Hall's Stanley Hastings is a private eye with a sense of humor. Think Columbo meets Nero Wolfe, but modern. Like Andy Griffith, Hastings doesn't carry a gun, and combined with a pretty crazy inclination to laugh at himself, be prepared for a lot of misadventures.

Our hero shamus is staking out a motel in New Jersey in order to get evidence on a woman's unfaithful husband--just a standard stakeout, something he has done hundreds of times. It's all going well until, well, it doesn't. Turns out the husband wasn't cheating because he was dead, and the murder is being pinned on an individual who has been hanging out at the apartment where he was found not breathing. You guessed it--that individual is Hastings.

Stanley needs to clear his name and ends up jumping bail, impersonating a cop, and staking out a mob boss. It's a funny romp deliciously written by an author with a real flair for the humorous. A different kind of mystery.