what had happened to his money. When the cases merged into one, Collins and McKechnie found that they were up against something far from routine -- large-scale racketeering, with side effects of theft, brutality, and murder --