English Private Detectives

Ex-NYPD detective Damien Drake thought that nothing could draw him out of retirement and away from the Virgin Gorda. He was wrong. His friends back in New York need him, and Drake can only ignore their requests for so long...even if returning to his home means prison time for himself. Meanwhile, SLH Investigations is struggling to pay the bills and to keep from going bankrupt. Which is why, when a man appears on their doorstep with a gun in hand, Screech knows he should turn him away.

When a body is found - dissolved in acid, a ring of finger bones cemented to the skull - Drake is floored. For more than a year, he's been telling the NYPD that the man he had killed, the man who had taken his partner's life, wasn't the real Skeleton King. Nobody believed him. Even now, with a new skeleton as proof, Drake is met with resistance. A copycat killer, they say. But Drake knows this is the work of the original Skeleton King, and he is driven to seek revenge for his dead partner. Only, like before, he has no suspects.

Tres has taken a short term teaching job at the University of Texas at Austin. He is living with his brother Garrett, a computer wizard, and enjoying this easy assignment. But when Garrett’s business partner is murdered, Tres must switch from professor to detective. Rick Riordan, teacher, Texan, and multiple award-winner, creates a masterful mixture of local color and mystery in each Tres Navarre mystery.

When a homeless man’s body is found in a derelict school, Victor Mitchum knows it wasn’t an accident. He knew Sawney from his own days on the streets. Sawney was clean, scared, and being hunted by dangerous people. Working with private investigators Kasper and Zofia Dąbrowski, Victor traces the events that led to Sawney’s death. His search leads him into Manchester’s hidden places—disused buildings, private security firms, and communities forced to live in the margins.

There's no place like home for the holidays - or for having you darkest secrets revealed! Can Rafael Jones manage to find the missing girl, build on his romance with agent Clara Thomas, and still keep his parents thinking he's living a normal life instead of being living dead? And will working for the forces of Heaven strengthen Rafael's faith or shake it? Wizards, witches, angels, and pixie dust bring their own surprises for Rafael's Christmas.

Life isn’t easy, but it’s easier than adjusting to being dead. Rafael Jones is still learning about his new diet, powers, and limitations when he’s asked to certify that a house isn’t haunted. But when it turns out to have the ghost of a murdered flapper, his new mission is to locate the missing gangster who killed her, the magic mirror that helped the killer disappear, protect his client, and stop a new string of murders. Magic and mystery collide in the summer of 1947, and our detective is digging up answers to questions going back as far as the end of WWI.

When single mom and recent widow Cameron Chandler takes a much-needed job at Penny-wise Investigations, a detective agency conveniently located in a suburban shopping mall, she grabs the chance to reinvent herself. Her first case is to locate a runaway girl, something her predecessor had been pursuing before he disappeared. Following in his footsteps, the trail leads to a survivalist camp on a remote island in northern Puget Sound. Armed with only a Swiss Army Knife and her quirky on-the-job training as a suburban sleuth, Cameron uncovers more than she bargained for.

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.

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.

Two nights ago a young woman brought her husband into the emergency room of the Sriphat Hospital in Thailand, where he passed away. A guard thinks she remembers her coming in before but with a different husband - one who also died. Ladarat Patalung, for one, would have been happier without a serial murderer - if there is one - loose in her hospital. Then again, she never expected to be a detective in the first place.

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.

Arnold Landon finds himself drawn into another bitter dispute over land—in which a defenseless old woman pays the ultimate price. To the casual observer, Penbrook Farm might seem like a ramshackle hovel, buried deep in the woods of Northumberland. But to fragile old Sarah Ellis, it’s home. And the developers can have the place over her dead body. Of course, no one ever expected it to come to that.

Who said retirement was easy? After 25 years of dedicated service, one ill-fated meeting over an unsolved missing person’s case sees London police officer Jack Griffin forced into resignation, effective immediately. Now, with more free time than he had planned, Jack takes on the role of lead investigator as a newly-assigned Met Police Cold Case Team puts him in their crosshairs. The case? Patricia Lucas disappeared from Notting Hill five years ago and Griffin was the first officer on scene.

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?

Al Harris is not, and was not ever, an art connoisseur. But when a desperate young Jewish woman comes to him, convinced that her family’s stolen art is hidden somewhere in Woodlawn, Al is persuaded to take the case, as unlikely as it is that priceless European art has ended up in this small town.

Sebastian Westfield, the grandson of Connor Westfield, is living life in style with the hefty allowance given to him monthly by his grandfather. The problem is, one night started like all the rest, with his arrival at Sid’s Cabaret in Portland, the home of famed theater star Valentina Clemente. When the evening first started, he could remember everything. However, the next instant, his mind goes blank. He can’t remember what happened the rest of the night.

There was only one case out of hundreds of cold cases that Vincent James Gideon never wholly solved, Rosenthall. If that should happen in Volume 2 of the Case of the Ace of Spades, his son could walk down that lonely hallway to the electric chair. Watching her take a sip, it took the assassin every urge not to swat the glass away, but he knew it was the only way to save his life. He stared at the beautiful woman and wondered how long it would take to go into effect.

In the stack of envelopes on top of Gideon's desk, one was curiously unlabeled, the same as any random piece of junk. He slid it open nonetheless. All the envelope contained was a simple leaf...dark green with serrated edges, finely divided and lacy. It was almost triangular, broad at the base with the tip tapering to an almost point. No sooner did he lay the envelope down on his desk, his phone rang. It was the Chief of Police requesting his service on another case.

Black Rock Cove, on the coastline of Oregon, has a unique and sinister charm. It is a quaint fishing village and charming resort for summertime visitors by day, but by night...well, that’s a different story. The murder of Oliver Bateman was purely the strangest of all crimes. A gunshot was heard as he fell dead in the courtyard, but bullet holes were missing from his body. Three deep knife wounds, however, covered his chest. Even stranger, Elizabeth Knight, daughter of famed Nobel Prize winner William Knight, was discovered in her locked bedroom on the brink of death.