Private Detective Fiction

The little canal town is known for its grist mill, antique shops, and bed and breakfasts, not for hosting a parade of noisy motorcycles. Cameron Cripps Hayman's neighbors are up in arms about the Night Hounds Motorcycle Club and even start a petition to get the mayor to ban the new establishment. But the mayor says he doesn't have the power to kick a business owner out, and there's nothing in the town statutes against opening a bar.

When Lily Rowan doesn’t laugh at his jokes, Archie Goodwin knows something’s wrong. Her niece Noreen has been running around with Sparky Linville, a club-hopping bad boy who’s the terror of Manhattan nightlife, and the last time she went out with him, Noreen wasn’t herself when she came home. Springing into action, Goodwin waits for Linville outside of Morgana’s, a chrome-and-glass palace. They nearly come to blows, but Linville’s bodyguard intervenes, and Goodwin retreats to plan his next move. In the morning, Linville is dead, and Goodwin is the chief suspect.

Jack Irish - lawyer, gambler and people finder - is hunting down the villains who hijacked the winnings from his latest betting coup when he is hired by a mystery client to find missing barman Robbie Colbourne. But Robbie turns up dead of a drug overdose.

The Dales Detective Agency is on the brink of closure. Samson O’Brien has returned to his position as an undercover operative for the Met in London, and his relationship with Delilah is under pressure. Their troubles are only multiplied when an ecologist is found dead and the finger of blame is pointed firmly at Delilah’s older brother, Will Metcalfe. It seems an open and shut case. An argument over an ecology report for planning permission which got out of hand, with Will known to have a hot temper. But Delilah won’t accept he’s guilty and neither will Samson.

An unsolved case from DCI Battle's past returns to haunt him when it seems that a killer from over a decade ago has struck again. Daisy Riddle went missing fifteen years ago and Battle failed to keep his promise to bring her home. Now, her dead body has been discovered. What happened to her, and where has she been all this time? Battle must overcome his guilt in order to catch Daisy's killer, a task that becomes desperate when another girl is taken.

To save his favorite newspaper, Nero Wolfe steps into the crossfire of a tabloid war.

Connie Kelly thought she'd found her perfect man on an online dating site. He was silver-haired and handsome, with a mysterious background working for the CIA. She fell so hard for M. Brooks Welles that she wrote him a check for almost 300,000 dollars, hoping for a big return on her investment. But within weeks, both Welles and her money are gone. Her therapist, Dr. Susan Silverman, hands her Spenser's card.

Bhaajan grew up in the Undercity, a community hidden in the ruins buried beneath the glittering City of Cries. Caught between the astonishing beauty and crushing poverty of that life, and caught by wanderlust, she enlisted in the military. Now retired, Major Bhaajan is a private investigator who solves cases for the House of Majda, a powerful royal family centered in Cries. The powerful elite of the City of Cries are disappearing, and only Bhaajan, who grew up in the Undercity, can find them - if she isn’t murdered first.

Anne Scott's address was scribbled on a crumpled note in the pocket of Morse's smartest suit....He turned the corner of Canal Street, Jericho, on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 3rd. He hadn't planned a second visit. But he was back later the same day - as the officer in charge of a suicide investigation.

When Cockney private detective George Harley saves a young girl's life on a dark London night in 1929, he doesn't realize it marks the beginning of an investigation which will change his life forever. The incendiary novel which inspired the girl's abduction also seems to be linked to a series of grisly murders that are taking place on Harley's patch, and though he's delighted to be asked by Scotland Yard to help find the killer before they strike again, he could do without the local razor- and cosh-wielding mobsters thinking he's a police informant.

There are few people Nero Wolfe respects, and Lon Cohen of the New York Gazette is one of them. So when Cohen asks for a favor, Wolfe is inclined to listen. According to Cohen, someone wants to kill the Gazette's gossip columnist, Cameron Clay. Death threats are a regular hazard for Clay, who's hurled insults and accusations at every bold-faced name in the five boroughs. But the latest threats have carried a more sinister tone. The columnist has narrowed his potential killers down to five people.

