Private Investigators Fiction

Somebody pushed Shelby Poinsett out her second-floor library window, and it wasn't her husband. At least that's what Charleston's most prestigious law firm wants Liz Talbot to prove. Liz must run the spectrum of Southern society, from the local homeless shelter where Shelby volunteered to the 100-year-old book club where Charleston's genteel ladies are dying to join, to bring a killer to justice.

The young girl lies in a ditch without a scratch on her - a white high school student stretched out dead in the black part of Atlanta. She was a rich girl from a cold family, too genteel for the neighborhood where she died, and only the baby in her belly suggests how she might have gotten there. For Detective Frank Clemons, the scene is far too familiar. Too close to how it was when he found his own daughter, dead in the woods by her own hand, her youthful beauty cruelly ravaged by depression. To hang on to sanity, he must do everything he can to find justice for the dead.

Ellery Queen returned to Wrightsville to solve the mystery of a rich man - believed poor - who died of "old age," a poor man - believed rich - who committed suicide, and a scholarly drunk who disappeared. Shortly it occurred to Queen that the puzzle had a pattern. A twisted mind was committing murder according to an old nursery rhyme! Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief…and to at least one person in town, the chief was Ellery Queen.

Anthony Award nominee Cara Black has garnered international acclaim for the authentic characterization and tantalizing suspense of her Aimée Leduc series. In this third entry—set in 1994 Paris—Aimée fears that a 1960s Communist gang is on the loose—and her long-lost mother just may be one of them.

The sleek high-rises of Park Avenue make Frank Clemons uneasy. The former Atlanta homicide detective came to New York after a sickening murder case soured him on the South, but despite the glitz and excitement of his new surroundings and the beauty of the woman he shares them with, the city makes his skin crawl. Now a private eye, he is only at ease in the city's darker corners, among the whores, gamblers, and pimps who call Eighth Avenue home. That affinity for the socially isolated is what draws him to the case of Hannah Karlsberg, an elderly seamstress who deserved a better death than she got.

The story is not your typical murder mystery. The sleuth is not a detective, private eye, or lawyer. He's an ordinary guy with an extraordinary dog. Jacob Martin is trying to make the best of a divorce and mid-life crisis when he gets a call at two o'clock Sunday morning from his mother. His sister has been arrested for the murder of her fourth husband, and his father is near death. Thus begins an adventure that takes Jake and his golden retriever from their Colorado retreat to a backwater town in the Missouri Ozarks.

Private investigator Sebastian Clifford and his partner Birdie step into the world of celebrity when a star of children's TV turns to them for help. She's being blackmailed by someone who knows about her murky past, and she's desperate to keep it hidden. But silence comes at a price, and it's one she can't afford to pay. Clifford, who knows better than anyone what it's like to be punished for one mistake, agrees to help. As they dig deeper, they discover that everyone has secrets, and some are dark enough to kill for.

Atticus Riot took a bullet to his head the day his partner was killed. Three years later, Riot returns to San Francisco to put his ghosts to rest, but the abduction of an heiress snags his attention. Two ransom demands are delivered, and the husband of the abducted Isobel Kingston is hiding the truth. The clock is ticking. Can Riot find Mrs. Kingston in time, or will she become one more regret among many?

When Charley is rudely awakened in the middle of the night by her best friend who tells her to get dressed quickly and tosses clothes out of the closet at her, she can’t help but wonder what Cookie’s up to. Leather scrunch boots with a floral miniskirt? Together? Seriously? Cookie explains that a friend of hers named Mimi disappeared five days earlier and that she just got a text from her setting up a meet at a coffee shop downtown....

The dual forces of good and evil take center stage in the fourth installment in the Jimmy McSwain Files, one that finds the tortured, sexy detective battling an unforeseen enemy: happiness. Yet murder will soon rear its desperate chill, hurtling Jimmy into the highest society and the lowest of lives.

Homicide cop Bobby Dunston’s daughter has been kidnapped, taken in broad daylight on a city street in the middle of September. The kidnappers demand a million dollars and force Dunston to get the ransom from his friend McKenzie. It soon becomes apparent to the two of them that one of the kidnappers is childhood pal Scottie, a once aspiring drummer now gone astray, and that the kidnapping is payback for “crimes” committed in their past.

Sam Acquillo has spent most of his time in the Hamptons hanging out with the other half of the moneyed wonderland cops and bartenders, carpenters, store clerks, and firemen. He couldn't care less about the concerns of the one percent, until his best friend, a certified billionaire, is dragged into a high-profile death investigation. For some, there is no power without prestige, and no prestige that can't be bought. The rich can achieve a level of depravity and hate both invisible, and incomprehensible, to the rest of us.

The Most Southern Place on Earth: That's what they call the Mississippi Delta. It's not a place Lydia Chin, an American-born Chinese private detective from Chinatown, New York City, ever thought she'd have reason to go. But when her mother tells her a cousin Lydia didn't know she had is in jail in Clarksdale, Mississippi - and that Lydia has to rush down south and get him out - Lydia finds herself rolling down Highway 61 with Bill Smith, her partner, behind the wheel.

Eli's trip to London with his uncle Harry quickly turns homicidal when the older magician finds himself accused of murder. A second slaying does little to take the spotlight off Harry. Instead it's clear someone is knocking off Harry's elderly peers in bizarrely effective ways. But who? The odd gets odder when the prime suspect appears to be a bitter performer with a grudge who committed suicide over 30 years before. While Eli struggles to prove his uncle's innocence - and keep them both alive - he finds himself embroiled in a battle of his own.

Between an epic downpour and a King Tide, the historic streets of Charleston are flooded - and dangerous. A late night tragic accident along the Lower Battery leads Liz Talbot straight to her next case. Who's the client? Well, now, therein lies the first puzzle. When the police arrive at the scene of the accident, Poppy Oliver claims she's only trying to help. But the dent on the front of her Subaru and the victim's injuries provoke a certain Charleston police detective's suspicious nature.

Dr. Frank Hafner is an archaeologist working on excavating a new-found Native American temple site in the Mississippi Delta. He's also too handsome for his own good, and a bit of a flirt. Oddly enough, it's the first quality that gets him in trouble when he discovers the ritualistic murder of one of his archaeological crew. When Coleman Peters, Sheriff and Sarah Booth's boyfriend, takes Dr. Hafner in for questioning in the murder, the accused doctor hires Sarah Booth to clear his name.

Following the devastation of the Great War, England's noble class takes comfort in honoring tradition. To celebrate their grandparents' wedding anniversary, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her siblings travel to Staffordshire to commission a china service bearing the Wroxly coat of arms from the venerated Crown Lily Potteries, a favorite of Queen Mary. The two leading designers at the illustrious china manufacturer offer competing patterns. But when one of them is found dead - his body crushed in a grinding pan and his design pattern book missing - his rival is immediately suspected.

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.

Leonard Dyke's writing style didn't offend. But all of his work featured unhappy endings: murders. When four people die, including the author, police finally call on Nero Wolfe. Wolfe baits a trap, and when it springs shut, he finds that truth is stranger (and bloodier) than fiction.

Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts. The outbreak of war changed everything. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive.