Private Investigators Fiction

When David Barney was acquitted in the shooting death of his wealthy wife, Isabelle, a good many thought that justice had not been served, including Kenneth Voight, Isabelle's former husband. Now, five years later, Voight is the plaintiff in a civil suit in which Barney stands accused of Isabelle's wrongful death. The stakes are high, but time is running short. Enter sexy, savvy ex-cop-turned-P.I. Kinsey Millhone, brought in by Voight to gather the necessary damning evidence.

In the early hours of a quiet weekend morning in Manhattan's Diamond District, a brutal triple murder shocks the city. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs quickly take the case. Curiously, the killer has left behind a half-million dollars' worth of gems at the murder scene, a jewelry store on 47th street. As more crimes follow, it becomes clear that the killer's target is not gems but engaged couples themselves.

Joel Brandt swears he’s never met the woman before. His wife dead six months before, the small-time businessman is perplexed when Del Moray police inform him that a local woman, Marla Cloy, has accused him of harassing her. According to her, Joel has been lurking outside of her house, following her car, even assaulting her at the grocery store. Brandt says it’s all a lie, but the police don’t believe him. He goes to Fred Carver, an ex-cop turned PI, for help clearing his name.

In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone—ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk—has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty. But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist.

In this new mystery set in the Patty Hearst era of radical black nationalism and political abductions, a black ex-boxer self-named Uhuru Nolica, the leader of a revolutionary cell called Scorched Earth, has kidnapped Rosemary Goldsmith, the daughter of a weapons manufacturer, from her dorm at UC Santa Barbara. If they don't receive the money, weapons, and apology they demand, "Rose Gold" will die - horribly and publicly.

Boston, 1982. Private investigator Andy Roark has spent the past decade trying to rediscover his place in the world. In Vietnam, there was order and purpose. Everything - no matter how brutal - happened for a reason. Deborah Swift, wealthy wife of an aspiring California politician, is trying to trace her father, last seen on Cape Cod, who walked out on her and her mother long ago. Other investigators have turned up nothing, but Roark's local connections might give him an edge.

Lottery winner and ex-journalist Donal Fitzgerald joins forces with his girlfriend, DNR conservation officer Mercy Virdon, to solve the mysterious death of a beloved angler, Charlie, who was murdered in his tent in a state campground and who was known by all - and who may have known too much. Set in the engaging small town of Ossning on the Borchard River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula - an angler’s dream, filled with eccentric, believable, sympathetic, and unforgettable characters - Riverwatcher is a classic whodunit.

Private investigators Liz Talbot and Nate Andrews are all set to enjoy some quality time on the beach. That's until they get the news about Darius DeAndre Baker. The star of the hit TV show, Main Street USA, has had enough of the Hollywood high life. After 10 years of visiting everyone else's hometown, he returns to his own - Stella Maris, SC. But the moving trucks have barely unloaded when Trina Lynn Causby, Darius's high school girlfriend, turns up dead, and the entire town reels as Darius is arrested. Despite the mounting evidence, Liz and Nate believe Darius is innocent.

There’s no one and nothing the great detective Nero Wolfe wouldn’t take on if the price was right. That’s something wealthy society widow Rachel Bruner is counting on when she writes him a check for a whopping hundred grand. But even Wolfe has a moment’s doubt when he finds out why the prize is so generous. For the oversize genius and his able assistant Archie Goodwin are about to lock horns with the FBI - and those highly trained G-men have a way with threats, tails, and bugs that could give even sedentary sleuth Nero Wolfe a run for his money.

Philip Marlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard.

It is 1997, and someone is slaughtering young women in Burdon County, Arkansas. But no one in the Dirty South wants to admit it. In an Arkansas jail cell sits a former NYPD detective, stricken by grief. He is mourning the death of his wife and child, and searching in vain for their killer. Obsessed with avenging his lost family, his life is about to take a shocking turn.

When successful mystery novelist and fledgling private detective Marius Quin is invited to speak at the Mystery and Detection Society he jumps at the chance of a luxurious weekend away on the English coast. But arriving at Torquay’s Grand Hotel with his sleuthing partner Lady Bella Montague, there is the definite sense that all is not well. When they wake the next morning to discover the body of a cantankerous local in the hotel pool, the things go from bad to worse. But how can the duo catch a killer when every piece of evidence they uncover is contradicted by two more?

Join Kinsey Millhone on her latest venture into the darker side of the human soul, searching for a missing doctor who is loved by all...or is he?

Sarah Booth just wants the perfect Christmas holiday. Even with the dissolution of her engagement, she refuses to lose her Christmas spirit. But when Theodora Prince - an ex classmate and current Pastor's wife - comes calling with a year-old case and cash upfront, Sarah Booth must find the truth about the boys who ruined last year's Christmas pageant in time to stop them from doing it again.

December 1889. Fresh from debunking a 'ghostly' hound in Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes has returned to London, only to find himself the target of a deadly vendetta. A beautiful client arrives with a tale of ghosts, kidnapping and dynamite on a whisky estate in Scotland, but brother Mycroft trumps all with an urgent assignment in the South of France. On the fabled Riviera, Holmes and Watson encounter treachery, explosions, rival French detective Jean Vidocq...and a terrible discovery.

Good and bad things seem to be coming in threes for Kinsey Millhone: on her 33rd birthday she moves back into her renovated apartment, gets hired to find an elderly lady supposedly living in the Mojave Desert by herself, and makes the top of ex-con Tyrone Patty's hit list.

When two young sisters disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated mother hires an enigmatic bounty hunter, Alice Vega, to help find the girls. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemic, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan. Cap is a man trying to put the scandal of his past behind him and move on, but Vega needs his help to find the girls, and she will not be denied.

Five years after the crashof TWA Flight 800, the government has declared it a result of mechanical failure. But John Corey, an ex-NYPD detective who is now a contract agent with the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, is persuaded by Kate Mayfield, his wife and task force partner, that the case deserves a second look.

Tired of people, Jack Widow takes a break. He camps out in the Alaskan wilderness on Kodiak Island, relying on nothing but his survival skills. It’s everything he wanted: quiet terrain, plenty of fishing, sleeping out under the stars, and no people. It seemed like the perfect vacation until Widow meets a man with a familiar face.

An ax-wielding monk hacks at the door. Toby Peters is on the other side, running as fast as his recently broken leg will allow. Alongside him is Salvador Dalí, dressed in a rabbit suit, insistently muttering "grasshoppers" as they try to make their escape. Dalí insists on being carried across the lawn, so Peters hobbles along with the surrealist in his arms. They get in the car just as the monk chops down the front door. The car doesn't start, and the monk charges silently, the ax in the air.