Ace Double Novel: The Secret Martians by Jack Sharkey

The Secret Martians (1960), a novel by Jack Sharkey

At left: Paperback original (New York: Ace Books, 1960), 132 p., #D-471, 35¢. Cover art by Ed Valigursky). An Ace double novel, bound with John Brunner’s Sanctuary in the Sky. Here’s the blurb from inside the front cover:

"Master spy of the Red Planet. Jery Delvin had a most unusual talent. He could detect the flaws in any scheme almost on sight -- even where they had eluded the best brains in the ad agency where he worked. So when the Chief of World Security told him that he had been selected as the answer to the Solar System’s greatest mystery, Jery assumed that it was because of his mental agility. But when he got to Mars to find out why fifteen boys had vanished from a spaceship in mid-space, he found out that even his quick mind needed time to pierce the maze of out-of-this-world double-dealing. For Jery had become a walking bomb, and when he set himself off, it would be the end of the whole puzzle of The Secret Martians -- with Jery as the first to go!"

You can read the first chapter of The Secret Martians at Fictionwise.