Surfside 6(1960–1962)

Country Gentleman

An ex-con moves to Miami from New York with his muscle man. No one believes he's gone straight, especially when a yacht club commodore turns up dead after denying him access to the yacht club.

High Tide

A woman, who identifies herself as a ""boring stenographer on vacation"", shows up at the houseboat with three thugs after her. After Sandy and Ken fend off the men, Sandy takes the woman for a drink -- and she promptly disappears on him. He's out to find out where the ""boring stenographer"" went and why men were tailing her.

The Clown

A hated dictator, living in exile in Miami, is murdered during a birthday party for his son. Lt. Snedigar thinks he has an open-and-shut case against Pepe the Clown, who performed at the birthday party, but Pepe insists he was not at the party. Dave has to prove to the skeptical policeman someone else went to the party in Pepe's costume.

According to Our Files

Bearer bonds have been missing for seven years while the man convicted of their theft has been in prison. An insurance agent asks Sandy to try to recover the bonds before his company has to pay on the insurance policy. One problem: every lead in the case turns out to be bad.

Local Girl

A woman is on the run with $20,000 that was intended as a bribe. She hires Ken as a bodyguard to accompany her back to her hometown, unaware that the brother of the man the bribe is intended to free is on their tail.

Par-a-kee

Daphne goes to visit her horse, Par-a-kee, at the stable the night before a race. She interrupts a man trying to inject the horse with a fatal virus. Daphne's father hires Dave to investigate, while a bookie begins spreading rumors about the Dutton stable to have Par-a-kee disqualified.

Deadly Male

A woman, having an affair, turns up dead after her lover attempts to blackmail her. The woman's husband, who suspected the affair, is the prime suspect, and asks Dave to find the truth.

Power of Suggestion

The girl in a mind-reading act hires Dave to look after her because she feels that the star of the show has given her a post-hypnotic suggestion to kill someone.

Odd Job

Ken is paid $2000 to meet a business executive in Fort Lauderdale. En route he is kidnapped by men posing as police officers. He escapes and arrives at the hotel to meet the businessman, discovering someone else posing as Ken Madison has already contacted the businessman.

The International Net

A theatrical producer's wife receives a note implicating her husband as a killer. He intercepts a second note and asks Ken and Sandy to find who sent the message. A man the producer hated, a former love rival, turns up dead, and there are no shortage of suspects.

The Frightened Canary

An obnoxious comedian makes advances toward a nightclub singer friend of Sandy's. She publicly embarrasses him after he beats her boyfriend up, so he seeks his revenge with threats and harassment.

Girl in the Galleon

A diver discovers five boxes of gold coins in a shipwreck while on a dive for a museum. He goes to ask for a percentage of the find. The next day he turns up dead, an apparant drowning victim. Sandy thinks it was murder, so he enlists Ken to find out what happened and if it is related to a woman the diver reported seeing in the sunken ship the day before his death.

Bride and Seek

Dave is asked by a woman to find her missing husband. While investigating he discovers he's not the only one looking for the missing man -- and the woman who hired him isn't really the bride she claims to be.

Little Star Lost

When a beautiful starlet finds out she is adopted, her old friend Sandy tries to keep her from being duped by someone claiming to be her real mother.

Heels Over Head

Dave and Ken are dropped into a criminal's hunt for $70,000 after Dave refuses the job of protecting a closed-mouth man who leaves behind a letter with a fake address and blank paper inside.

Facts on the Fire

A woman has an unusual request of Ken: she wants him to prove that she's guilty of murdering her husband, although she was cleared of wrongdoing by an inquest. Before he begins investigating in earnest Ken is beaten up by some ""admirers"" of the dead man and ordered to make certain his investigation does prove her guilty. The more Ken digs, the more he uncovers that makes it appear that the woman did murder her husband.

Yesterday's Hero

Dave has wounds from the past opened up over his best friend from the Korean War. The man was reported to have been executed by a dictator for aiding revolutionaries, but his widow shows up and claims she wired him money long after the alleged execution. Dave tries to find his old buddy while controlling his feelings for his friend's wife and dealing with the suspicious exiles.

Thieves Among Honor

License to Steal

A former USO singer who knew Dave in Korea is trying to make a name for herself. To help, she gets a ""gimmick"" - $130,000 worth of jewelry to attract publicity. The ""gimmick"" indeed attracts publicity -- thieves, who rob the nightclub during the show.

Race Against Time

Dave is poisoned while flying back to Miami. Ken and Sandy have five hours to find what poison was used in order to save Dave's life. That task is complicated by uncooperative passengers from Dave's flight and the accidental death of the prime suspect, a man Dave once prosecuted.

Black Orange Blossoms

Barbara Page, a friend of Sandy's, invites him to Jamaica to celebrate a carnival. While there, a friend of Barbara's father dies from a snake bite. Since there are no poisonous snakes on Jamaica, one of the plantation workers, often accused of importing poisonous snakes for voodoo rituals, is the prime suspect. Both Barbara's father and the plantation worker ask Sandy to investigate.

