Odd Jobs, Inc.

An all-star serial killer terrorizes Earth's smartest detectives Raffles Tunny, a juggler in the employ of the United States government, is relaxing at his Swiss chalet when a killer comes to call. He's found the next day, electrocuted in the style of serial murderer Shocker Fulson, the man with the electric touch. The trouble is, Shocker's dead-cremated and interred in New Orleans-and Raffles is not the first victim. Six other government-employed entertainers are have been murdered, all of them killed in the style of an executed madman. A case this insane demands an equally insane detective, which means it's time to call Odd Jobs, Inc.   Jake and Hildy Pace have made names for themselves solving impossible murders. But nabbing the copycat lunatic will mean facing down the Amateur Mafia, a gang of belly-button ventriloquists, and the strangest doctor the future has ever seen. One false step, and they'll follow Raffles to the great music hall in the sky.

Jake and his wife grapple with a harebrained Nazi doctor Jake Pace is battling a bistro's worth of robotic mafia goons when the government comes to ask him a favor. The Department of Big Business has a particularly sensitive murder on its hands, and Jake, proprietor of Odd Jobs, Inc., is a sensitive detective. A week ago, Statz Kazee announced to a television audience of 140 million that his next scoop would blow the lid off the international business community. Hours later, he was found shot to death, and every federal policemen sent to investigate the murder has wound up dead. Now it's Jake's problem.   After battling malfunctioning skycars, sinking houses, and mysterious cowboys, Jake and his wife learn that Statz had information about the fearsome Adolph Hibbler, the nastiest sinner to ever come out of the Nazi scientific community. Seventy years after the end of the war, Hibbler is back, and he'll burn America to the ground if Jake can't handcuff him first.

His brain scrambled, Jake tries to clear himself of a murder charge Jake Pace comes to on the floor of a dungeon, where a robot jailer is killing rats. The last twenty-four hours are a blank; he doesn't remember anything since he stepped into his skycar, chasing a tip on the Big Bang murders. For weeks the killings have stumped every officer in the government-costing six of them their lives-but a soprano named Palsy Hatchbacker told Jake she knew something that could break open the case. Before he met Miss Hatchbacker, a carnation-wearing goon spritzed Jake with a memory-wiping spray. When the police found him, he was sleeping peacefully next to Palsy's corpse, a laser pistol in his hand.   While he rots in jail, the Big Bang killer continues his rampage. Only Jake can bring him to justice, but first he must break out of an inescapable jail.

A dead woman hires Jake to investigate her murder. Jake Pace is halfway through mixing a batch of cookies when his lawyer arrives with a corpse. The body in the coffin is an android, built in the shape of recently deceased electronics heiress Sylvie Kirkyard and implanted with a chip that holds Sylvie's memories. Although she was only twenty-seven, Sylvie had for a long time feared for her life, and took the precaution of insuring her consciousness with Kirktronics' patented Brainz, Inc. method. Upon her death, the chip was implanted in this electronic body, and the body was brought to Jake.   Luckily, as the planet's smartest private detective, Jake is used to corpses, robotic and otherwise. When the dead girl awakes and asks him to find her killers, Jake doesn't blink an eye. But fulfilling her last request will be perilous, and by the time it's over Jake may wish he had a spare body of his own.