Cynthia
Begin with a possible kidnapping by the head of the Mafia. Add a dating machine that upsets the laws of logic but not love. Toss in a robbery whose daring boggles the mind. Then pepper once over lightly with murder. And you have the basic ingredients for a wacky, fun-filled adventure.
The madness begins when Harvey Krim, the world's smartest and tightest insurance investigator, is ordered to find Cynthia Brandon, the daughter of the world's meanest near-billionaire. Cynthia's father has insured his daughter for one million dollars in case she is kidnapped and for another million if she is killed.
To locate Cynthia, Harvey turns to Lucille, a librarian at the New York Public Library and a Radcliffe graduate whose measurements are as impressive as her I.Q. The chase begins with Harvey leading the way (so he thinks) and Lucille pursuing Harvey (which is what Lucille had in mind all along).
On the way they run into a gathering of flower people in Central Park, an Italian count, the head of the Mafia, Lieutenant Rothschild of the New York Police Department, and a jolly gang of Texas thieves and murderers whose two ambitions in life are to take over the Mafia and steal a priceless Rembrandt from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of New York's most closely guarded treasure houses.
Like Samantha, Margie, Lydia, Penelope, et al, Cynthia is a rollicking roller coaster of a story.
from the dust jacket of the 1968 Morrow first edition
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