Private Investigator Thriller

This quartet of crime stories about deadly books, penned by award-winning contemporary mystery writers, includes The Little Men, What's in a Name?, The Book of the Lion, and From the Queen.

Strictly speaking, Lew Archer is only supposed to dig up the dirt on a rich man's suspicious soon-to-be son-in-law. But in no time at all, Ross Macdonald's private eye is following a trail of corpses from the citrus belt to Mazatlan. And then there is the zebra-striped hearse and its crew of beautiful, sunburned surfers, whose path seems to keep crossing the son-in-law's - and Archer's - in this powerful, fast-paced novel of murder on the California coast.

Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD's finest investigators until he was framed for sexual assault by unknown enemies within the force. A decade has passed since his release from Rikers, and he now runs a private detective agency with the help of his teenage daughter. Physically and emotionally broken by the brutality he suffered while behind bars, King leads a solitary life, his work and his daughter the only lights. When he receives a letter from his accuser confessing that she was paid to frame him years ago, King decides to find out who wanted him gone and why.

Anthropology Professor Gideon Oliver would prefer to keep his mind on his beautiful new bride, Julie, during their English honeymoon, but one intrusive question will not stop nagging at him: Who would want to steal a 30,000-year-old parieto-occipital calvarial fragment? Yet someone has lifted this chunk of prehistoric human skull from a musty museum in Dorchester. Then, 30 miles away, an archaeology student is murdered, increasing tension and suspicion at a dig that had already seethed with suspicion, rivalry, and mistrust.

A woman is found murdered in the woods with a very special watch on her wrist, and what seemed a simple case soon escalates into a nightmare. The criminal methods of some of the most infamous killers of all time are being replicated by a new predator who stalks and strikes victims with a cunning brilliance. No one can understand the murderer's motives or who the next victim will be.

Vivian, a former reporter and a newlywed, doesn’t know what to do with herself after an incident with her husband forces her to question their partnership and her future. Yearning for the ocean air and a sense of home, she retreats to Tybee Island to clear her head and visit her Nana, a retired PI who now struggles with dementia. The phone rings: Catherine Grant, a housewife living in a private development nearby, woke up to find her husband and their baby girl missing, and she is desperate for help.

Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Award winner Rick Riordan is a master of Texas crime writing. In Southtown, maniacal convict Will Stirman escapes from the state penitentiary. With his gang of murderous thugs, Stirman pursues Erainya, the boss of college professor turned P.I. Tres Navarre. Erainya’s husband Fred helped put Stirman behind bars, and although Fred is dead, Stirman wants his revenge. Now only Tres can stop him.

Tempted out of his bookstore into the world of horseracing, Janeway accepts an invitation from wealthy horse trainer H.R. Geiger to travel to Idaho and look at some rare first-edition books. The books are stunning, flawless children's classics that render the usually eloquent Janeway speechless.

Professor Olive Twist has come to Zinnia, Mississippi, to study a mysterious grave wherein lies the Lady in Red, a perfectly preserved and stunningly beautiful but unnamed and unclaimed body. Olive claims she can not only identify the corpse, she can also prove the woman’s scandalous role in the nation’s history. Olive takes it a step too far, though, when she starts connecting elite Zinnia families with the same scandal. Dander up, Zinnia’s society ladies know only one way to handle Olive: They call on the private investigative services of Sarah Booth Delaney.

It should have been a case like any other: a missing princess, a king willing to pay in gold for her return. But before he realizes it, private investigator Eddie LaCrosse, a slightly shopworn sword jockey with a talent for discretion and detection, is swept up in a web of mystery and deceit involving a brutally murdered royal heir, a queen accused of an unspeakable crime, and the tragic past he thought he'd left behind.

September 1909, and Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Florence, have been invited to Lord Riddlethorpe’s country estate for a week of motor racing and parties. They both agree that it sounds like a perfectly charming holiday. But when one of the drivers dies in a crash during the very first race, they discover that what seemed like an uncharacteristic error in judgement may have a more sinister explanation...

It's been four months since the events of Sight Unseen, and Kendra Michaels is obsessed with trying to track down serial killer Eric Colby. Despite his apparent execution at San Quentin, Kendra is convinced that Colby is still alive. The trouble is, she can't prove it. Even her razor-sharp powers of observation, honed while blind during the first twenty years of her life, have gotten her nowhere. So no one believes her.

In the rolling hills just outside Gaborone, surrounded by a grove of acacia trees, lies the Great Hippopotamus Hotel. With spacious rooms overlooking the Botswanan countryside and a fine and loyal staff, the hotel has served as a refuge to weary travelers for many years. But a sudden string of misfortunes threatens to ruin the hotel’s reputation. Food poisoning befalls an unlucky diner, laundry mysteriously disappears from the drying line, and a scorpion stings one of the guests. Mishap after mishap occurs, until it becomes apparent that these incidents are more than simple coincidences.

Only a few weeks into her new job as a private investigator, Lexi Graves thinks she may have bitten off more than she can chew with her first solo cases. In between going undercover as a plush pony at a "Bronie" conference and following her cheating brother-in-law, she's got a saboteur-turned-killer to catch and a missing woman to find. Two of her cases may be connected, but how? Her boss, the mysterious Solomon, meanwhile, hopes to get her between the sheets....

GFL star Quentin Barnes is an orphan born into a culture that prizes family connections above all. He spent his youth struggling with poverty. When he signed his deal with the Ionath Krakens and became rich, one of the first things he did was hire a private detective to find out if his family is still alive. The Detective is the story of that search, as seen through the eyes of Frederico Esteban Guissepe Gonzaga — a.k.a. “Fred,” a master of disguise and a truly dangerous human. But Fred’s past is just as big a mystery as is the whereabouts of Quentin’s family.

When an old acquaintance, finance magnate Eleanore Paget, hears August is back in town, she tries to hire him to investigate suspicious goings-on at her investment bank. August declines - detective work is no longer his beat. When Eleanore is found dead the next day of an apparent suicide, August doesn't buy it for a minute. His search for her killer will drag him into a rat's nest of Detroit's most dangerous criminals.

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.

Sam Rockwell came home from the Second World War to work as a fledgling private investigator specializing in helping "Returns": recently deceased ghosts who've come back with unfinished business. Short on experience and long on the imitated swagger of the detectives found in his dog-eared collection of pulp fiction P.I. mysteries, the quick-witted Sam waits for his big break - and his chance to win the heart of Amelia, his Girl Friday. But when his no-nonsense father is murdered and becomes a Return himself, everything changes.

"Il ne l’aurait probablement jamais avoué, mais il avait hâte de prouver sa valeur à la belle Roxy. Il s’entendait déjà lui lancer: Je l’ai trouvé, ton crotté! Certes, il avait claqué de l’argent qu’il devait à d’autres. Passé proche de se faire tabasser. Mais Georges Kirouac, détective privé, était un homme sur qui on pouvait compter."

Philip Kerr crafts a thrilling chapter from his critically acclaimed Bernie Gunther series. In Field Gray, Bernie finds himself imprisoned in 1954—and told he can either work for French intelligence or he can hang. Accepting his new job, Bernie begins interviewing POWs returning from Germany. And things get interesting when he meets a French war criminal and member of the French SS who has been posing as a German Wehrmacht officer.