American Detective Fiction

They called her Lady Stewart when she was married to a British aristocrat. They called her Miss Cora when she ran a brothel in Florida. But she called herself Mrs. Crane when she asked Sherlock Holmes to locate her common-law husband, writer Stephen Crane, who'd gone missing in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. In their attempt to fulfil the lady's request, Holmes and Watson encounter a world of celebrity authors, terrorist bombings, and haunted manor houses.

She's not your average nun. And now Sister Eve Divine's risking it all, searching for a mission person in Vegas. Sister Eve Divine recently discovered she’s got a gift: turns out she’s a natural at private detective work. But is it a temptation or a calling? As Eve wrestles with this...

Sister Eve knows God moves in mysterious ways. And Eve adores a good mystery. Especially a murder. Two decades into her calling at a New Mexico monastery, Sister Evangeline Divine breaks her daily routine when a police officer appears, carrying a message from her father. Sister Eve is no...

Kat Martin is back with another thrilling Maximum Security novella filled with danger, suspense and one smoldering road trip to the mountains of Mexico! When her best friend’s son is kidnapped, private detective Lissa Blayne drops everything to focus on the missing boy. Julie and Lissa have...

I still don’t remember, but I know what happened now. I had a baby, and that changes everything. Kellen Adams has fought battles, saved lives and earned the respect of her colleagues and the love of her friends. But now can she triumph against the greatest challenge of her life—her family?...

Ex-DEA agent Jesse Warden has seen enough of the inside of a solitary confinement cell to last him a lifetime.Or two lifetimes, which is the sentence he's serving after being convicted of a plan he was planning to commit, but never did. So when an old buddy shows up with a deal that could spring...

Spirited American stories gathered together for the first time From the coasts of Brazil to the borders of Tibet to the very heartland of America, May There Be a Road gathers ten previously uncollected stories that capture the magnificent scope and sense of epic adventure that epitomize Louis...

The notes are signed Admirer. At first respectful, they become increasingly bizarre and are accompanied by roses, then other, more macabre offerings. Chris Calloway, a rising young Hollywood actress, finds the letters irritating, then frightening, but when a freak accident takes away her sight...

Sandy Kinsolving's once-glittering life hangs by a threat; his future depends on his wife's inheritance and whether or not she's about to throw him out on his ear. What he wouldn't give for a solution to his money and marriage problems. If this were an Alfred Hitchcock movie, the solution would...

Don’t miss this scorching novella, part of what Publishers Weekly is calling Kat Martin’s “tantalizing” new Maximum Security series! Private detective Jaxon Ryker swore to himself he would keep his hands off Mindy Stewart. No matter how much Jax might secretly wish otherwise, his...

Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41. Or did she? Holmes and Watson, while in America find themselves face to face with Lizzie Borden when two fresh axe murders rock Fall River society. Is Lizzie to blame?

Another story of Roma Eterna. A Roman nobleman is sent in punishment to a remote corner of the Empire–the Arabian city we know as Mecca...

When misadventure led a schoolboy in London to employment at Baker Street, few could have guessed where his introduction to Sherlock Holmes would lead. But as the lad matures and he finds himself caught in the middle of a murder investigation, his friendship with Holmes and Watson lures him into the role of detective. 'Billy' documents his experiences, and soon his sleuthing skills not only bring him to another murder, but also lay the foundation for his metamorphosis into a famous mystery writer.

In 1852, young Walt Whitman—a down-on-his-luck housebuilder in Brooklyn—was hard at work writing two books. One would become one of the most famous volumes of poetry in American history, a free-verse revelation beloved the world over, Leaves of Grass. The other, a novel, would be published...

This collection of early Agatha Christie short stories includes "The Actress", "While the Light Lasts", "Within the Wall", "The House of Dreams", and "The Lonely God".

In 1910, American author and social critic Jack London began writing The Assassination Bureau, Ltd., a work that he never completed. Now, thanks to the recently discovered manuscript of Dr. John Watson, we know why. The early part of London's book describes a secret organization - scoffed at or ignored by police officials - that conspires to murder influential political and social leaders. Not until Sherlock Holmes is provoked into action by threats close to home does anyone appear able to stop the Assassination Bureau.

Charmaine Joliet gets an offer she wants to refuse but can't. Someone from the old neighborhood knows a dark secret, one that could make Charmaine and her younger sister Jessi homicide suspects. But she'll keep quiet a price. The client "hires" Charmaine to help rid her of an unwanted rich husband. Meanwhile, troubled Jessi is in jail again for assault. The police would believe Jessi is capable of murder and that Charmaine is willing to be an accessory to protect her.

During his first trip to England in 1899, murder was the last thing that Hamlin Garland, the so-called "Dean of American Letters," expected to find. More predictable were his descriptions of American baseball and visits with notables like Arthur Conan Doyle and George Bernard Shaw. Yet when Garland tells Sherlock Holmes of a suspicious death that occurred at Hearthstone Hall, the detective replies, "You have described the ingredients of a classic murder mystery-a dead dowager empress and a collection of courtiers any one of whom might be the killer."

Sherlock Holmes examines the body of a murdered scrubwoman that lies on the floor of the South Kensington Museum of Art. But it is not a real corpse he looks at, for those remains have been removed by the coroner. The body Holmes studies appears in a drawing of the murder scene precisely rendered by an American art student. The drawing leads Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the artist-a young Frank Norris before he turns his talents to writing- across the English countryside in search of the killer.

One moment, the lovely young woman was walking through the Battle of Hastings exhibition at the British Museum. The next, she lay dead on the checkered museum floor, a Norman arrow protruding from her breast. Inspector Lestrade believed he had solved the mystery, but almost immediately recognized that Scotland Yard needed the help of Sherlock Holmes.