Private Investigators Fiction

Ishmael Jones is someone who can’t afford to be noticed, someone who lives under the radar, who drives on the dark side of the road. He’s employed to search out secrets, investigate mysteries, and shine a light in dark places. Sometimes, he kills people. Invited by his employer, the enigmatic Colonel, to join him and his family for Christmas, Ishmael arrives at the grand but isolated Belcourt Manor in the midst of a blizzard to find that the Colonel has mysteriously disappeared.

Lucas Carr went to Glenbury Hall, an old country manor house turned hotel. He signed in at reception, took his key, and went upstairs to his room. But he never got there. Somehow he vanished along the way, with not a single clue to suggest what might have happened to him. Lucas belonged to the same mysterious organization that employs Ishmael and Penny, so they are sent in to solve the mystery. But when they arrive at grim and isolated Glenbury Hall, they discover it has a reputation as one of the most haunted old houses in England.

Archie Goodwin is not overly fond of Theodore Horstmann, who takes care of the orchids on the rooftop of Nero Wolfe’s West 35th Street brownstone. But as loyal assistant to the legendary private detective, Archie will put his animosity aside when the surly orchid-keeper stumbles through the front door beaten within an inch of his life. While the gardener lies in a coma, Nero sends Archie to poke around his apartment near the river.

When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain. From the author of The Maltese Falcon.

Gabriel is a security expert for Cipher Security, and a former UN Peacekeeper with a fierce protective streak that finds its focus on the beautiful P. I., Shane. Their attraction is like an elephant in a room full of breakable things, and figuring out how to trust each other with their hearts, and maybe their lives, is the most fragile thing of all.

Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that’s the way he likes it. One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance. Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hen...and you don’t mess with a fellow’s hens!

A rogue agent has come in from the cold and wants to spill his secrets. The Organisation wants Ishmael to find out if Frank Parker is who he says he is, what he really knows, and why he has emerged from the shadows after all this time. Ishmael heads to Ringstone Lodge in Yorkshire where Parker is being held to find that an atmosphere of fear and suspicion prevails. As he and his fellow residents are menaced by a series of alarming and inexplicable incidents, Ishmael sets out to prove that it’s human trickery rather than any supernatural being behind the seemingly ghostly goings-on.

Amos Decker is a former professional football player whose career was ended by a terrible hit. Now a police detective, Amos is still haunted by a side effect from the accident he can never forget. One night Decker comes home from a stakeout to find his wife, young daughter, and brother-in-law horrifically murdered. Obviously scarred and nearly broken, Decker has to use his skills as a detective and his unusual brain capacity to try to catch the monster who killed his family.

An academic so conservative he thought Ronald Reagan was a pinko, Hale Markham rules Prescott University like an intellectual tyrant - until the morning he’s found dead at the bottom of one of Prescott’s famously beautiful ravines. Every liberal on campus hated the crotchety old crank, but which one is responsible for giving Markham his final push to the right? The case so intrigues the incomparable, reclusive master detective Nero Wolfe that he takes the unusual step of leaving the confines of his home.

For the men of Madison Avenue, the battle between soft-drink giants Cherr-o-key and AmeriCherry seems heaven-sent. For years now, the firm of Mills/Lake/Ryman has fought to help Cherr-o-key become the nation’s favorite fizzy cherry soda, but each time they come up with a new slogan, mascot, or jingle, AmeriCherry somehow beats them to it. There’s a mole inside the agency, and only Nero Wolfe can ferret him out.

A mansion, a title, and marriage to a wealthy Lord, Lady Eveline Cartwright has it all. Unfortunately, it's not enough to prevent her from being bludgeoned to death one night in the study of Merisham Lodge, the family's country estate in Derbyshire. Suspicion quickly falls on her ne'er-do-well son, Peter, but not everyone in the household is convinced of his guilt. Head kitchen maid Joan Hart and lady's maid Verity Hunter know that when it comes to a crime, all is not always as it seems.

Nils Shapiro has been hired to find missing Linnea Engstrom, a teenager from the small northern hockey town of Warroad, Minnestota. Most of Warroad is in Minneapolis for the state high school hockey tournament, and Linnea never returned from last night's game. Linnea's friend Haley Housch is also missing - and soon found dead.

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny are attending the re-opening of Tyrone’s Castle, an ancient Cornish inn originally built by smugglers. Over dinner that night, the guests entertain one another with ghost stories inspired by local legends and superstitions. But it would appear that the curse of Tyrone’s Castle has struck for real when one of their number disappears into thin air. And then another....

There’s chaos in Hollywood at the end of the New Year’s Eve countdown. Working her graveyard shift, LAPD detective Renée Ballard waits out the traditional rain of lead as hundreds of revelers shoot their guns into the air. Only minutes after midnight, Ballard is called to a scene where a hardworking auto shop owner has been fatally hit by a bullet in the middle of a crowded street party.

Former Marine helicopter pilot Jack Morgan runs Private, a renowned investigation company with branches around the globe. It is where you go when you need maximum force and maximum discretion. The secrets of the most influential men and women on the planet come to Jack daily - and his staff of investigators uses the world's most advanced forensic tools to make and break their cases.

Here, together for the first time, are the shorter works of best-selling author Jim Butcher - a compendium of cases that Harry and his cadre of allies managed to close in record time. The tales range from the deadly serious to the absurdly hilarious.

If it weren't for the fact that she's replacing a dead man, Kelly Jackson would love her new job managing the Redwood Cove Bed and Breakfast on the coast of Northern California. But Bob Phillips did plunge off the cliff to his death, and Kelly's starting to think it may not have been an accident. Bob's retired friends - The "Silver Sentinels" - are also on the case, especially when Kelly is attacked...and another body turns up.

Meet Sarah Booth Delaney...an unconventional Southern belle whose knack for uncovering the truth is about to make her the hottest detective in Zinnia, Mississippi...if it doesn't make her the deadest. No self-respecting lady would allow herself to end up in Sarah Booth's situation. Unwed, unemployed, and over 30, she's flat broke and about to lose the family plantation. Not to mention being haunted by the ghost of her great-great-grandmother's nanny, who never misses an opportunity to remind her of her sorry state.

On a beautiful spring morning on the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, a small fishing boat moored at the docks suddenly explodes. When it becomes clear that the fire was deliberately set and the boat’s owners brutally murdered, Commissario Brunetti tries to dig up information from Pellestrina’s close-knit - and closemouthed - citizenry. But it is with mixed feelings that he accepts Signorina Elettra’s offer to visit her relatives there and search for clues.

No one's tried to kill Harry Dresden for almost an entire year, and his life finally seems to be calming down. For once, the future looks fairly bright. But the past casts one hell of a long shadow.