Private Detective Fiction

San Francisco homicide detective Frost Easton hadn’t seen his estranged friend Denny in years. Not until he dies in Frost’s arms uttering a final inexplicable word: Lombard. Denny appears to be the latest victim in a string of murders linked by a distinctive clue: the painting of a spiraled snake near the crime scenes. Is it the work of a serial killer? Or is Denny’s death more twisted and personal? To find the answer, Frost reaches into a nest of vipers - San Francisco’s shady elite - where the whispered name of Lombard is just one secret.

In the long, hot summer of 1976 Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie are camping at Wyvis Hall. They don’t ask why they are there or how they are to live; they simply scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall’s animal cemetery. But which woman? And whose child?

The roots of racism and persecution in Tomsson Black's ancestry are deep and staggering. In his own lifetime, his misfortunes have become unbearable and, as they mount, serve as an impetus for a final and cataclysmic act of vengeance—the violent overthrow of white society. When acclaimed crime writer Chester Himes died in Spain in 1984, it was rumored that an unfinished story in the Harlem Detective series existed that had all but extinguished his heroes and their fraught city in an explosive paroxysm of racial strife.

London, 1849 When a boy is found drowned in the River Thames at Hungerford Stairs, novelist Charles Dickens and Superintendent Jones of Bow Street are mystified to discover that the child is not the missing youngster for whom they have been searching. As Dickens and Jones delve deeper into London's poverty-stricken backstreets, they stumble across two more bodies. A serial killer is on the loose. And Charles is terrified that someone close to him may be one of the victims.

When a renowned theater director senses something amiss during his latest production, he calls Nero Wolfe. Though the corpulent genius wouldn’t normally accept a job this vague, a mutual friend dangles the prospect of a very rare orchid in exchange for his services, and Wolfe can’t resist. With a mind to suss out useful backstage gossip, Wolfe turns to his faithful assistant, Archie Goodwin, to impersonate a journalist in order to speak to the cast. Though Goodwin’s conversations prove unfruitful, on his last day at the theater, the director is murdered in his sound-proof booth.

The year 1942 is a bad time to stage Madame Butterfly. Although Puccini's masterpiece is a perennial favorite of the San Francisco opera crowd, its sympathetic depiction of a Japanese girl causes tension in the dark months following Pearl Harbor. Newspaper editorialists rage against the production, opera buffs picket the theater, and a note appears nailed to the house door, threatening violence against the cast and crew. When the first workman dies, the maestro calls Toby Peters, a Los Angeles detective who works discreetly for Hollywood's rich and famous.

Who said retirement was easy? After 25 years of dedicated service, one ill-fated meeting over an unsolved missing person’s case sees London police officer Jack Griffin forced into resignation, effective immediately. Now, with more free time than he had planned, Jack takes on the role of lead investigator as a newly-assigned Met Police Cold Case Team puts him in their crosshairs. The case? Patricia Lucas disappeared from Notting Hill five years ago and Griffin was the first officer on scene.

Inside Alaska's biggest national park, surrounding the town of Niniltna, a gold mining company has started buying up land. The residents of the Park, are uneasy. "But gold is up to nine hundred dollars an ounce," is the refrain of Talia Macleod, the popular Alaskan skiing champ the company hired to improve their relations with Alaskans. And she promises much needed jobs to the locals. But before she can make her way to every village in the area to make her case at town meetings and village breakfasts, there are two murders—one a long-standing mine opponent, and Ms. Macleod herself.

In Alaska, people disappear every day. In Aleut detective Kate Shugak's Park, they've been disappearing a lot lately. Hikers head into the wilderness unprepared and get lost. Miners quit without notice at the busy Suulutaq Mine. Suicides leave farewell notes and vanish. Not only are Park rats disappearing at an alarming rate, but so is life in the Park as Kate knows it.

Private investigator Nick Lupin finds himself immersed in the murky depths of the Louisiana bayou as he uncovers a sinister cult lurking in the shadows. Tasked with unraveling the mysteries of the swamps, Nick navigates treacherous terrain and confronts ancient rituals as he races against time to thwart the cult's dark agenda. With danger lurking around every corner and the bayou's secrets threatening to consume him, Nick must rely on his wits and determination to survive in a world where darkness reigns supreme.

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....

Arsène Lupin revient sur le devant de la scène, en cabotinant avec une de ses victimes, puis en s'échappant sous le nez et la barbe de Ganimard, le vaillant inspecteur de la Sureté. Son nom réapparaît dans d'autres affaires mystérieuses : c'en est trop ! Les victimes en appellent à Herlock Sholmès, le célèbre détective anglais qui a déjà bataillé avec Lupin et remporté une demie-victoire.

London, 1940. A woman lies dead in a bombed-out house. It looks like she's another tragic casualty of the Blitz, until police pathologist Aleck Northcote proves she was strangled and placed at the scene. But Northcote himself has something to hide. And when his past catches up with him, he, too, is murdered. Tewkesbury, 2020. Beneath the vast stone arches of Tewkesbury Abbey, a man has been fatally stabbed. He is Roddy March, an investigative journalist for a podcast series uncovering miscarriages of justice.

Miami da la bienvenida a un nuevo detective particular: ROMÁN EL INFALIBLE. Ingenioso como Spade y Marlowe, tan duro como Hammer y Shaft, Román Negrón alias El infalible se convierte en el terror de los criminales y políticos corruptos a la par, que acechan a sus víctimas en las aristas de nuestra ciudad... ¡Puro Noir con sabor latino!

A young woman is dead. The main suspect is in custody. And Private Investigator Lexi Graves is on the warpath. Lexi finally feels like her life is on track. With a great job that is made to measure and the perfect boyfriend, it takes all of a few shocking minutes for everything to start falling apart. Angry and hurt at her boyfriend, Detective Adam Maddox, and his apparent betrayal, Lexi embarks on an undercover job at a nearby military base.

Fall 1889: Lady Rotherton has arrived from London intent on chaperoning her niece Prudence through a New York social season to find a suitable husband. It's certainly not her niece's devilishly handsome partner in Hunter and MacKenzie Investigative Law. Aunt Gillian's eye for eligible suitors is surpassed only by her ability to discern genuine gems from nearly flawless fakes. At the Assembly Ball at Delmonico's, she effortlessly determines that the stones in the spectacular diamond waterfall necklace adorning the neck of the wife of banker William De Vries are fake.

Le Dr Watson nous raconte les affaires les plus difficiles que le grand détective Sherlock Holmes a résolus avec l'aide de son compagnon de toujours. Le plus britannique de tous les limiers procède avec méthode mais c'est toujours son intuition qui fait mouche ! Six enquêtes trépidantes qui ont donné du fil à retordre à nos deux héros.

The heist was legendary, still talked about 20 years after the priceless paintings disappeared from one of Boston's premier art museums. Most thought the art was lost forever, buried deep, sold off overseas, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when paint chips from the most valuable piece stolen, Gentlemen in Black by a Spanish master, arrives at the desk of a Boston journalist, the museum finds hope and enlists Spenser's help.

Rosemary Simpson presents Book 8 in the Gilded Age Mystery series.

Twenty-three years ago, Christina Tolmie vanished without trace from northern France, leaving her young daughters Kate and Flora orphaned and alone. Now Flora is also missing. In desperation, Kate searches her Edinburgh house and finds a piece of note paper with just one name: Cal McGill.