Rick Riordan’s first book in the Tres Navarre series, Big Red Tequila hit the mystery market like a Texas tornado. Readers couldn’t get enough of its hero’s offbeat combination of academic degrees, tai chi skills, and nose for danger. When the second adventure, Widower’s TwoStep, was published, it quickly earned an Edgar Award.

Tattooed from her neck to her toes—and sporting a gold tooth as sharp as her wisecracks, Sister Holiday struggles to stay on the righteous path. Never one to make things easy for herself, she’s committed to taking her permanent vows with the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and joining former fire inspector Magnolia Riveaux’s latest venture, Redemption Detective Agency—both in service of satisfying her eternal quest for answers. When Sister Holiday and Riveaux set out to bust a philandering husband, they instead find the body of a priest floating in the swollen Mississippi River.

Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron knows Kim Rafferty is bad news the moment they meet. Desperate people always spell trouble in his experience, and Mrs. Rafferty is as desperate as they come. What she is asking for is insane, and if he agrees to help the wife of the notorious East-End gangster, the consequences for them both could be fatal. Twenty-four hours later, another betrayed woman with a hopeless case is pleading for Charlie's help. The PI is her only chance to keep an innocent man from serving a prison sentence for murders he didn't commit.

Gavin Law exposed a tragic case of medical malpractice but now he’s missing. It’s just another case for Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron, until he comes to believe Law was murdered. Did the disgraced surgeon abandon his sacred oath to become a killer? Or did the hospital itself have Law permanently silenced? As Charlie digs deeper, he discovers just how bad the world of medicine could be for his health.

Hercule Poirot thought that retiring to a small village to do some gardening would bring his detective career to a halt. But when Roger Ackroyd's body is found in his study with a knife stabbed into him, Poirot takes on the case. Ackroyd, whose wealthy fiancee had just recently committed suicide, is hosting a dinner party for a swathe of guests one night when a friend comes to him in confidence and reveals that someone had been blackmailing his late fiancee. That is the last time anyone saw Mr. Ackroyd alive.

The disappearance of firearms police officer Jonah Colley's young son almost destroyed him. A phone call from an old friend leads Jonah to the warehouse Slaughter Quay, and the discovery of four bodies, with a link to his son's case. Attacked and left for dead in the dark, Jonah is the only survivor. Under suspicion himself for what happened at Slaughter Quay, Jonah uncovers a network of secrets and lies about the people closest to him—forcing him to question what really happened to his son all those years ago...

London's gourmet detective is contemplating an empty bank account and, worse, an empty stomach, when a phone call solves both problems at once. Over lunch, Desmond Lansdown, world-renowned actor and burgeoning restaurateur, hires the detective for a chef-hunt, sending him to Italy to eat until he can decide which cook Lansdown should hire. It's a demanding gig, but this detective is never one to shy away from hard work. However, it doesn't take long for this plush assignment to turn prickly.

Gil Vine is the quick-thinking, compassionate chief security officer at the fashionable Plaza Royale Hotel. While investigating a routine disturbance complaint in the Tower apartments, Gil finds himself enmeshed in a deadly struggle for control of a fabulous fortune in oil. As always in the Gil Vine mysteries, life behind the scenes of a large hotel is painted for the listener in fascinating detail. Vine is at his best in this installment of the series as the hotel detective does his best to protect the Plaza Royale's reputation and also stop the series of murders.

Cecil Younger never thought it would come to this: providing surveillance for a chicken coop being raided by a fowl thief. But things have not exactly been breaking right lately for the Alaskan P.I. The logical thing to do? Take a vacation, of course. Well, it's not exactly a vacation. Younger has been paid to investigate a doctor aboard a luxurious first-class cruise ship up the Alaskan coast. Except passengers are dying. Now Younger finds himself trapped on a ship of fools with a murderer who is leaving a trail of well-to-do passengers in his wake...and leaving evidence pointing an accusing finger at Cecil!