English Private Detectives

On the cusp of forty, Justine Bailen, better known as Jo, works for an all-female detective agency based in Tucson, Arizona. While staking out a cheating spouse, she learns that her long-estranged best friend from childhood, Rose, is missing, and that Rose’s mother wants to hire Jo to find her. This case is all kinds of wrong for Jo, but she has no choice but to head back to her hometown, an hour north and a world away from Tucson.

Christine Ryan is desperate to find her childhood friend Veronica. Veronica disappeared more than fifteen years ago, not long after having a child with a Death Row inmate, notorious serial killer Travis Dean Ford. When Ford’s widow, Jordana, is murdered in the same way as his victims, Christine fears Veronica and her daughter will be next. If they’re even still alive. Discovering that both Veronica and Jordana were members of the Lonely Hearts Club, a pen pal service for women who want to write to men in prison, Jessica realizes she needs to find Veronica before the killer does.

Inspector Hardy has retreated to Dorset on the south coast where he plans to spend long overdue quality time with his young daughters and pregnant partner. The sabbatical is short-lived when he is thrust back into the dark world of murder after a family with twin boys is found dead at their home in the countryside. Hardy pulls together a small team to investigate the devastating crime, which is the latest in a series of similar crimes. With no apparent motive and the only similarity between the families being twin boys, the team struggle to hunt a killer who seems unstoppable.

Over dinner in a Brooklyn restaurant, Marshall learns that his former NYPD colleague owes money - a lot of money - to the wrong people. But the conversation is cut short by gunfire, and, suddenly, Ray is lying dead on the restaurant floor. As Marshall investigates the murder, tracking down the drug dealers, bag men, bent cops and mob players within Ray’s orbit, it becomes clear there’s far more to the killing than just a debt. But who is responsible for Vialoux’s death…and why?

La Nuit des Femmes was supposed to be a high-end fashion show that celebrated the female form by displaying clothing on a wide array of mannequins: short, tall, thin, thick, dark, and light. But what the media and guests don't expect is that one of these outfits isn't made from cloth or denim. It's made out of human skin. Out of their depths, the NYPD recruits private investigator Damien Drake to hunt a serial killer the media dubs "The Straw Man".

What starts off as a simple assignment - finding a missing cat - ends up being one of the most volatile, and personal, cases of ex-NYPD Detective Damien Drake’s career. Drawn back to the city that he both loves and loathes, Drake is once again thrust into the spotlight. This time, it’s to search for a missing Tabby. But while, at the outset, this seems straightforward and benign, he should know better; after all, with a child he hasn’t seen since birth, an entire police department out to get him, and a PI Firm on the brink of financial ruin, nothing in his life is easy.

Before I can say café latte, Galloway’s dodging my calls, I’ve got a raccoon on my hands who’s decided mi casa es su casa, my ghostly best friend has a crush to die for, and local teenager Kira Melendez has turned up missing. So much for an easy day. I have a sneaking suspicion my life is about to become a whole new level of crazy.

Investigator Sam Dyke has never met his son Daniel. Until today. And then he wishes he hadn't. Because Daniel has a girlfriend who isn't really suitable... and, it turns out, is missing. In fact, she's mixed up in a world of corruption and violence centering around the Ginger Twins - monstrous criminals who extend their crooked web from Liverpool to Manchester and all stops in between.

Adam Garwood did not realize that when Jillian Lambert walked into his detective agency, his life would never be the same. Not only was Jillian trying to uncover a cold case from 20 years prior, but she was also looking for her twin sister, Devon, whose disappearance was the focus of this case. Adam would soon learn that his probing would uncover a hidden mystery surrounding the Centaur Theatre and its cast of actors, this also leading to frightening details about the Montreal mafia.

It's a lazy mid-August Sunday afternoon. The nameless detective and his old friend Lieutenant Eberhardt are relaxing on the patio, drinking beer and shooting the breeze, when the doorbell rings. As Eberhardt answers the door, the detective hears two sharp echoing reports - gunshots; they could only be gunshots.

Former pulp writer and current hack Russell Dancer invites Nameless to the first annual Western Pulp Convention in San Francisco. He wants Nameless to help him locate the person who is trying to blackmail Dancer for a purported plagiarism of a story called "Hoodwink". Arriving at the convention, Nameless discovers that a group of former friends (and now uncomfortable colleagues) have all received blackmail notes.

In his first chronicled adventure, the Nameless Detective hires on to handle the ransom payoff in a kidnapping case. Financier Louis Martinetti doesn't trust the police to deal with the man who snatched his 9-year-old son from his military prep school, nor is it clear that he trusts the members of his own household. On the appointed evening, Nameless takes a briefcase that contains $300,000 in cash to a secluded location chosen by the kidnapper. Then all hell breaks loose.

When Nameless is hired by Cory Beckett, a beautiful young woman who claims to be a model, to find her missing brother, Kenneth, it seems to be a routine matter. Kenneth has fled San Francisco in a drug-induced panic to avoid trial on a charge of stealing a valuable necklace from the alcoholic wife of the man for whom he works, wealthy yachtsman Andrew Vorhees.

Everyone's mourning in the nameless detective's office, and he doesn't like it one bit. For his own part, Nameless is spending more and more time at the cemetery, and at home he's hit a brick wall in his relationship with his wife. He'd rather be managing his pulp magazine collection and battling his weight, but, unfortunately, life won't cut Nameless a break.

David Virden's case is simple enough: Namless must find his ex-wife and deliver some papers to her. But she refuses the papers, sends a message to Virden to never contact her again, and slams the door. His colleague, Tamara, tells Nameless that Virden threatens to sue, stops payment on his checks, and claims that the woman they located isn't his wife. Then he disappears and his fiancée hires Nameless to find out why. Clearly, someone is trying to make Nameless the monkey in the middle. Then things take a decidedly more deadly turn....

The police said it was an accident. The dead woman's sister said it was murder...and that she knew who did it. Nameless isn't certain, but the more he learns about Nancy Mathias' life, the more inclined he is to accept the possibility that her sister is right. Combine that with the situation Jake Runyan, one of the agency's partners, is facing as he searches for a young man who is either a murderer or a victim, and life at their San Francisco detective agency has everyone on edge.

Nameless is called in by his friend, police lieutenant Eberhardt, when a dead woman's purse contains Nameless's business card. Nameless has never met her, and cannot make a connection. Next, Nameless is hired to track and protect a disturbed man, Martin Talbot, who may be harmed by the husband of a woman who died when Talbot's car collided with theirs after Talbot fell asleep at the wheel. But despite keeping a close tail, things go horribly wrong.

Two novellas and two short stories featuring Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Bill Pronzini's iconic Nameless Detective. Zigzag is an original novella in which a safe and simple accident investigation becomes the unraveling of a twisted murder scheme.

He's just gotten some bad news, and its impact has made him immobile and fearful. He's always known that the racking cough was not just something that was going to go away, that the ache in his chest was indicative of something more serious. And now he's found out that he has a lesion on his lung which could be malignant. He's set to sit and wait and do nothing else until he gets the results, but is swayed into action by a call from an old buddy of his from the service, Harry Burroughs.

The Nameless Detective is hired by a young wife to find out whether her husband has been having an affair. He trails the husband to a motel of cabins in a small village, sees him meet with a bald man, and then return to his cabin. Hours later, Nameless realizes the cabin may have a backdoor; he investigates and finds the husband has been murdered!