Historical Private Investigators

Bavaria, 1776. When Albrecht Dürer the Much Much Younger's frog prints go missing, he knows exactly where to turn for help. Gretel (yes, that Gretel), now 35 and still living with her gluttonous brother Hans, is the country's most famous private investigator, and she leaps at the opportunity to travel to cosmopolitan Nuremberg to take on the case. But amid the hubbub of the city's annual sausage festival, Gretel struggles to find any clues that point toward the elusive thief.

London, April 1882. When cool-headed Phyllida visits the World's End Investigation Bureau to offer a curious case concerning her fiancé, proprietor Lily Raynor is intrigued - and privately excited. Phyllida's fiancé, Wilberforce, is currently in an asylum in Brittany, after a tragic incident which resulted in the death of his father. Did he kill him on purpose - or was it an accident? Wilberforce's innocence looks increasingly in doubt when another murder happens at the asylum - and the evidence points to Wilberforce being the culprit.

San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective—but his business hasn’t exactly taken off. It turns out that word spreads fast when you have a bad reputation, and no one in the queer community trusts him enough to ask an ex-cop for help. When James, an old flame from the war who had mysteriously disappeared, arrives in his offices above the Ruby, Andy wants to kick him out. But the job seems to be a simple case of blackmail, and Andy’s debts are piling up. He agrees to investigate, despite everything it stirs up.

When ex-CIA agent Vera Kelly loses her job and her girlfriend in a single day, she reluctantly goes into business as a private detective. Heartbroken and cash-strapped, she takes a case that dredges up dark memories and attracts dangerous characters from across the Cold War landscape. Before it's over, she'll chase a lost child through foster care and follow a trail of Dominican exiles to the Caribbean. Forever looking over her shoulder, she nearly misses what's right in front of her: her own desire for home, connection, and a new romance at the local bar.

Man arbeitet nicht für seine Feinde. Es sei denn, man hat keine andere Wahl. September 1941: Reinhard Heydrich, Polizeigeneral und stellvertretender Reichsprotektor in Böhmen und Mähren, lädt Bernie Gunther zu einem geselligen Wochenende in sein Landhaus bei Prag ein. Bernie bleibt keine Wahl, eine Absage an seinen Chef wäre gefährlich. Doch dann wird eine Leiche in einem von innen verschlossenen Zimmer gefunden. Bernie muss den Täter finden - schnell, denn ein Mann wie Heydrich kann einen ungelösten Mordfall nicht auf sich sitzenlassen...

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.

Chicago, 2018: Ole Henryks, a popular restauranteur, is set to be honored by the Danish/American Association for his many civic and charitable contributions. Frequently appearing on local TV, he is well known for his actions in Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II - most consider him a hero. Britta Stein, however, does not. The 90-year-old Chicago woman levels public accusations against Henryks by spray-painting “Coward”, “Traitor”, “Collaborator”, and “War Criminal” on the walls of his restaurant.

December 1889. Fresh from debunking a 'ghostly' hound in Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes has returned to London, only to find himself the target of a deadly vendetta. A beautiful client arrives with a tale of ghosts, kidnapping and dynamite on a whisky estate in Scotland, but brother Mycroft trumps all with an urgent assignment in the South of France. On the fabled Riviera, Holmes and Watson encounter treachery, explosions, rival French detective Jean Vidocq...and a terrible discovery.

Privatermittler Bernie Gunther kann seinen Ruhestand auf Kuba nicht genießen, denn seine Widersacher lassen ihm keine Ruhe. Gerade will er die Insel in Richtung Haiti ver­lassen, da entführt die US Navy im Auftrag der CIA sein Boot und bringt ihn erst nach Guantánamo, dann ins Militärgefängnis bei New York. Von der Anschuldigung, ein Kriegsverbrecher zu sein, wird er freigesprochen, aber nur unter der Bedingung, dass er für die CIA Stasi-Funktionär Erich Mielke aufstöbert.

Jack Sommers was just an ordinary accountant from Chicago - that is until his wife passed away, his young daughter was kidnapped, and he became the main suspect in an $88 million embezzlement case. Now Jack is on the run, hoping to avoid the feds long enough to rescue his daughter, Sophie, from her maternal grandfather, a suspected terrorist in Palestine.

