Once Upon a Star: The Adventures of Manning Draco, Volume 1 by Kendell Foster Crossen

Manning Draco is the chief insurance investigator for the Greater Solarian Insurance Company, "Monopolated", in the 35th century.  He is called upon to work the most difficult cases of fraud, scams, and circumvent con artists of all types.  This book contains four sequential novellas that feature humorous/zany situations where Draco must exercise his considerable intellect to come up with creative solutions in order to prevent huge inappropriate monetary payouts from his company.  Frequently he rescues his company from poor decisions.

These stories are filled with funny situations and Draco’s snarky, yet friendly personality makes these stories really fun to read.  Since they take place in the far future, the author pulls out all the stops when creating alien species and planetary/cultural governments and cultures.  In fact, it often goes to the point of being absurd but that’s entirely consistent with the zany tone of the stories and just adds to the fun. It’s a bit like combining The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with the Flashman novels but with an insurance investigator plot.  Fun stuff indeed.

These stories were originally published in the early 1950’s in “Thrilling Wonder Stories”.  Author Kendell Foster Crossen may be familiar to readers as the author of the Milo March detective novels under the pseudonym M.E. Chaber. Crossen was incredibly prolific and actually wrote over 400 radio and television dramas, some 300 short stories, 250 non-fiction articles and approximately forty-five novels. He also found the time to write reviews, edit several science fiction collections, and serve as editor for Detective Fiction Weekly.  He was responsible for the creation of  private eyes Brian Brett and Pete Draco, although he's probably best known for creating “The Green Lama”, a costumed vigilante who appeared in the pulps from the forties.