English Private Detectives

Rational Scrutiny: Paradoxes and Contradictions in Detective Fiction discusses why Chess Hanrahan and Cyrus Skeen, the author's premier heroes and the chief subjects of this volume, are not only extraordinary men of action, but “intellectuals” of the first rank, as well. As Cline writes in the Preface, detective fiction, as a rule, employs both "intellectuals" and "doers".

The Greer Agency tells the story of Mike Greer, private eye, in 15 connected stories. Greer, the only PI in the Altoona phone book, scratches out a living in the decaying railroad town. With the help of an anonymous benefactor, Greer gets interesting cases that he solves with pluck and determination. All the while, his romance with Susan grows increasingly more intimate.

A recipe for murder, romance, lies, and mystery is on the menu. In the first episode in the series, in the upscaled suburbs of Bay City, a wealthy man is found murdered in his own bedroom. His wife is missing, and he is the prime suspect. Enter private investigator Johnny Blake, a former homicide detective for the BCPD. Leads become more entangled, and not everything is as it seems. John enlists aid from street-smart kid Jimmy McNeil to help solve the case.

A 17-year-old case comes back to haunt JR Steele, a semi-retired private investigator. The Army veteran and former police detective has been working as a gunsmith, trying to get by. The blonde who walked into the gun shop yesterday asking for his help is now dead. Death and destruction force him back in the game. But is he still up to the task?

When single mom and recent widow Cameron Chandler takes a much-needed job at Penny-wise Investigations, a detective agency conveniently located in a suburban shopping mall, she grabs the chance to reinvent herself. Her first case is to locate a runaway girl, something her predecessor had been pursuing before he disappeared. Following in his footsteps, the trail leads to a survivalist camp on a remote island in northern Puget Sound. Armed with only a Swiss Army Knife and her quirky on-the-job training as a suburban sleuth, Cameron uncovers more than she bargained for.

Strange goings on in Powl Duv, a sleepy village in Kerry, Ireland, where the one-man Kerry Detective Agency (KDA) gets bogged down in one mystery after another. And what sort of place is the mysterious Powl Duv anyway? It seems to exist in a time warp....

It started with the name "Emanuel Kadaver" and a New York address, both of which were written on one side of a 500 dollar bill. Intrigued, Larry Kent went along to discover just what his mysterious benefactor wanted. Next thing he knew, he was stranded 1500 miles from home with two whole days missing from his memory.

An honorably discharged Navy SEAL, Jack Sterling moves to Dayton to emotionally support his recently divorced mother. Rather than find her crushed as he expected, she’s surprisingly energized by a new, religious faith. Hired as a bounty hunter, Jack begins tracking down a war veteran fugitive that jumped bail, while encountering his own spiritual crisis. There's action, humor and personal reflection as Jack, in a dual pursuit, searches to find a brother in arms and his own soul.

It was just another busy day at the Plaza Royale - until a pretty hotel manicurist, white with terror, suddenly fled through the lobby and disappeared into the crowded Manhattan streets. Her unexplained flight, and the discovery of some bloodstained pillowslips, gave Gil Vine, the hotel's detective, the tipoff that trouble was brewing. Its source turned out to be the suite of a secretive South American mogul and his entourage including a beautiful señorita, a vicious monkey, a muscular valet, and an elusive character known as Miguel.

P.I. Charity Deacon uses her full workload to bury her aching heart. So despite her bad blood with the Vancouver police, she takes on a trio of unsolved cases while they attend to a high-profile homicide. But as she digs deeper, Charity becomes convinced all four killings share a sinister link...With the famous widow of one of the victims pushing for results, Charity offers a stunning deduction for the killer’s identity. But when no one supports her claims and her liaison suddenly leaves the force, Charity sets up a dangerous sting as her last resort....

Hot on the success of her first case, British female sleuth Daisy Dunlop can count the offers of work on one finger. An empty bank account and the need to prove to her business partner, private investigator Solomon Liffey, that she is an asset, not a liability, calls for drastic measures. Terror has to be overcome as she answers a plea to find the one thing that gives her night sweats and flashbacks. An animal. A missing stud poodle, to be exact.

When a client claims her house is being haunted, Ivy tries to keep her mind open and her weapons handy. If her psychic gifts and recent cases have taught her anything, it's that you're better off arming yourself for the unexpected.

Private investigator Mitchell King is involved with two difficult cases. He fights to shield a female astronaut from a sexual harassment when he's asked to persuade the stalker to quit. Mitch then becomes personally involved with the sexy murder witness whom he's hired to protect. The investigations take Mitch from the refined engineering of space exploration to the squalor of biker bars and heroin shooting galleries. As he obsesses over his clients, Mitch stubbornly refuses to face his own shortcomings.

Waking up beside the gorgeous Savannah Jones, John is shocked to learn she was for hire, and he can't pay the price - 1000 pounds or broken legs. In desperation, he turns to best friend, Mark, for the money. Only one problem - Mark has a dagger in his back.

Meet Kyle King - a 30-something cop who has already accumulated the bitterness of a retiree and spends most shifts lapping the streets of Fullerton, California, with 90s hip hop as his siren song. Sick of having his own hands cuffed by the rigidness of traditional law enforcement, Kyle yearns to pursue the next generation of criminals who are making a mockery of the police force and running amok in cyberspace. The keyboard warriors have had free rein of the virtual world for too long without any accountability - until now.

After Parker and the Avery Detective Agency leave Kansas, they are contracted to work in conjunction with the ATF and FBI on solving the mysterious oil-trafficking case that is plaguing the area. The group is sent to Chicago in an attempt to get to the bottom of the crime ring that is terrorizing local farmers by confiscating oil from their land, but as they dive deeper into the case, figures from the past emerge, and the group might find that the culprit behind the whole thing is right under their nose.

Detectives Alexandra Winter and Jack Daniels have been close friends and partners ever since they started working at the San Diego Police Department. In fact, on their latest case there's only one thing separating them: the fact that Alexandra's been murdered by their main suspect. But that doesn't mean either of them have stopped in their hunt for the killer...

Victor Silvius has spent nine years as an inmate at The Grange, a private sanatorium, for the crime of attacking judge Sir Giles Drury. Now, the judge's wife, Lady Elspeth Drury, believes that Silvius is the one responsible for a series of threatening letters her husband has recently received. Eager to avoid the scandal that involving the local police would entail, Lady Elspeth seeks out retired stage magician Joseph Spector, whose discreet involvement in a case Sir Giles recently presided over greatly impressed her.

FViolet Hunter consults Holmes after being offered a governess job subject to a number of unusual conditions, including cutting her hair short. The wage is extremely high, £120, and she decides to accept the job, though Holmes tells her to contact him if she needs to. After a number of strange occurrences, including the discovery of a sealed-off wing of the house, she does so. Holmes discovers that someone had been kept prisoner in the wing, but when Holmes, Watson and Hunter enter, it is empty.

An engineer, Victor Hatherley, attends Dr Watson's surgery after his thumb is chopped off, and recounts his tale to Watson and Holmes. Hatherley had been hired for 50 guineas to repair a machine he was told compressed Fuller's earth into bricks. Hatherley was told to keep the job confidential, and was transported to the job in a carriage with frosted glass, to keep the location secret. He was shown the press, but on closer inspection discovered a "crust of metallic deposit" on the press, and he suspected it was not being used for compressing earth.