Take a Mexican political party that demands the territorial return of Texas... and New Mexico... and Arizona... and California. Add a Chinese paper exporting operation that exports a fine engraver's surface for the familiar five-dollar portrait of Lincoln. Stir with a Countess who has made a fortune in cosmetics and runsa private little kingdom at her castle deep in the Mexican jungle. Mix in the CIA and AXE, prickling each other's sensitivities while the nation and the highest men in government are stumped to stop the ruin of America's economy... And suddenly, in the meeting between Hawk and the CIA man, the ingredients have blended into a little pill they hand Nick Carter. His instructions are: straighten things out-or swallow your defeat in L pills!

NICK CARTER DETECTIVE STORY COLLECTION contains seven complete 'Nick Carter' mysteries featuring venerable private detective Nick Carter. Nick Carter first appeared as a pulp fiction private detective in dime novels during the 1880s, and has also appeared as an action hero, and since the 1960s, a super spy. Includes an active table of contents with back-linking for easy navigation. • Nick Carter Detective, No. 1• The Crime of the French Café• Nick Carter’s Ghost Story• The Mystery of St. Agnes’ Hospital• With Links of Steel• The Great Spy System• A Woman at Bay Nick Carter is a pseudonym used by various authors who have contributed to the 'Nick Carter' series, which are usually written in first person. Ostensibly written by Nick Carter himself, the books in this series were the work of John R. Coryell (1848–1924), Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey (1861–1922), Thomas C. Harbaugh (1849–1924), and Eugene T. Sawyer (1847–1924). The definitive description of Nicholas J. Huntington Carter is given in the first novel in the series Run, Spy, Run. Carter is tall (over 6 feet / 1.83 m), lean and handsome with a classic profile and magnificently muscled body. He has wide-set steel gray eyes that are icy, cruel and dangerous. He is hard-faced, with a firm straight mouth, laugh-lines around the eyes, and a firm cleft chin. His hair is thick and dark. He has a small tattoo of a blue axe on the inside right lower arm near the elbow - the ultimate ID for an AXE agent. At least one novel states that the tattoo glows in the dark. Carter also has a knife scar on the shoulder, a shrapnel scar on the right thigh. He has a sixth sense for danger.Carter practices yoga for at least 15 minutes a day. Carter has a prodigious ability for learning foreign languages. He is fluent in English (his native tongue), Cantonese,[2] French,[3] German,[3][4] Hungarian,[5] Italian,[3] Portuguese,[6] Putonghua (Mandarin),[7] Russian,[7][8] Spanish[9] and Vietnamese.[10][11] He has basic skills in Arabic,[12] Hindustani,[13] Romansch,[3] Swahili,[12] and Turkish.[14] In the early novels, Carter often assumes a number of elaborate disguises in order to execute his missions.The name Nick Carter was acknowledged by the series as having been inspired by the early 20th century pulp fiction detective of the same name in the 100th Killmaster volume (labelled Nick Carter 100) which included an essay on the earlier Nick Carter and included a Nick Carter detective short story alongside a Killmaster adventure.