Rufe Baylor, an itinerant engineer, is on his way to a job in Alaska when he gets off a bus in a small California town. Short on money, he agrees to serve as a stiff in a fixed boxing match, which he somehow manages to win, thereby incurring the wrath of the boxing promoter. To this point--about 25 pages into the novel--Stopover for Murder seems a pleasant noir lite, but it soon morphs into a fairly traditional whodunit that Rufe must untangle. Grade: C+
Like the cover art...
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