Private Investigators Fiction

In a small Alaskan town, a boy is found with his throat ripped out and all the blood drained from his body. The inhabitants of Deadhart haven’t seen a killing like this in twenty-five years. But they know who’s responsible: a member of the Colony, an ostracized community of vampyrs living in an old mine settlement deep in the woods.

I’m Jinx. As a private investigator, being a walking, talking lie detector is a useful skill—but let’s face it, it’s not normal. You’d think it would make my job way too easy, but even with my weird skills, I still haven’t been able to track down my parent’s killers. When I’m hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar—yet my gut tells me there’s more to this case than a party girl gone wild.

Archie Goodwin has his hands full when three baffling murders make him the recipient of a poisonous lunch, the fall guy for a beautiful woman, and the target of the U.S. Federal Government.

With Nero Wolfe on the job, you'd think murderers would take caution. But even the master detective can't stop a killing, especially if it's an inside job - right under the roof of his client, millionaire Otis Jarrell. What's more, it's Jarrell's own missing revolver that the killer uses. Wolfe must find the truth behind the scandals in Jarrell's ill-behaved family. One of its members sleeps the fitful sleep of the guilty, and Wolfe's getting dead tired of murder.

When Stone Barrington embarks on a trip to Bel-Air to check in on some business and personal concerns, he expects a relaxing break from the fast pace and mean streets of New York. But trouble never takes a vacation, and it has a way of finding Stone. A case that had seemingly been resolved has returned in full force - with lethal results. And this deadly situation makes for strange bedfellows when Stone finds himself teamed with the least likely ally…a gentleman of unique abilities, who can fly below the radar and above the law.

Au lendemain d'Halloween, une silhouette masquée, drapée de noir, apparaît dans le parc de Three Pines. L'inconnu semble épier quelqu'un, mettant tout le village mal à l'aise. Comme les autres, Armand Gamache voudrait bien le voir disparaître, mais le fraîchement nommé directeur de la Sûreté du Québec ne dispose d'aucun motif pour l'appréhender. Quelques jours plus tard, alors que la triste figure s'est évanouie, un cadavre est trouvé dans la petite église Saint-Thomas.

Working alone as a private investigator is tough. Estranged from her PI family, Margo Angelhart does what she must to get by—including taking on sordid cases that pay the bills, even if she’d rather be helping those the justice system has failed. That is, until a cheating husband case she’s working intersects with her siblings’ corporate espionage investigation, forcing Margo to cooperate with the Angelhart firm. Now, as the siblings compare notes, it’s clear they need to work together before a white-collar crime escalates to murder.

"Si les vieilles dames se mettent à buter les jeunots, si les doyens du troisième âge se shootent comme des collégiens, si les commissaires divisionnaires enseignent le vol à la tire à leurs petits-enfants, et si on prétend que tout ça c'est ma faute, moi, je pose la question : où va-t-on ?"

July 1910. Lady Hardcastle and her tireless sidekick Flo have finally embarked on a long-overdue seaside break. But just as they’re wavering between ice creams and donkey rides, their fellow guests start to go missing - and the duo find themselves with a hysterical hotel manager and a case to solve. The first to disappear is Dr Goddard, a scientist doing something terribly top-secret for the government.

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.

Two dead bodies changed the course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I'd never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue. The first was a local PI of suspect reputation. He'd been gunned down near the beach at Santa Teresa. It looked like a robbery gone bad. The other was on the beach six weeks later. He'd been sleeping rough. Probably homeless. No identification. A slip of paper with Millhone's name and number was in his pants pocket. The coroner asked her to come to the morgue to see if she could ID him.

The case is that of a missing girl, last seen getting into a truck with a stranger before disappearing. Gwen has a reputation for finding those who are lost, but this time something is wrong. Her instincts are off, and every clue she uncovers only raises more doubts, not just about the missing girl and the circumstances of her disappearance, but also about the fragile safety Gwen’s created for her family.

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.

Happy Doll is a charming, if occasionally inexpert, private detective living just one sheer cliff drop beneath the Hollywood sign with his beloved half-Chihuahua half-Terrier, George. A veteran of both the Navy and LAPD, Doll supplements his meager income as a P.I. by working through the night at a local Thai spa that offers its clients a number of special services. Armed with his 16-inch steel telescopic baton, biting dry humor, and just a bit of a hero complex, the ex-cop sets out to protect the women who work there from clients who have trouble understanding the word "no".

A wealthy woman needs to find her sister to settle a will. It looks routine...boring. Still, business is slow and even a private investigator has bills to pay, so Kinsey Millhone takes the case. But this is not routine and the deeper Kinsey digs the trickier things get. The client tries to call Kinsey off, an accusing husband surfaces, and a double murder turns the case sinister.

Joe Pike didn't expect to rescue a woman that day. He went to the bank same as anyone goes to the bank, and returned to his Jeep. So when Isabel Roland, the lonely young teller who helped him, steps out of the bank on her way to lunch, Joe is on hand when two men abduct her. Joe chases them down, and the two men are arrested. But instead of putting the drama to rest, the arrests are only the beginning of the trouble for Joe and Izzy.

When an English expat is brutally murdered, his charred corpse left on a Loire Valley hillside, the police turn to juge d’instruction Matthieu Lombard to find the perpetrator. Instead, Lombard discovers a wealth of secrets, grudges, and feuds in the idyllic town of Saint-Genèse-sur-Loire. He begins to suspect that the remaining members of the Comité des Fêtes know more about the death than they are letting on.

Twelve. Twelve of the deadliest beasts ever forged in the fires of hell have escaped onto our plane, and they want nothing more than to rip out the jugular of Charley Davidson and serve her lifeless, mangled body to Satan for dinner. So there's that. But Charley has more on her plate than a mob of testy hellhounds. For one thing, her father has disappeared, and the more she retraces his last steps, the more she learns he was conducting an investigation of his own, one that has Charley questioning everything she's ever known about him.

It's April, 1988, a month before Kinsey Millhone's 38th birthday, and she's alone in her office doing paperwork when a young man arrives unannounced. He has a preppy air about him and looks as if he'd be carded if he tried to buy booze, but Michael Sutton is 27, an unemployed college dropout. Twenty-one years earlier, a four-year-old girl disappeared, and a recent reference to her kidnapping has triggered a flood of memories.

A bomb explodes in the desk drawer of a top TV executive. Was it intended for him or the man who opened the drawer? They each had enemies enough to die a dozen times over. Was it the jealous wife or the ambitious partner? The secretary who got passed around like an inter-office memo? Or the man who couldn’t wash the blood off his hands? Nero Wolfe didn’t want any part of it - but he was up to his neck in the toughest case of his career!