The Chase

Dave Thorne aids a murder witness.

Ghost of a Chance

A Treasury Department engraver retiree disappears from Bass Creek on his honeymoon. A federal agent thinks he's being forced to work with conterfeiters so she hires Ken, who vacations frequently at Bass Creek. When they arrive, posing as newlyweds, Ken discovers that his old friends have been replaced by new, unfriendly owners.

The Impractical Joker

Inside Job

A man suspects that his bank is going to be robbed because he has seen the pattern before. The police cannot act on hunches, so the man hires Dave to gather information and to possibly infiltrate the group planning the robbery.

Invitation to a Party

A young woman feels she is being blackmailed to keep an accident from making headlines and ruining her father's chance at political office. To prove her case Sandy poses as the wild son of a millionaire who is in danger of having his inheritance cut off if he gets into trouble.

Spring Training

The manager of a baseball team hires Ken, a one-time aspiring pitcher, to keep tabs on a rookie pitching sensation who may be involved with a bookie.

Double Image

Sandy meets a beautiful tourist, a woman who has a strange obsessive interest in a local mobster.

Circumstantial Evidence

A performer in a water ski show is blackmailing her former boyfriend. He will lose a multi-million dollar inheritance if he gets married before the age of 30, but she discovers he secretly got married to a rival in the water ski show. When the woman turns up dead, Cha Cha's nephew, who had an almost obsessive crush on her, is implicated in the murder.

Vengeance Is Bitter

Little Mister Kelly

Spinout at Sebring

The Bhoyo and the Blonde

Kevin Flanagan is a famous, profane novelist vacationing in Miami. He has a love of women and drink, which causes his wife to hire Dave as a bodyguard ""to protect him from himself"". Dave has much more to protect Kevin from: while on a drinking binge he witnessed a murder. The criminals are not sure whether Kevin's alcohol fog will allow him to remember what he saw, so they make arrangements to kill him.

Count Seven!

Ken is hired to investigate theft at an amusement park. He befriends a little girl while there, then finds himself between the girl's divorced parents when the man's fiancee turns up murdered and the little girl's stuffed birthday present is stolen at gunpoint from her home.

The Wedding Guest

When Daphne is kidnapped on the way to a friend's wedding in Nassau, Sandy discovers the truth about the prospective groom.

One for the Road

When Daphne falls in love with a mysterious young nomad, the detectives are suspicious of his past.

Daphne, Girl Detective

Daphne invites a friend of hers and her actor husband to a party on the houseboat. The couple argue and leave separately. He waits for Daphne's friend and kills her. Daphne strongly suspects this, but since Lt. Plehn and the SurfSide detectives refuse to listen to her theories she decides to take matters into her own hands.

The Empty House

A wealthy businessman hires Ken to look after his wild daughter. The girl is enamored with an ex-con who owes a crime boss $25,000. When the man turns up dead, she confesses to his murder.

Witness for the Defense

Dave Thorne tries to defend Sandy, who is facing a murder charge after slugging a drunken attacker who was found dead only minutes later.

Laugh for the Lady

Dave Thorne runs into an old girlfriend who turns out to be involved in a marital triangle that leads to attempted murder.

The Affairs at Hotel Delight

While preparing to leave a tiny hotel Ken finds a young woman passed out in the hall outside his room. He revives her and discovers she is carrying $45,000 ransom money for her abducted boyfriend. Ken, against his better judgment, decides to help her ""negotiate"" with the kidnappers because she is $5,000 short of their ransom demand -- and she keeps fainting.

Jonathan Wembley Is Missing

Sandy is persuaded to help a ventriloquist whose dummy has been kidnapped.

The Old School Tie

Jersey State, Dave's alma mater, is holding its class of 1951 reunion at the Fontainebleau Hotel. The reunion opens up old wounds that lead to murder.

A Matter of Seconds

Prescription for Panic

A Slight Case of Chivalry

Dave is the focal point in the hunt for Dan Castle, Dave's one-time employer in a private investigative office in New York. People inquiring as to the man's whereabouts include a bounty hunter who is out for the $5,000 reward on Castle's head on a murder charge in New York and a woman who claims to be his wife. Dave tries to sort out who is telling the truth about his one-time co-worker before the bounty hunter makes Castle his sixth victim.

Pattern for a Frame

A judge's daughter trips and falls on the beach near Ken, injuring her ankle. The ""accident"" leads to the two going out for dinner. What Ken doesn't know is the woman is being blackmailed by a racket boss to lure Ken into a trap where he will be accused of murder.

The Roust

When Ken inquires as to why his partner left the Boom Boom Room in an angry huff, Dave says he saw a man he wanted to kill. The man in question is Bernard ""Chilly"" Childress, a ruthless criminal whom Dave once unsuccessfully prosecuted in New York, and who was responsible for Dave once being shot in the chest. Lt. Plehn has word that Childress is planning on moving to Miami, so Dave sets out to do what he failed to do in New York: finish off Childress.

