Private Investigators Fiction

Molly DeGorne is a woman on the run, wanted for murdering her abusive husband. She’s accused of setting him and their Seattle home on fire. Scared, alone, and with no one to trust, she runs to the only place she thinks is safe, her summer post as a fire lookout. Only it may not be as safe as she suspects. The only hope that she’s got is a drifter she just met, Jack Widow.

An eighty-year-old man is found murdered in his home. His age and standing in the community makes finding his killer difficult–why would anyone harm an elderly man? What threat could he possibly be to anyone? With no apparent motive, DS George Cross canvases the community for potential suspects but the man was known as generous, charitable, community-minded. Each interview about who the man is muddies the picture further. So Cross decides to look for who he was–revealing a past that is far less honourable than his present . . .

It’s a slow, steamy summer in New Orleans’ French Quarter, but Franki Amato is busy planning her bridal shower—that is, until a hit-and-run outside a coffee shop gets her PI senses percolating. The victim is linked to crimes at a fancy society wedding in a haunted hotel where Franki’s fiancé’s family is staying. As for the java joint, it’s straight out of a hardboiled detective movie, and there’s something hinky about its walnut liqueur coffee.

There's a body beneath the skip bins. Fae on the forklift. A vampire in the manager's office. And there's definitely something skeevy going on in the locker rooms. Hi. I'm Pet. Well, not exactly Pet. I am a pet. I was meant to stay out of it, but somebody's gotta do something when humans are being killed by Behindkind creatures.

Call it Kinsey Millhone in bad company. Call it a mystery without a murder, a treasure hunt without a map, a quest novel with truly mixed-up motives. Call it the return of Kinsey as a bad girl, quick-witted and quicksilvery, poking her nose into everybody's dirty laundry as she joins up with a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde in an Our Gang comedy that will take her halfway across the country and leave her with a major headache and an empty bank balance.

Lorna Kepler was beautiful and willful, a loner who couldn't resist flirting with danger. Maybe that's what killed her.

In noir master Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, a movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret lure private eye Philip Marlowe into the less than glamorous and more than a little dangerous world of Hollywood fame. Chandler's first foray into the industry that dominates the company town that is Los Angeles.

This story is based on the actual murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers, a crime that paralyzed New York because of the unprecedented violence that the murderer turned on her. Mary Cecilia Rogers was born in Connecticut in 1820 and disappeared on October 4, 1838, in unclear circumstances. Some days later the newspapers announced that she had been found and had fled to marry a naval officer. The case was closed, but three years later, on July 25, 1841, Mary Cecilia Rogers disappeared again. Her lifeless body was found floating in the Hudson River

Private Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has been drawn back to the Lavender House estate for a missing person case. Pat, the family butler, has been volunteering for a book service, one that specializes in mailing queer books to a carefully guarded list of subscribers. With bookseller Howard Salzberger gone suspiciously missing along with his address book, everyone on that list, including some of Andy's closest friends, is now in danger.

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin star in these four gems. In "The Christmas Party", Wolfe condescends to uncharacteristic theatrics, which aren't enough to clear him from suspicion of murder. The "Easter Parade" tempts Wolfe to commit larceny for an orchid. "A Fourth of July Picnic" has Wolfe scheduled for to appear as an orator. But his day in the sun is rained out by murder. The last selection, "Murder Is No Joke", is a whodunit in a couturier's salon, where a murderer is dressed to kill and kill again.

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.

Hattie Evans, a retired schoolteacher, isn’t one to fuss. When her husband drops dead of a heart attack, she does her best to move on without too many tears. After all, Jerome was 70 years old. But an anonymous note, asserting that her husband was murdered, shakes her resolve, and she seeks out help. The police are useless, save that they send her to Fred Carver - a former Orlando cop who turned PI when a bullet shattered his left knee. Her case takes Carver into the depths of Solartown: an old-age mecca where 70 is the new 40, golf carts are the only way to get around, and death from natural causes is nowhere to be found.

Two years after her brother Charles Bingley weds Miss Jane Bennett, Miss Caroline Bingley is visiting her brother's country estate near Pemberley, the home of their best friends, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy. Restless and out of sorts, Caroline wonders if there's more to life than playing cribbage and paying calls on country neighbors. When Georgiana Darcy's maid, Jayani disappears and Georgiana sets off to find her, Caroline races to to find them in London, where she stumbles on a shocking, cold-blooded murder.

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.

Private Investigator Jim Bean has worked hard to create his new identity in Vegas. He doesn't have a great life, but it's his. When his ex-fiancée, Erica Floyd, walks into one of his investigations looking for her missing sister, the tragic past he wanted to leave behind comes flooding back. Despite serious reservations, Jim agrees to search for Erica's sister. Clues lead him to a human-trafficking ring and one of Vegas' most influential mobsters.

Fresh from his trip to Britain, Falco needs to re-establish his presence in Rome. A minor role in the trial of a senator entangles him in the machinations of Silius Italicus and Paccius Africanus, two real-life lawyers at the top of their trade. These notorious ex-consuls play a dangerous game, where success brings rich pickings but a mistrial or a wrong verdict entails huge financial penalties.

"Un matin, Le Petit a décrété : - Je veux mon papa. Il a repoussé son bol de chocolat et j'ai su, moi, Benjamin Malaussène, frère de famille, que Le Petit n'avalerait plus rien tant que je n'aurais pas retrouvé son vrai père. Or ce type était introuvable. Probablement mort, d'ailleurs. Après deux jours de jeûne Le Petit était si transparent qu'on pouvait lire au travers. Mais il repoussait toujours son assiette : - Je veux mon papa." Daniel Pennac interprète avec jubilation cette intrigue policière loufoque, où se croisent tous les personnages de la saga Malaussène.

After years of suffering unfathomable pain and guilt over the murders of his wife and daughter, private detective Charlie Parker has finally found some measure of peace. As he and his lover, Rachel, are awaiting the birth of their first child and settling into an old farmhouse in rural Maine, Parker has found the kind of solace often lost to those who have been touched by true evil. But darkness soon descends when Parker gets a call from Elliot Norton, an old friend from his days as a detective with the NYPD.

When Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" (Boston Globe), and his partner, PI Bernie Little of the desert-based Little Detective Agency, arrive to a meeting with hydrologist Wendell Nero, they are in for a shocking sight - Wendell has come to a violent and mysterious end. What did the hydrologist want to see them about? Is his death a random robbery, or something more? Chet and Bernie, working for nothing more than an eight-pack of Slim Jims, are on the case.

Nero Wolfe, lover of fine food and prize orchids, is a genius at daring detection. But he is always on guard when it comes to women. Now, murder at a fencing studio engages him and his confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, in a dangerous duel with death. The prime suspect is a Balkan beauty who has a secret reason for wanting Wolfe to clear her - and a double identity that may be the perfect foil for covering up a killer.