Private Investigators Mysteries

"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.

Hollywood, 1940: It's been four years since security guard Toby Peters got fired from the Warner Brothers lot for breaking a screen cowboy's arm. Since then he's scratched out a living as a private detective - but now his old friends, the Warners, have a job for him. Someone has mailed the studio a picture of Errol Flynn caught in a compromising position with an underage woman. Although Flynn insists it's a fake, the studio is taking no chances. Peters is to deliver the blackmailer 5,000 dollars and return with the photo negative.

With 12 hellhounds after her, pregnant Charley Davidson takes refuge at the only place she thinks they can't get to her: the grounds of an abandoned convent. But after months of being cooped up there, Charley is ready to pop. Both metaphorically and literally, since she is now roughly the size of a beached whale. Fortunately a new case has captured her attention, one that involves a murder on the very grounds the team has taken shelter upon.

The body of Gil Petty, America's most celebrated wine critic, is found strung up in a French Gaillac vineyard, dressed in the ceremonial robes of the Order of the Divine Bottle and pickled in wine. For forensic expert Enzo Macleod, the key to this unsolved murder lies in decoding Petty's mysterious reviews, which could make or break a vineyard's reputation. As he digs deeper for the motivation behind the shocking crime, Macleod finds that beneath the tranquil façade of French viticulture lurks a back-stabbing community characterized by a deadly rivalry.

When Paul Casablancas, Claire DeWitt’s ex-boyfriend and a popular musician in the Bay Area scene, is found dead in his apartment, his cherished guitars missing, the police are convinced it’s a simple robbery. But Claire knows that nothing is ever simple. With the help of her new assistant, Claude, Claire follows the clues, finding hints to Paul’s fate in her other cases - especially a long-ago missing girl in New York’s gritty East Village and a modern-day miniature-horse theft in Marin.

September 1909, and Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Florence, have been invited to Lord Riddlethorpe’s country estate for a week of motor racing and parties. They both agree that it sounds like a perfectly charming holiday. But when one of the drivers dies in a crash during the very first race, they discover that what seemed like an uncharacteristic error in judgement may have a more sinister explanation...

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.

Private investigator Thomas Austin is enjoying a relaxing holiday vacation in picturesque Port Townsend, Washington, accompanied by an intriguing new friend. But his tranquility is shattered when the nearby community of Mystery Bay is rocked by the death of a revered musician at an infamous counterculture festival: The Rabbit Hole.

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.

The life of a magician isn't all kiddie shows and card tricks. Sometimes it's murder. Especially when magician Eli Marks very publicly debunks a famed psychic, and said psychic ends up dead. The evidence, including a bloody King of Diamonds playing card (one from Eli's own Ambitious Card routine), directs the police right to Eli. As more psychics are slain, and more King cards rise to the top, Eli can't escape suspicion. Things get really complicated when romance blooms with a beautiful psychic, and Eli discovers she's the next target for murder, and he's scheduled to die with her.

"Il ne l’aurait probablement jamais avoué, mais il avait hâte de prouver sa valeur à la belle Roxy. Il s’entendait déjà lui lancer: Je l’ai trouvé, ton crotté! Certes, il avait claqué de l’argent qu’il devait à d’autres. Passé proche de se faire tabasser. Mais Georges Kirouac, détective privé, était un homme sur qui on pouvait compter."

Paranormal private eye. Grim reaper extraordinaire. Whatever. Charley Davidson is back in Darynda Jones' Third Grave Dead Ahead! And she’s drinking copious amounts of caffeine to stay awake because, every time she closes her eyes, she sees him: Reyes Farrow, the parthuman, part-supermodel son of Satan. Yes, she did imprison him for all eternity, but come on.

Why we think it’s a great listen: When it comes to author/narrator pairings, nobody tops James Lee Burke and Will Patton in the Robicheaux thrillers. Beloved Burke hero Detective Dave Robicheaux here returns to New Iberia to solve a series of grisly murders. Seven young women in neighboring Jefferson Davis Parish have been brutally murdered. While the crimes have all the telltale signs of a serial killer, the death of Bernadette Latiolais, a high-school honor student, doesn’t fit.

The prestigious Lavender bed-and-breakfast in Chiddlinghurst, England, has stylish decor, lovely gardens, and a deadly problem. Norah Travis, a beautiful young woman, has been found murdered in one of their rooms. Detective Inspector Graham, a crusader for justice with a penchant for tea and a dark side of his own, is assigned to the case.

Political speechwriter Becca Matlock is at the top of her professional game, working for the re-election campaign of New York's popular governor, when she receives the first phone call: "Stop sleeping with the governor or I'll kill him."

The Lolita Conspiracy: Brandon Beck hanged himself, or did he? On a cold dark night in February, Harry Starke runs into someone he hasn’t seen in almost twenty-five years. The Last Straw: Cassie Morgan was just seventeen-years-old when she died at the hands of a sadistic killer. Homicide Detective Harry Starke caught the case and he knew right from the beginning that it was going to be a bad one. One Dark Night: One dark night in late summer of 1998, teenagers Hunter Flagg and Samantha Goodkind were murdered, shot to death in Hunter’s pickup.

Three clever murderers challenge Nero Wolfe in cases involving lovers who want to make sure neither is a killer, a stable full of suspects in the search for a killer on horseback, and a murderer stalking Wolfe's brownstone.

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.

When Spenser accepts a job as a "bodyguard" for a beautiful young woman, he gets in way over his head.

London, September 1666. The Great Fire rages through the city, consuming everything in its path. Even the impregnable cathedral of St. Paul's is engulfed in flames and reduced to ruins. Among the crowds watching its destruction is James Marwood, son of a disgraced printer and reluctant government informer. In the aftermath of the fire, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashes of St. Paul's, in a tomb that should have been empty. The man's body has been mutilated, and his thumbs have been tied behind his back.