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.

Easy Rawlins, L.A.'s most reluctant detective, comes home one day to find Easter, the daughter of his friend, Christmas Black, left on his doorstep. Easy knows that this could only mean that ex-marine Black is probably dead, or will be soon. But Easter's appearance is only the beginning, as Easy is immersed in a sea of problems.

In this sixth book of the series, Clive and Henrietta return to Europe in an attempt to resurrect their failed honeymoon. While in London, they are approached by their old friend, Inspector John Hartle, who convinces them to search for the missing panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, a famous Renaissance painting, of which Hitler’s top men are also in pursuit.

In this two-volume collection of traditional Sherlock Holmes adventures, the good doctor himself is given a chance to shine. These two volumes contain 26 mysteries involving such maladies as plagues, poisonings, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, somnambulism, and many more! The stories are traditional Holmes pastiches and are written by some of today’s top Sherlockian writers!

Forensic genealogist Morton Farrier agrees to take on a case to identify the biological mother of three foundlings, abandoned in shop doorways as newborn babies in the 1970s. He has just one thing with which to begin his investigation: the three women’s DNA, one of whom is his half-aunt. With just six days of research time available to him, his investigation uncovers some shocking revelations and troubling links to his own grandfather, and Morton finds that for the first time in his career, he is advising his clients not to read his concluding report.

In Total Recall, Sara Paretsky brings together several disparate plots in one gripping story. This powerfully suspenseful novel confronts the machinations of a vast and corrupt industry that trades on the victims of Nazi terrorism; the strange and dubious phenomenon of "recovered memory;" and a personal story that brings V. I. Warshawski into the long-buried past of her dearest friend and mentor, Dr. Lotty Herschel.

September 1888. A 29-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle practices medicine by day and writes at night. His first Sherlock Holmes story has only netted him 25 pounds. Embittered by the experience, he vows never to write another "crime story". Then a messenger arrives with a mysterious summons from former Prime Minister William Gladstone, asking him to come to London immediately. Once there, he is offered one month's employment to assist the Metropolitan Police as a "consultant" in their hunt for the serial killer soon to be known as Jack the Ripper.

Anxious to be married, Henrietta and Clive push forward with their wedding plans, despite their family differences, made worse now by Oldrich Exley’s attempts to control the Von Harmons. When the long-awaited wedding day arrives, there is more unfolding than just Clive and Henrietta’s vows of love.

Nathan Heller, star of MWA Grandmaster Max Allan Collins’ most acclaimed series of novels (more than 1 million copies sold to date!), comes to Hard Case Crime for the first time in an all-new thriller drawn from the pages of history. A millionaire’s son is kidnapped and private eye Heller is called in to help. But when half of the record $600,000 ransom goes missing, Heller must wade through a morass of deception and depravity to blow the lid off a notorious crime whose consequences reach into the corridors of power in Washington D.C.

Istanbul, 1926: After her archeologist father makes a clandestine journey abroad, Jane and the dapper Mr. Redvers trace his footsteps while signs of danger loom back home in the United States. They're greeted at their destination by Aunt Millie and unsettling news: Professor Wunderly was on a mission to locate the lost heart of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent—a legendary relic from the Ottoman Empire said to possess potent mystical powers—then vanished completely, leaving behind his unpacked luggage, a perplexing riddle, and an eerie mystery Jane must solve to keep her loved ones safe.

Thirty-year-old society matron Lola Woodby has survived her loveless marriage with an unholy mixture of highballs, detective novels, and chocolate layer cake, until her husband dies suddenly, leaving her his fortune. Or so Lola thought. >As it turns out, all she inherits from Alfie is a big pile of debt. Pretty soon, Lola and her stalwart Swedish cook, Berta, are reduced to hiding out in the secret love nest Alfie kept in New York City.

In 1851, private detective Laetitia Rodd is enjoying a well-earned holiday when she gets an urgent request for her services. Mrs. Rodd’s neighbor Jacob Welland is a reclusive rich gentleman dying of consumption, and he wants Mrs. Rodd to find his brother, who has been missing for 15 years. Joshua Welland was a scholar at Oxford, brilliant, eccentric, and desperately poor when he disappeared from the university. Friends claim to have seen him since, in gypsy camps and wandering around the countryside.

