Private Detective Fiction

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.

Shortly after private eye Howard Moon Deer decides to settle down with his latest lady love, he accepts a new case that takes him away from the home front and introduces him to the dangerous passions that drive San Geronimo's thriving art scene. Howard and ex-police commander Jack Wilder have been hired to investigate Sherman Stone, a man notorious for his torrid liaisons and low-life friends. Rumor has it that he's planning to have his wealthy wife killed. But before Howard can separate fact from fiction, a local hobo is murdered, and then Sherman himself meets an untimely end.

Quincannon’s pursuit of two con men who have absconded to Hawaii with a considerable sum of his employer’s assets dovetails nicely with Sabina’s vision of a second honeymoon. But neither is wont to stay out of trouble, and Sabina inadvertently becomes involved in a locked room/dying message murder in Honolulu.

Someone is murdering the homeless in Detroit’s Cass Corridor―by immolation. These horrific crimes wouldn’t require an investigation by Charlie Mack and her crack team investigators, except that one of the burned bodies is her mother’s friend. There’s a lot wrong with this case: the police won’t admit a serial killer is on the loose, drug trafficking intersects with the deaths, and a rogue cop is involved. The timing also couldn’t be worse―Charlie and Mandy are finally moving in together.

A hate group operating in Oakland County, Michigan, has claimed responsibility for a six-month-long string of arson fires and robberies at mosques, temples, and Black churches around Detroit, eluding police and federal agencies. The most recent fire, at a mosque in Dearborn, kills a respected imam. His children—suspicious of law enforcement’s treatment of Muslims and afraid of reprisal—hire Charlie Mack and her team of investigators to find their father’s murderers.

It gives us considerable pleasure to be able to offer to the public the “inside” record of those of former District Attorney Markham’s criminal cases in which Mr. Philo Vance figured so effectively. The true inwardness of these famous cases has never before been revealed by S. S. Van Dine, Mr. Vance’s lawyer and almost constant companion, being the only person who possessed a complete record of the facts and has only recently been permitted to make them public.

Arthur Nakai, now armed with his newly minted private investigator license, has visitors at his doorstep on White Mesa. Melanie Manygoats and her young son arrive on a cold winter’s day asking him to locate her missing daughter, whom she fears has become one of the stolen. Arthur accepts and soon finds himself wading through the world of teenage prostitution where he discovers April has already been sold into the darker, more horrifying world of human trafficking and sexual slavery.

Dr. Blair Harbour, once a wealthy, respected pediatric surgeon, is now an ex-con down on her luck. She's determined to keep her nose clean and win back custody of her son. But when her former cellmate begs for help to find her missing daughter, Blair is compelled to put her new-found freedom on the line. Detective Jessica Sanchez has always had a difficult relationship with the LAPD. And her inheritance of a multi-million dollar mansion as a reward for catching a killer has just made her police enemy number one.

To a corrupt chief of police intent on maintaining his power at all costs, part-time PI Declan "Mac" MacManus is a problem that must finally be addressed. Cursed with an unwavering sense of right and wrong, and a fierce loyalty to his few friends, Mac has become known as someone the working class of Southampton can turn to in times of desperate need. On a rain-swept night in October, Mac witnesses a brutal homicide, but he has learned that nothing on the East End is ever what it seems.

Traumatisée par une affaire particulièrement brutale, l'inspectrice Elin Warner a décidé de faire une pause dans sa carrière. Lorsque son frère Isaac l'invite à célébrer ses fiançailles au Sommet, ancien sanatorium transformé en hôtel de luxe, elle n'a d'autre choix que d'accepter. Mais peu après son arrivée, Laure, la fiancée d'Isaac, disparaît.

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.

When a bright young heiress with a flair for romance and one too many enemies is found brutally murdered, Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, find themselves embroiled in a case that is not as black and white as it first appears.

What could possibly go wrong with Charles attending a vintage wine auction preview? This is the Gotcha Detective Agency, after all, and what goes wrong makes Mimi and Charles's head spin. And not from too much wine. Mimi, Charles, and Nick fall into a twisted tale of wine fraud and murder in this latest installment of the Gotcha Detective Agency Mystery series.

Someone wants Morgan Shaw dead—or so the beautiful, brilliant, and hugely popular evening news anchor of top-rated Chicago TV station WLTV believes. Fearing for her safety, she turns to P. I. Ashe Cayne for protection. Though he sympathizes, Ashe turns her down—he’s not a bodyguard. But when Morgan’s car tires are slashed and she’s threatened again, Ashe agrees to help her.

Markus Novak just wants to come home. An investigator for a Florida-based death-row defense firm, Novak's life derailed when his wife, Lauren, was killed in the midst of a case the two were working together. Two years later her murderer is still at large, and Novak's attempts to learn the truth about her death through less-than-legal means and jailhouse bargaining have put his job on the line.

Maggie Gilbert and her children, Jack and Alice, live a pretty normal life. That is, until Maggie starts looking into her family tree. In doing so, she uncovers a dark mystery that endangers her children. She has to solve the mystery in the past, if she is to save her family in the present. Together with a fellow genealogist, Zelah, Maggie unearths more and more details about the drowning of a small girl and the unsolved disappearance of Maggie's ancestor.

Sarah-Belle vient de terminer des études en techniques policières. Alors qu'elle profite de ses dernières semaines de vacances avant de débuter sa carrière, elle fait la connaissance d'une femme dont le fils de 17 ans est porté disparu. Il a été vu, pour la dernière fois, près d'un endroit où vivent des femmes enfermées dans un cloitre. Dans les jours qui suivent, la jeune policière trouvera un moyen de se joindre à ces femmes vivant en retrait de la société afin d'y faire discrètement enquête. Ce qu'elle va découvrir au sein du groupe va modifier le cours de son existence.

Late one night, a distraught young man knocks on the door of retired and recently widowed Ally Bright’s remote home on the Cornish coast. But before she can make sense of his confused words, he’s gone—not to be seen again until he’s found the next morning at the foot of the nearby cliffs.

The Adventure of the Creeping Man (1923) is one of 12 Sherlock Holmes short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle collected in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927). The story was first published in the Strand Magazine in the UK and Hearst's International in the US in March 1923. A man named Trevor Bennett comes to Holmes with a most unusual problem. He is Professor Presbury's personal secretary, and Mr Bennett is also engaged to the professor's only daughter, Edith. Professor Presbury is himself engaged to a young lady, Alice Morphy, a colleague's daughter, although he himself is already 61 years of age.

In this new installment of Ken Bruen's beloved Jack Taylor series, the whiskey-swigging Irish detective investigates a series of violent attacks on the local convent's nuns.