Short Mystery Collection

Matt also has some big news for Elliott and Gloria. Meanwhile Gloria joins Elliott on her last case before she retires to make room for Matt. They're checking the background of a potential investor when that client turns up dead - hanging in his own living room. Suicide? Elliott doesn't think so.

Elliott and Matt are hire by the police to handle the leg work for them on a kidnap case that has brought in the FBI. The two private eyes have to check area body shops, machine shops, fabrication shops and any other place capable of manufacturing a fake U.S. Mail box, used in the ransom drop.

The Doll Maker is taking women off the street and turning them into dolls before killing them. Will he be caught?

Elliott and his son Matt are hired to babysit an important witness and make sure he makes it to court to testify Monday morning. Elliott takes him to a rented cabin in the mountains and quickly realizes that someone else knows he's there...and they're after the witness.

Times are tough as Elliott and Gloria discuss the possibility of taking in a boarder to help make ends meet. Meanwhile Elliott and matt are hot on the case of the missing brother, having been hired by his older sister to find him. Also running through the story is a side bet between Elliott and Matt as to who can drum up the first client of the day. The loser of this contest is surely going to be embarrassed.

Elliott finds a briefcase on the elevator and upon opening it in his office, finds $50,000.00, a .45 automatic and a list of five names. Could this case belong to a hit man? You'd be surprised.

L.A.P.D. Lt. Eric Anderson recommends Elliott to his friend, arson investigator Ron Harper. Ron needs help tracking down to arson suspects. Elliott is busy spending time with his now 15-year-old son, Matt and decides to take him along on his case, rather than leave him home alone. Matt gets a first-hand look at his dad's job from the inside, but was this a mistake? Matt could get hurt here.

In the latest conversation with his father, Elliott Cooper learns that retirement does not agree with dear ol' Dad. Elliott's father, Clay Cooper, once head of Cooper investigations, is bored out of his mind. Also bored with retirement is former L.A.P.D. Lieutenant Dean Hollister. So, Dean and Clay decide to start their own P.I. business, specifically for people their own age. As these two soon find out, retirement had it's up side and maybe, just maybe, they would have been better off leaving well enough alone...

The Coopers have their hands full with their latest case. In order to save bus driver Harry Fleming's life, Clay, Elliott and Gloria Cooper have to kill him. And they have to be convincing if they want to keep the twenty-five thousand dollar fee from their unscrupulous client.

Elliott is hired by the FBI to patrol the street on his block during a parade for a visiting congressman. Elliott gets more than he bargained for when someone takes a shot at the congressman from a third story window. But all is not as it seems in this game of cat and mouse.

Elliott has a chance to ride along with a K-9 unit of his police department. The dog, Daisy, proves invaluable and Elliott can see why the officers get so attached to their animal partners. Daisy is facing retirement at twelve-years-old and his cop handler can't take him home, since his family is allergic to dogs. Elliott agrees to take Daisy home for his son, Matt. However, Matt's terrified of the German Shepherd so Elliott takes Daisy to his office and finds that the dog proves very helpful in his line of work and decides to keep her at the office.

Neighbors are shocked when Harold Pardee reports his wife dead. No one even knew the eccentric TV repairman was married. Within hours, horrible rumors spread about what that poor woman must have endured for 30 years. Until the Pardees' carefully guarded world is exposed. New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh delivers an endearing short story about our misguided perception of strangers, the nature of love, and the need for secrets.

Matt's in line at the bank, trying to cash the check from his latest client. He's carrying his .38 in the holster under his arm, when suddenly, the man in line ahead of him turns around and yells to the customers that this is a holdup and that everyone should hit the floor. A fast-thinking clerk hits the silent alarm, trapping the robber in the bank. Now, in order to get out, he's gonna have to take a hostage, but who will it be?

This story takes place in 1944, two years before Matt leaves the L.A.P.D. to start his own investigations business. He and Sergeant Dan Hollister are on patrol when they get a call about a dead woman hanging by her heels from a fire escape. The murderer was easy to catch - he was asleep in that same building. Finding the murder weapon, however, proves to be a little more of a challenge for Matt and Dan.

Gerald is his Mother's precious one, but his father doesn't share her opinion and neither do his school friends. He is both pampered and bullied until he discovers a unique telepathic skill. Aged seven, he wonders, what if everyone were a house, and what type of house would they be? These two moments eventually come together in adulthood, with frightening consequences....

Elliott is hired by a member of the local country club to find out who has been stealing things from his locker. Sounds tame enough, but after Elliott sets up his surveillance cameras to catch the thief in the act, he catches something else on video instead - murder. Who bashed that fellow's head in with a Ping driver?

Twenty years earlier, Clay and his father, Matt Cooper, purchased a fully restored 1940 Oldsmobile sedan, just like the one Matt drove when he ran Cooper Investigations all those years ago. With Matt gone all these years, Clay decides to sell the vintage automobile on one of those online auction sites. Something goes terribly wrong and Clay can't stop it, not that he hasn't tried. Someone's going to get killed, and all over an old car.

Elliott is hired to find a witness to a fatal auto accident that happened right outside his office building. Matt is hired to get the goods on a nasty neighbor who seems to be vandalizing his own property in an effort to frame his neighbor. But why?

Gloria and Elliott are on their way to Las Vegas to get married, but will they make it? A lot of things can happen between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. To make matters more hectic, they've just taken on two new cases. How to fit it all in?