It’s 1954, and Heller takes on the Sam Sheppard case - a young doctor is startled from sleep and discovers his wife brutally murdered. He claims that a mysterious intruder killed his wife. But all the evidence points to a disturbed husband who has grown tired of married life and yearned to be free at all costs. Sheppard is swiftly convicted and sent to rot in prison. Just how firm was the evidence...and was it tampered with to fit a convenient narrative to settle scores and push political agendas?

British private investigator, Thomas Kincaid, thinks he's seen it all...until a gorgeous, soaking-wet American shows up and demands he help her find a stolen family heirloom. Having had his heart crushed once before by a beautiful woman, Kincaid has no intention of tempting fate a second time. But Joanna Thorncroft isn't about to take no for an answer. Joanna has to find her mother's ring and discover the secrets it contains. Secrets that have brought her all the way across the Atlantic and onto the doorstep of a sinfully handsome detective.

When genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to prove the identity of a black sheep in his client’s family tree, he unwillingly finds himself drawn into a murder investigation with nothing more to go on than a 150-year-old letter and a connection to a legendary ruby that has been missing for generations. As more letters are mysteriously left for him, Tayte becomes immersed in a centuries-old tale of greed, murder and forbidden love that takes his research from the wilds of the Scottish Highlands to the colour and heat of colonial India. A dark secret is buried in Jaipur. But why is it having such deadly repercussions in the present?

The year is 1910, and in the small and seemingly sleepy English municipality of Haxford, there’s a new chief police inspector. At first, the dapper and unflappable Pignon Scorbion strikes something of an odd figure among the locals, who don’t see a need for such an exacting investigator. But it isn’t long before Haxford finds itself very much in need of a detective. Luckily, Scorbion and the local barber are old acquaintances, and the barbershop employs a cast of memorable characters who are nothing less than enthralled by the enigmatic new chief police inspector.

Sir Maurice Newbury is bereft as his trusty assistant Veronica Hobbes lies dying with a wounded heart. Newbury and Veronica's sister, Amelia, must take a sleeper train across Europe to St. Petersberg to claim a clockwork heart that Newbury has commissioned from Faberge to save Veronica from a life trapped in limbo. No sooner do they take off then sinister goings-on start to plague the train, and it is discovered that an old villain, thought dead, is also on board and seeking revenge.

BERLIN 1934. DIE WELT IST BLIND. BERNIE GUNTHER NICHT. Gerade sind die Nazis an die Macht gekommen, und Bernie Gunther will als Privatdetektiv im Hotel Adlon so wenig Aufsehen wie möglich erregen. Doch dann stirbt ein Hotelgast. Als auch noch die Leiche eines jüdischen Boxers im Landwehrkanal auftaucht, gerät Gunther in den Strudel krimineller Machenschaften um den Bau des Olympiastadions. Gleichzeitig drohen die Amerikaner, die Spiele zu boykottieren. Entschiedene Befürworterin eines Boykotts ist die wunderschöne jüdisch-amerikanische Journalistin Noreen Charalambides.

Accused of treason and stripped of his knighthood, Crispin Guest has survived on the gritty streets of London by reinventing himself as The Tracker, an investigator for hire who can locate lost objects and uncover secrets. When the merchant Nicholas Walcote hires Guest to investigate his young wife Philippa for adultery, he discovers an underground world of danger and dirty dealings. Philippa is indeed hiding something—but she's not the only one. Walcote himself is rumored to possess a holy relic so powerful that some would even kill for it.

A portrait painting is stolen from a London home. Shortly afterwards, the owner, Nat, calls on genealogist Jefferson Tayte for his help. She believes the subject of the painting, a young girl called Jess, is a past relative and wants to learn more about her. The problem is that Nat's research has hit a brick wall - Jess appears to have vanished from the slums of Victorian London soon after the portrait was painted.