English Private Detectives

Twenty-three years ago, Christina Tolmie vanished without trace from northern France, leaving her young daughters Kate and Flora orphaned and alone. Now Flora is also missing. In desperation, Kate searches her Edinburgh house and finds a piece of note paper with just one name: Cal McGill.

Hot on the success of her first case, British female sleuth Daisy Dunlop can count the offers of work on one finger. An empty bank account and the need to prove to her business partner, private investigator Solomon Liffey, that she is an asset, not a liability, calls for drastic measures. Terror has to be overcome as she answers a plea to find the one thing that gives her night sweats and flashbacks. An animal. A missing stud poodle, to be exact.

Waking up beside the gorgeous Savannah Jones, John is shocked to learn she was for hire, and he can't pay the price - 1000 pounds or broken legs. In desperation, he turns to best friend, Mark, for the money. Only one problem - Mark has a dagger in his back.

David Virden's case is simple enough: Namless must find his ex-wife and deliver some papers to her. But she refuses the papers, sends a message to Virden to never contact her again, and slams the door. His colleague, Tamara, tells Nameless that Virden threatens to sue, stops payment on his checks, and claims that the woman they located isn't his wife. Then he disappears and his fiancée hires Nameless to find out why. Clearly, someone is trying to make Nameless the monkey in the middle. Then things take a decidedly more deadly turn....

Two novellas and two short stories featuring Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Bill Pronzini's iconic Nameless Detective. Zigzag is an original novella in which a safe and simple accident investigation becomes the unraveling of a twisted murder scheme.

When a disgraced former pop star plummets to her death from her Osaka apartment, all signs paint a picture of a troubled young woman who took her own life. But once her parents hire Kyoko Nakamura to learn the truth, the private detective discovers not everything is as it seems. Kyoko's investigation will lead her into a world of drugs and prostitution, face to face with dangerous criminals, and through the seedy underbelly of Japan's music industry.

The Nameless Detective has taken many cases over the years...and these two will test his agency's resources. The first involves a woman whose husband is accidentally killed in a remote cabin in the Sierras. The wife isn't buying that he was alone, and she's determined to uncover his secret and get closure...in spite of any potential heartbreak. Nameless' next case is a missing person - a person who was agoraphobic and never left the house.

Cody Hatcher is the kind of teenager you don't want your kids hanging out with. That's the book on him, and it's why the citizens of Mineral Springs have no problem at all believing that he's guilty of three rapes. His mother, Cheryl, an old lover of Nameless, is being harassed by vindictive townspeople. It's against such odds that Nameless must work to prove Cody innocent. There are few to help him and plenty to get in his way. It's a classic situation for an iconic private investigator.

A young widow, orphan and mother, Wilhelmina Anne Brown is just beginning to find some stability in her new home in Prince Edward Island when she is forced to deal with the death of her beloved uncle Bill Darby. Darby, a Charlottetown private investigator, leaves Anne and her 14-year-old daughter a small savings account and his business, where Anne has worked as office manager for six years. What follows is Anne's struggle to protect her family, find justice for her clients and forge a new life for herself in this pause-resisting thriller.

Tangled Roots is the first book in a series, featuring the Gent as the enigmatic sleuth from ENODO (Latin for analyse) agency. The Gent is the main character and the narrator. Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. Following news of the death of his aunt, Brad Johnson, an American, travels to Manchester, England, researching his ancestral roots. Whilst visiting an art gallery he suffers a heart attack. Forensic tests are not conclusive with natural causes. Brad receives death threats.

Who is the criminal known only as "The Beast?" Too baffling for the police to solve, it becomes a manhunt in which detective Race Williams must track down "the most feared, the cunningest and cruelest creature that stalks the city streets at night." But it will soon become Race's most dangerous case as he tries to stay alive. One of the longest and best of the dozens of Race Williams adventures.

For five generations, the Belvedere family restaurant has been a Louisiana landmark. Unfortunately, the Belvedere clan inherits more than a talent for cooking from each other - they also have an unfortunate tendency of becoming insane. When the latest Belvedere patriarch loses his mind, his son attempts to take over the business, only to find that the ancient family cookbook has vanished - and with it, the priceless recipe for the world famous Oysters Belvedere. The Crescent City will never be the same.

When a local fisherman hires Weston Wolf to find out what happened to his talented daughter, the savvy detective and his partner Angie Stallone discover a series of clues that lead to salacious crimes and celebrity scandal. Along the way, Wolf meets Freyja Beck, a unique and beautiful woman who was once an aspiring singer and actress. Her connection to the movie industry could be the key to unraveling the mystery of the missing girl and acquiring the evidence to nail one of Hollywood’s most celebrated producers.

At Sir Gerald's medieval festival, the castle is authentic, the jousting is rousing, and the wenches are the sauciest in the land. The only thing missing is decent food. And so Sir Gerald calls in London's gourmet detective, an expert food finder, whose specialties include locating rare ingredients, designing historically accurate menus, and solving the occasional murder. And all three skills will be tested if he is to escape the age of chivalry alive. After the day's first joust, the winning knight falls to the ground, poisoned.

The gourmet detective realizes that the Alpine Springs health resort is not a typical spa somewhere in the middle of his first cocktail. For this epicure, it is paradise - and it may also be his doom. He has come from London to speak about fine dining, but while here, he fully intends on enjoying himself. One night, he arranges a tryst with a fellow expert. When he comes to, Kathleen has vanished, and the detective begins to suspect that life in the Alps is not as healthful as it appears.

London's gourmet detective is contemplating an empty bank account and, worse, an empty stomach, when a phone call solves both problems at once. Over lunch, Desmond Lansdown, world-renowned actor and burgeoning restaurateur, hires the detective for a chef-hunt, sending him to Italy to eat until he can decide which cook Lansdown should hire. It's a demanding gig, but this detective is never one to shy away from hard work. However, it doesn't take long for this plush assignment to turn prickly.

The vineyards of the Willesford Wine Group occupy a particularly choice section of French wine country. From the grapes of Provence, the owners of this impeccably managed syndicate have squeezed international fame and fortune. Next to their spectacular estate lies the petite Peregrine Winery, whose shadowy owners suddenly make repeated requests to buy Willesford's property - raising their offer each time. Unable to discern Peregrine's motive for these attempts, the Willesford group sends for London's gourmet detective, a sleuth with impeccable reasoning and an even finer palate.

Al Harris’s actions haven’t gone unnoticed, and not all that attention is good. After being questioned by a couple of mysterious men, Harris comes back to find his office in ruins and Judy attacked - and all his case files stolen. What is it about those cases that is so important? The resulting investigation will take Harris back to the city of Chicago. The famous days of Al Capone and the Untouchables might be over, but the mafia still rules Chicago in its own way, and Harris is about to find out for himself just how alive and kicking they still are.

Striking a balance between the pros and cons of his job isn’t going to be easy, especially now that his reputation is growing. Harris has helped to solve a few more high-profile cases, and some people aren’t too happy about that. He thought that it would help get him more clients, and he’s getting noticed all right - by the wrong kind of people.

When Harris starts to investigate the disappearance of a young boy 20 years ago, he thinks that it’s going to be a sad but open-and-shut case. But then, he starts to discover signs that this wasn’t an isolated incident, that multiple boys were taken over the years, and that there might still be danger in the present day. His new independence gives Harris purpose and motivation, but without the police department behind him, and perhaps even against him, will he be able to close this case and prevent the past from becoming the present once again?