English Private Detectives

Detective Joe "Preach" Everson, a prison chaplain turned police officer, is coming home. After a decade tracking down killers in Atlanta, and with a reputation as one of the finest homicide detectives in the city, his career derailed when he suffered a mental breakdown during the investigation of a serial killer who was targeting children. No sooner does Preach arrive at home in Creekville, North Carolina - a bohemian community near Chapel Hill - than a local bookstore owner is brutally killed, the first murder in a decade.

Eleven years ago, wealthy Nebraska businessman James Herold gave his only son, Paul, a very raw deal. Now he wants Nero Wolfe to track Paul down so that he can make amends. But what if the young man doesn’t want to be found...and what if he’s the same PH who’s currently on trial for cold-blooded murder?

In 1890, the first Japanese diplomatic delegation arrives in London to open an embassy. Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent and occasional agent for the Foreign Service Office, is enlisted to display his personal Japanese garden to the visiting dignitaries. Later that night, Ambassador Toda is shot and killed in his office and Cyrus Barker is discovered across the street, watching the very same office, in possession of a revolver with one spent cartridge.

Nero Wolfe, lover of fine food and prize orchids, is a genius at daring detection. But he is always on guard when it comes to women. Now, murder at a fencing studio engages him and his confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, in a dangerous duel with death. The prime suspect is a Balkan beauty who has a secret reason for wanting Wolfe to clear her - and a double identity that may be the perfect foil for covering up a killer.

When Private Investigator Jim Bean is called to conduct a simple insurance investigation at a Nevada trailer park, he finds himself wrapped up in a case that’s more complicated than anything he could have imagined. There’s a torched trailer. A missing woman named Emilee who harbors a dark past. And the Ward family, with their own sinister secrets to hide. Jim quickly realizes that if he wants to find Emilee, he’s going to have to get closer to the Ward family - and untangle their twisted web of lies. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more dangerous things become.

Why would a killer ignore expensive jewellery and take a pair of turtledoves as the only bounty? This is only one of the questions that piques Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune's interest after a senior attaché with the Mexican Consulate is found murdered alongside the director of a local bird sanctuary. The fact that the director's death has opened up a full-time research position hasn't eluded Jejeune either. Could this be his escape from policing?

Lena Woodward, elegant and poised, has lived a comfortable life among Chicago Society since she immigrated to the US and began a new life at the end of World War II. But now something has resurfaced that Lena cannot ignore: an unfulfilled promise she made long ago that can no longer stay buried. Driven to renew the quest that still keeps her awake at night, Lena enlists the help of lawyer Catherine Lockhart and private investigator Liam Taggart. Behind Lena’s stoic facade are memories that will no longer be contained.

When Charley is rudely awakened in the middle of the night by her best friend who tells her to get dressed quickly and tosses clothes out of the closet at her, she can’t help but wonder what Cookie’s up to. Leather scrunch boots with a floral miniskirt? Together? Seriously? Cookie explains that a friend of hers named Mimi disappeared five days earlier and that she just got a text from her setting up a meet at a coffee shop downtown....

When a bright young heiress with a flair for romance and one too many enemies is found brutally murdered, Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, find themselves embroiled in a case that is not as black and white as it first appears.

London, 1855. A young and eager Charles Lenox faces his toughest case yet: A murder without a single clue. Slumped in a third-class car at Paddington Station is the body of a handsome young gentleman. He has no luggage, empty pockets, and no sign of identification on his person. And putting together the clues to the mystery of the man's identity only raises more questions, when Lenox discovers that the crime has a significant connection to America.

Marcus Didius Falco discovers that rank brings problems, the most gruesome of which is a corpse buried under the tiles of his new bath house. The contractors have fled to Britain where, as the Fates have it, Falco is ordered. A local chief and ally of the Romans is having a Palace built by the Emperor Vespasian. However, the project is running late, and fatal accidents keep happening. Falco, troubleshooting for the Emperor, is without an ally and now next on the list for assassination.

Archie Goodwin has his hands full when three baffling murders make him the recipient of a poisonous lunch, the fall guy for a beautiful woman, and the target of the U.S. Federal Government.

A wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune - the elements don't quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape, blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation.

The victim’s profession might make it hard to find someone to talk. Laura Mallinder left home for work on Sunday, June 12, 2011. She walked to Gentle Touch, a massage parlor in Broadgreen, Swindon. Her boss, Maggie Monk, discovered her body later that evening. Laura, twenty-seven-years-old, sustained fatal stab wounds to her back.

When former police detective Ted Conkaffey was wrongly accused of abducting Claire Bingley, he hoped the Queensland rainforest town of Crimson Lake would be a good place to disappear. But nowhere is safe from Claire's devastated father. Dale Bingley has a brutal revenge plan all worked out—and if Ted doesn't help find the real abductor, he'll be its first casualty.

First appearing in print in 1890, the character of Sherlock Holmes has now become synonymous worldwide with the concept of a super sleuth. His creator, Conan Doyle, imbued his detective hero with intellectual power, acute observational abilities, a penchant for deductive reasoning and a highly educated use of forensic skills. Indeed, Doyle created the first fictional private detective who used what we now recognize as modern scientific investigative techniques.

Celebrity TV anchor Georgia Glass wants out of Denver and far away from her obsessed fan. Set to host her own investigative crime show in LA, she’s surprised to inherit a Victorian house in Aspen from a mysterious uncle she never knew. But while exploring the gothic property, she discovers the frozen corpse of a missing heiress.

Private detective Greyson Travers doesn’t talk about his past, but when a specter from his youth is released from prison, he’s forced to unlock buried memories. His old nemesis is stirring tension in the criminal underworld, and it’s not long before the trouble boils over into Greyson’s private life.

On the day he retires, Inspector Ashwin Chopra inherits two unexpected mysteries. The first is the case of a drowned boy, whose suspicious death no one seems to want solved. And the second is a baby elephant. As his search for clues takes him across the teeming city of Mumbai, from its grand high rises to its sprawling slums and deep into its murky underworld, Chopra begins to suspect that there may be a great deal more to both his last case and his new ward than he thought.

Its 25 years since John Rebus appeared on the scene, and 5 years since he retired. But 2012 sees his return in Standing in Another Man’s Grave. Not only is Rebus as stubborn and anarchic as ever, but he finds himself in trouble with Rankin's latest creation, Malcolm Fox of Edinburgh's internal affairs unit. Added to which, Rebus may be about to derail the career of his ex-colleague Siobhan Clarke, while himself being permanently derailed by mob boss and old adversary Big Ger Cafferty. But all Rebus wants to do is discover the truth about a series of seemingly unconnected disappearances....