Private Detective Fiction

The Naval Treaty, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" 19th in a list of his 19 favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. Dr. Watson receives a letter, which he then refers to Holmes, from an old schoolmate, now a Foreign Office employee from Woking who has had an important naval treaty stolen from his office.

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...

In the fifth Leonid McGill novel, Leonid finds himself in an unusual pickle of trying to balance his cases with his chaotic personal life. Leonid is approached by an unemployed office manager named Hiram Stent to track down the whereabouts of his cousin, Celia, who is about to inherit millions of dollars from her father's side of the family. Leonid declines the case, but after his office is broken into and Hiram is found dead, he gets reeled into the underbelly of Celia's wealthy old-money family.

December, 1925. A dark, smog-filled London doesn’t seem very Christmassy or exciting, but then Posie Parker, London’s premier female private detective, receives an urgent call from one of her oldest friends: Rufus, Earl of Cardigeon. Summoned to The Mermaid, an ancient hotel in Rye on the Sussex Coast, in the heart of smuggling country, Posie, together with her husband Richard, finds her friend in a real state. As the snow falls and Christmas lights go up, secrets are revealed, and Posie becomes involved in perhaps her most personal case so far.

Cuando un frío y anodino día de invierno, Matilde Montenegro, una estrella de la novela romántica caída en el olvido, se presenta en el despacho del detective Florián Falomir, este no sospecha que su encargo, la entrega de una carta, lo conducirá a un laberinto de pasiones que llegará a sumergirlo en una orgía de sexo y traición.

The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes wakes Doctor Watson up early one winter morning to rush to a murder scene at the Abbey Grange near Chislehurst. Sir Eustace Brackenstall has been killed, apparently by burglars. Inspector Stanley Hopkins believes that it was the infamous Randall gang who have committed several other burglaries in the neighborhood.

The shocking suicide of Beth Daniels' father - a prominent surgeon - has thrown the FBI agent into a tailspin. But when Beth heads to Saint Augustine, Florida, for the funeral, she'll need more than the emotional support of her boyfriend, retired detective Jon Lancaster. She'll need his gut instinct for solving a mystery. No sooner do they arrive than suspicions are aroused. There's the pair of Russians who seem to be watching every move the family makes

During a stifling summer in Sydney, the body of a chaplain’s daughter is found wrapped in black plastic on the deserted grounds of an elite boarding school. Is it the work of the killer who’s been stalking the privileged neighborhoods along the Parramatta River? Gut instinct tells Detective Sergeant Rose Riley something even more devious might be at play.

Date with Poison is the brilliant fourth novel in Julia Chapman's Dales Detective Agency series and is perfect of fans of M C Beaton's Agatha Raisin series and Gervase Phinn. A young teenager has gone missing. Can Samson O'Brien and Delilah Metcalfe find him? Spring is in the air in Bruncliffe. But not everyone is filled with the joys of the season. Implicated in the murder of a man in Leeds, the Dales Detective Agency’s Samson O’Brien is facing tough questions from the police....

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.

1950s Staffordshire. Within the clay tanks at the pottery company Shentall's, a body has been found. Amid cries of industrial espionage and sabotage of this leader of the pottery industry, there is a case of bitter murder to solve for Inspector Hedley Nicholson. Kelly's mystery won the CWA Gold Dagger Award in 1961 for its impeccable sense of place and detail, and for the emotional weight of its central crime. The novel is part of a shift from the cosiness of crime novels before to mysteries characterised by their psychological interest and affecting realism. An influential classic.

Private investigator Jessica Shaw is used to getting anonymous tips. But after receiving a photo of a three-year-old kidnapped from Los Angeles twenty-five years ago, Jessica is stunned to recognize the little girl as herself. Eager for answers, Jessica heads to LA’s dark underbelly. When she learns that her biological mother was killed the night she was abducted, Jessica’s determined to solve a case the police have forgotten.

The Adventure of the Devil's Foot is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow. Doyle ranked The Adventure of the Devil's Foot ninth in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories. Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves at Poldhu in Cornwall one spring for the former's health, but the holiday ends with a bizarre event. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, a local gentleman, and Mr. Roundhay, the local vicar, come to Holmes to report that Tregennis's two brothers have gone insane, and his sister has died.

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of the eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow, and one of the few stories in which for much of the plot Watson must act alone and try his best with Holmes left in the background. Holmes sends Dr. Watson to Lausanne to investigate Lady Frances Carfax's disappearance since he himself is too busy in London. Lady Frances is a lone, unwed woman denied a rich inheritance on account of her sex.

The Adventure of the Red Circle is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is included in the anthology His Last Bow. Mrs. Warren, a landlady, comes to 221B Baker Street with some questions about her lodger. A youngish, heavily bearded man, who spoke good but accented English who came to her and offered double her usual rent on the condition that he get the room on his own terms. He went out the first night that he was there, and came back after midnight when the rest of the household had gone to bed.

The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard brings Holmes a mysterious problem about a man who shatters plaster busts of Napoleon. One was shattered in Morse Hudson's shop, and two others, sold by Hudson to a Dr. Barnicot, were smashed after the doctor's house and branch office had been burgled. Nothing else was taken. In the former case, the bust was taken outside before being broken.

The Adventure of Black Peter is a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle. This tale is in the collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes, but was published originally in 1904 in the Strand Magazine and Collier's. Forest Row in the Weald is the scene of a harpoon murder, and a young police inspector, Stanley Hopkins, asks Holmes, whom he admires, for help. Holmes has already determined that it would take a great deal of strength and skill to run a man through with a harpoon and embed it in the wall behind him.

The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes and was published in 1904. Holmes is hired by the débutante Lady Eva Blackwell to retrieve compromising letters from a blackmailer: Milverton, who causes Holmes more revulsion than any of the 50-odd murderers in his career. Milverton is "the king of blackmailers". He demands £7,000 (over £800,000 in 2015) for the letters, which if given to third parties would cause a scandal that would end Lady Eva's marriage engagement.

The Final Problem is a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring his detective character Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in Strand Magazine under the title "The Adventure of the Final Problem" in December 1893. It appears in book form as part of the collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. This story, set in 1891, introduced Holmes's archenemy, the criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty. Conan Doyle later ranked The Final Problem fourth on his personal list of the twelve best Holmes stories.

The Greek Interpreter, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. The story was originally serialised in Strand Magazine in 1893. This story introduces Holmes's elder brother Mycroft. Doyle ranked The Greek Interpreter seventeenth in a list of his nineteen favourite Sherlock Holmes stories.