New York Times best-selling author Max Allan Collins has won multiple Shamus Awards for his detective novels featuring Nathan Heller. The third book in his JFK trilogy, Ask Not finds Heller investigating a bizarre string of deaths among the witnesses to JFK’s assassination—and tracing blame to LBJ’s right-hand man.

It's the early 1950s. Ju McCarthy is campaigning to rid America of the Red Menace. Nate Heller is doing legwork for the senator, though the Chicago detective is disheartened by McCarthy's witch-hunting tactics. He's made friends with a young staffer, Bobby Kennedy, while trading barbs with a potential enemy, the attorney Roy Cohn, who rubs Heller the wrong way. Not the least of which for successfully prosecuting the so-called Atomic Bomb spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

In post-revolution Paris, an old man signs a letter in blood, then hides it in a secret compartment in a sailor's chest. A messenger arrives to transport the chest and its hidden contents, but then the plague strikes and an untimely death changes history. Two hundred years later, Hugo Marston is safeguarding an unpredictable but popular senator who is in Paris negotiating a France/US dispute. The talks, held at a country chateau, collapse when the senator accuses someone of breaking into his room.

You can't trust a man who's dressed as Mae West, especially not in Mae West's house. One of Hollywood's earliest sex symbols, the whip-smart blonde's star has fallen since the Hays Code cracked down on the racy repartee that made her famous. Her latest project is a thinly veiled autobiographical novel, whose only copy is stolen just after she finishes her first draft. Tonight she's having a Mae West party, with every guest a man dressed as her. The thief is among those in drag, and P.I. Toby Peters has come to tear off his wig. He's there as a favor to his brother, a brutal cop who had a fling with West when she first moved to Hollywood.

Coffins fill the basement of a crumbling Los Angeles movie theater. Five vampires crowd around fading horror idol Bela Lugosi, peppering him with questions. A malfunctioning plastic fang causes one of the undead-wannabes to lisp. The effect is less than fearsome, but Lugosi is terrified, for one of these oddballs has been making threats on his life. He hires Toby Peters to provide security against his unbalanced fans. The detective is not concerned, but he should be.

An ax-wielding monk hacks at the door. Toby Peters is on the other side, running as fast as his recently broken leg will allow. Alongside him is Salvador Dalí, dressed in a rabbit suit, insistently muttering "grasshoppers" as they try to make their escape. Dalí insists on being carried across the lawn, so Peters hobbles along with the surrealist in his arms. They get in the car just as the monk chops down the front door. The car doesn't start, and the monk charges silently, the ax in the air.

Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services is a fixture in San Francisco at the dawn of a new century. While the future is unclear, Sabina and John know one thing for certain: they will protect their clients from flimflammers, thieves, and murderers, and do whatever it takes to run these dregs of society into the arms of the law. Sometimes, that requires a subtle touch. Professor A. Vargas, self-styled medium extraordinaire, and his partner Annabelle, use guile and trickery to swindle bereaved men and women eager to contact the spirits of deceased loved ones.

A confessed murderer and a missing body lures Isobel Kingston into the night, but she finds far more than she bargains for on the foggy dunes. Ambushed and rendered unconscious, she wakes to find herself at the mercy of brutal men. Desperate, she plays her last card: she threatens her captors with the wrath of Atticus Riot. To her surprise, Riot's very name strikes terror into the men, and Isobel begins to wonder what she really knows about the enigmatic man.

Irving Levy is a man with few roots and, now that he is terminally ill, is anxious to find anyone to whom he can leave his considerable property. When he learns that there may be more to the disappearance of his younger sister, who disappeared when she was a baby, he engages the services of Hakim and Arnold to investigate. Unwittingly in mortal danger, the private detectives and Levy enter the world of Barking Park Fair and the secrets its brightly coloured attractions conceal. Secrets that lead them back to the chaotic world of postwar Europe, where few people were what they seemed.

When a carriage bearing the Arnifour family crest - a vulture devouring a slaughtered lamb - arrives at the Kensington home of Colin Pendragon, it is an ominous beginning to a perplexing new case. Lady Arnifour's husband has been beaten to death and her niece, Elsbeth, left in a coma. Is the motive passion, revenge, or something even more sinister? Police suspicions have fallen on the groundskeeper and his son, yet the earl's widow is convinced of their innocence.