1. The High Cost of Dying
1958-01-07
30m
When a man convicted of armed robbery is mortally wounded in a prison knife fight, he calls on Hammer to perform a last service - retrieve the loot he hid before he was arrested and use the money to ransom his wife who has been kidnapped.
2. Just Around the Corner
1958-02-14
30m
When an elderly man living in Mike's hotel unexpectedly inherits $7500, Hammer appoints himself the man's guardian to ward off moochers and con artists.
3. Hot Hands, Cold Dice
1958-01-21
30m
After discovering his office has been ransacked, Mike receives a threatening phone call ordering him off "the case" and to drop his client, Sharon O'Closkey. Mike refuses, even though he wasn't working on a case and didn't have a client named O'Closkey. When the mysterious client calls and invites the private investigator to her room, Mike quickly agrees, only to fall victim to drugged meal. When he awakens, he discovers he's in Las Vegas and his beautiful client claims he flew to Nevada willingly to help her find her missing father.
4. Death Gets a Diploma
1958-01-28
30m
At the behest of an old friend, Mike investigates her son's relationship with a beautiful young woman whose sugar daddy, a mobster turning states evidence, was murdered outside a nightclub.
5. So That's Who It Was
1958-02-11
30m
Mike responds to a phone call from a small-time junkie requesting protection too late; he finds his friend shot to death in a Chinatown alley. Not satisfied that the police will exert themselves to find the man's killer, Mike launches his own investigation and links the crime to an earlier unsolved murder.
6. Dead Men Don't Dream
1958-02-18
30m
Mike returns to his old neighborhood when gunsels working for a protection racket murder a boyhood friend. Before long, his investigation into the gang's criminal activities results in more fatalities.
7. Letter Edged in Blackmail
1958-02-25
30m
While eating in a hotel restaurant, Mike spots a man take a package from a woman's table. Even though the package contains a necklace with a broken clasp as the man claimed, Mike smells foul play and traces the woman who left the box. When he arrives at her house, he learns that she was pushed down her stairs and badly injured. Investigating further, he discovers she is the victim of a vicious blackmailer.
8. Death Takes an Encore
1958-03-07
30m
Mike investigates a dishevelled man's wild tale about a man that he killed six months ago dying a second time in a car accident two days ago. When his client turns up dead, Mike follows his only clue, the phone number of a pretty piano player billed as "Miss Patti".
9. Lead Ache
1958-03-14
30m
Mike is hired to find the murderer of a newspaper reporter. The trail leads to a ballroom whose hostesses, usually small-town girls with no relatives, frequently disappear.
10. Overdose of Lead
1958-03-21
30m
A nightclub singer asks Mike to get her out of a contract that's held by a mobster. The man claims the rising star who she owes him $50,000 "for expenses" plus 30% of her salary in perpetuity. While Mike is working on the contract, the singer receives a blackmail threat. Mike tries to retrieve the indiscreet photograph, he finds the blackmailers dead and the negative gone.
11. A Grave Undertaking
1958-03-28
30m
Mike is hired to retrieve incriminating letters from a blackmailer, but soon learns that the package with $50,000 was really the ransom money to payoff kidnappers. When the woman who collected the ransom from Hammer is double-crossed, she tries to get revenge on her partner but is killed before she can meet with the private detective. Hammer investigates the dead woman's friends and co-workers to mete out his kind of justice upon the kidnapping murderer.
12. A Shot In The Arm
1958-04-04
30m
The lawyer for a wealthy couple asks Mike to help their niece kick her heroine habit. Mike works on two fronts: helping the young woman withdraw from the drug and finding the pushers that got her hooked in the first place.
13. Stay Out of Town
1958-04-11
30m
Mike is asked to investigate help a young man who has been arrested for murder in a small Pennsylvania town. He thinks the case against his client is pretty good, but when the local district attorney and deputy sheriff try to run him out of town, he decides to investigate further.
14. Beautiful, Blue and Deadly
1958-04-18
30m
While waiting for his car to be repaired at a friend's combination garage/used car lot, Mike gets involved with three unsavoury characters who are very interested in a Jaguar sports car that has bullet holes in the back of the driver's seat with blood stains to match.
15. Skinned Deep
1958-04-25
30m
Taking a ferry ride in New York harbor, Mike sees a young woman crying. She's been victimized by a carnival con artist who charges steep fees to enter a rigged talent contest.
