English Private Detectives

In his first chronicled adventure, the Nameless Detective hires on to handle the ransom payoff in a kidnapping case. Financier Louis Martinetti doesn't trust the police to deal with the man who snatched his 9-year-old son from his military prep school, nor is it clear that he trusts the members of his own household. On the appointed evening, Nameless takes a briefcase that contains $300,000 in cash to a secluded location chosen by the kidnapper. Then all hell breaks loose.

When Nameless is hired by Cory Beckett, a beautiful young woman who claims to be a model, to find her missing brother, Kenneth, it seems to be a routine matter. Kenneth has fled San Francisco in a drug-induced panic to avoid trial on a charge of stealing a valuable necklace from the alcoholic wife of the man for whom he works, wealthy yachtsman Andrew Vorhees.

A young girl is senselessly murdered. The police believe the murder to be a random homeless casualty until it is discovered she has ties to Fat Sam and his mysterious past life in the Big Easy.

Garwood would soon be captivated by this homeless man living on the streets of Montreal. What power did he have and why did Adam take him on with no retainer or promise of future payment? Much against the advice of his partner and friends, he delves into and uncovers the corruption, cover ups, and payoffs involving top executives working for one of Canada's largest pharmaceutical companies. As the story unfolds, Adam is disillusioned with Gritty when his true identity is revealed. Murder, exploitation, and the stealthy night life of the rich and famous come to play as Adam watches them navigate Montreal's secret passageways searching for lust and medicating themselves in order to deal with the light of day.

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.

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.

Fernando, an eight-year-old boy detective, and his parrot Ziz travel to different countries to solve mysteries. Now they are traveling to Singapore to find a missing blue-eyed baby cockatoo. Follow along and enjoy hearing about their adventure as they visit exotic places searching for clues!

Fernando, an eight-year-old boy detective, and his parrot, Ziz, travel to different countries to solve mysteries. Now they are in Cambodia and are helping a jewelry-store owner to find a precious diamond ring that has been in her family for generations....

The friendly man shocks the bar by paying for everybody's drinks with a silver quarter. His ruthless killing in the street outside surprises nobody. When private detective Crain Dalton seeks out the beautiful widow, he uncovers a plot to buy local elections with the only kind of money worth anything anymore - silver and gold, once again illegal to own. Down the mean streets of the near-future, a man must go...

A debutante's missing body, murder most foul, and weird spectrallights in the fog make for a thrilling gas light-era tale of mystery and detection. In 1895 San Francisco young debutantes don't commit suicide at festive parties, particularly not under the eye of Sabina Carpenter. But Virginia St. Ives evidently did, leaping from a foggy parapet in a shimmer of ghostly light.

Carlos has spent 13 years living in Australia, eight of them as a serving officer with the New South Wales Police. But when he kills a man in the line of duty, Carlos’ life begins to unravel. His wife is subsequently murdered in mysterious circumstances, and Carlos is dismissed from the force. A devastated Carlos returns home to his Christchurch whānau and takes up a job as a private detective.

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.

Race Williams - the classic hard-boiled detective from the pages of Black Mask Magazine - takes on the biggest blackmailing scheme of his career. Plus a bonus Daly hard-boiled classic: Paying an Old Debt. Story number two in the Race Williams series. Carroll John Daly (1889-1958) was the creator of the first hard-boiled private eye story, predating Dashiell Hammett's first Continental Op story by several months.

The time of The Circles of Odin is early September, 1929, after Skeen's case of the Daedàlus Society in July and before he discovers in November a Nazi Bund in Palo Alto, south of San Francisco, Skeen's main venue of his adventures.

After having some breathing room from his last case, which brought him up against Islamic operatives in San Francisco in The Black Stone, Cyrus Skeen and his wife take a short vacation on a luxury bus, the Pickwick Stage. But the bus is held up by gangsters. Skeen goes into action and foils the hijacking. But his heroism engenders even more problems and perils.

It is February, 1929. Cyrus Skeen is hired by an Austrian aristocrat whom Skeen calls a "One-Worlder Gadabout", Count Paul Axel Heinrich Joachim von Wormuth-Esterházy, of Vienna, to find out who is trying to kill him. He gives Skeen a list he has compiled of 20 attempts to murder him, including flowerpots are dropped from above, a bottle of poisoned schnapps is given to him in a "welcome basket", and nearly being run over by a speeding automobile.

Ten-year-old Ethan Clarke's disappearance gripped the nation. Just as his parents are starting to piece together a life 'after Ethan', their world is ripped apart once more when their daughter, Robin, disappears in almost identical circumstances. They've lost two children within a decade...and now doubts about their innocence are setting in.

Rushmore McKenzie, a retired St. Paul policeman and unexpected millionaire, often works as an unlicensed PI, doing favors as it suits him. When two graduate students show up with a story about $8 million in missing stolen gold from the ’30s, McKenzie is intrigued. In the early 20th century, St. Paul, Minnesota, was an open city - a place where gangsters could stay unmolested by the local authorities. Frank “Jelly” Nash was suspected of masterminding a daring robbery of gold bars in 1933, but, before he could unload it, he was killed in the Kansas City Massacre.

St Pauls, Bristol, 1980. Joseph Tremaine Ellington, now 57 years old, has long abandoned his former career as an enquiry agent for the safety of teaching. But his old life draws him back. One of the very few lights from Ellington’s dark and violent past has flickered out. His fiancée, Ruth Castle, is dead - leaving him again heartbroken and alone to bring up his 15-year-old niece, Chloe. Ellington’s days are long and lonely, his nights tormented by old ghosts.