The Quarterback

A woman, the former girlfriend of a convicted mob boss, tells Lt. Plehn's brother, a star quarterback preparing to play in the Orange Bowl, that she is Lt. Plehn's mistress, and he stole evidence. Her boyfriend approaches the football star and tells him that, unless he throws the outcome of the Orange Bowl, the district attorney will be contacted and Lt. Plehn will be arrested. The charges aren't true, but the quarterback is so angry at his brother over the story that he refuses to talk to him. Sandy knows something is wrong after he sees Lt. Plehn's brother with a racketeer, but he has only one day before the big game to sort everything out.

Separate Checks

Artful Deceit

Anniversary Special

A famous TV star's plans for a gala program coinciding with his wedding anniversary face a potential shipwreck when his wife tells him she wants a divorce. He hires Dave to look after her, presenting her as a ""nervous"" type who might try suicide. Dave believes there is something more sinister behind her ""emotional"" problems, centered around her husband's ego and political aspirations.

The Surfside Swindle

Not realizing that he is being taken by a conman, Garibaldi Dinato pays a year's rent up front to lease the Surfside 6 houseboat as a new location for his Italian restaurant.

Who Is Sylvia?

Sylvia, the head of a flourishing swimsuit company, walked off the job. Her husband hires Dave to find her, portraying her as mentally unstable and having made threats on his life. Dave finds Sylvia but she runs away rather than return to her business. When her husband turns up dead, Lt. Plehn seeks her arrest, ignoring the information Dave and Ken uncover about other possible suspects.

Find Leroy Burdette

A woman from South Carolina shows up at the office while Ken's trying to go fishing and asks him to find the boyfriend that jilted her. Initially reluctant, Ken takes the job and discovers that her ex-boyfriend has mob ties. Meanwhile, Daphne and Cha Cha attempt to improve her wardrobe in case Ken finds her boyfriend, and Lt. Plehn is trying to establish a case on a murdered mobster.

Many a Slip

Sandy is hired to find an old acquaintance, the director of a lingere show. He encounters a number of romantic double-crosses. One member of the show entourage turns up dead, an apparent suicide, but Sandy thinks otherwise.

The Green Beret

Dave is temporarily reactivated into the military as a training officer. Intelligence has an enemy agent under surveillance and knows that her contact is in the unit Dave is training, but they don't know who the spy is. Dave must discover who the spy is to prevent his unit's ordered simulated attack on a nuclear power facility from becoming real.

Vendetta Arms

Daphne befriends five retired old crooks sharing a house together. A young crook is staying there and is stealing things and threatening everyone.

A Piece of Tommy Minor

Singing sensation Tommy Minor has a problem -- gambling. His manager asks Sandy to get the mob off his back. Sandy knows a gambling boat outside the territorial limits runs crooked games, but he has to prove it, and keep himself and Tommy out of danger.

Portrait of Nicole

An insurance company hires the boys to find the beneficiary of a life insurance policy named Nicole Johnson. Things get complicated when the boys find three Nicole Johnsons.

Elegy for a Bookkeeper

A former client of Ken's is murdered in prison before he can be released to testify against a racket boss. In order to prove the boss was behind the murder, Ken must make everyone think the murdered man is still alive -- and that Ken and Dave have split up in an argument over the man's daughter.

The Money Game

A prince is developing a new co-op with oil. Sandy has been hired to ask the prince to consider a rival partner for the ""black sand"". With the amount of money at stake, rivals will stop at nothing to be the prince's partner.

Irish Pride

Green Bay Riddle

The small town of Green Bay doesn't like outsiders. One such outsider was acquitted of the murder of his father-in-law, although everyone still considers him guilty. Ken is hired by the man's wife to prove to the townsfolk that the man is indeed innocent.

Love Song for a Deadly Redhead

Jeff, a private investigator from L.A. and friend of the SurfSide detectives, is called to Miami to investigate a threatening note left for a lounge singer. He meets a redhead, who takes him to her home. He passes out and wakes up the prime suspect in the murder of the redhead's husband, leaving his SurfSide friends to clear him.

Dead Heat

Squeeze Play

A Private Eye for Beauty

Masquerade

Pawn's Gambit

The Neutral Corner

Someone is trying to kill a former boxing champion, so his manager hires Ken to find out who is behind the ""accidents"" (including a bomb placed at SurfSide 6 during a party for the champ). Ken finds no shortage of suspects, including the boxer's ex-wife, a crusading sports writer, and a mob boss who owns the boxer's contract.

House on Boca Key

A drug store delivery boy borrows a formal jacket from Sandy for a prom. As he leaves the houseboat he is shot. Sandy thinks it was a case of mistaken identity and the bullets were meant for him.