Historical Private Investigators

A body plunging off a cliff, a new craze for pedestrianism or race-walking with gambling, a constable willing to make a gruelling 90 miles through the tree-covered ranges without a break, and a testing undercover assignment for Mr. Hardy.

The first three mysteries in the acclaimed Dewey Webb series: Web of Deceit, Murder in Fashion, and Secrets and Lies. It's 1949. World War II is over, but it has a way of haunting people for years to come. Meet Dewey Webb, a hard-boiled 1940s detective, a man of contradictions who gets down and dirty to get the job done.

Hollywood, 1947. Jack Shannon, a former actor whose promising career was interrupted by the war and ended by a facial scar sustained in combat, is now a studio publicist. He jokes that the only thing he knows about publicity is how to suppress it, but that, in fact, is his real job. He’s a fixer who babysits the studio’s stars and covers up their bad behavior. Everything changes for Jack when Savannah Stevens enters his life.

He can out shoot, out think, out fight, and out love any other secret agent on the planet - get out of the way James Bond before your tux gets rumpled! McHugh lands a Caribbean island assignment: Stir up a revolution, topple the world's most brutal dictator, smash the secret police whose methods start with torture and get a lot worse from there, help the revolutionaries, and stop the revolution before it goes too far in the other direction. It's just another days' work for McHugh.

McHugh, the world's toughest spy, is on an assignment that spells triple trouble! Trouble #1 begins at the bar he owns to cover his espionage activities, called The Door. And it’s the door to death for the stranger he finds dying just outside with a shiv in his guts. McHugh doesn't like corpses on his doorstep, so he starts to back-track on the stranger, which leads him to a round, ripe, terrified girl, wearing narrow chino pants. There is puzzlement in her eyes, then recognition, then panic. Then the whole house falls in on McHugh!

The 1960s' toughest, brainiest, sexiest, and most compassionate spy, is back in print! Meet McHugh America's#1 Secret Agent a combination of Mickey Spillaine's Mike Hammer and Ian Flemming's James Bond. In this first book in the series, McHugh takes a leave of absence from his spy work to help out his lover's sister who has found a dead Mafioso in her apartment, her boyfriend missing, and half San Francisco's mobsters after her.

In February 1942, Californians may be living in fear of a Japanese attack, but the show must go on. The circus is in town - unfortunately so is a killer saboteur who's targeting the star attractions. Private detective Toby Peters is no stranger to going undercover, but this is the first time his disguise will include a red nose.

Millionaire Howard Hughes likes his secrets. He likes to keep them - and he definitely doesn't like having them stolen. Hollywood PI Toby Peters has a rep for being discreet. So when the film tycoon and aviation magnate needs a detective to very privately investigate the theft of top-secret blueprints taken from his home during one of his fabulous parties, he summons Peters. But what starts as counter-espionage intrigue turns into a triple murder, and Peters soon finds himself bait for a killer.

In Total Recall, Sara Paretsky brings together several disparate plots in one gripping story. This powerfully suspenseful novel confronts the machinations of a vast and corrupt industry that trades on the victims of Nazi terrorism; the strange and dubious phenomenon of "recovered memory;" and a personal story that brings V. I. Warshawski into the long-buried past of her dearest friend and mentor, Dr. Lotty Herschel.

Following a prolonged cocaine binge, Sherlock Holmes is closer to death than Dr. Watson has ever seen him before. Fearing for his friend's well-being, the pair repair to France, there to enjoy a leisurely convalescence at the home of Holmes' old friend, Henri Gillet. But even before they reach Paris, they become embroiled in a perilous mystery of the like even they have never encountered before.

Thursday, July 16, 1953. It's just another Thursday morning in July of 1953 when the doorbell rings at 137, Hartford Street, and it's bad news. Carter's father has been murdered in Georgia, and the local sheriff has no intention of finding out who really did it. So, Nick and Carter borrow the first plane that Marnie, Nick's amazing secretary, can find for them, and they zoom off back into the past to see if they can uncover the truth of what really happened before the wrong man is convicted.

Eddy Hart finds himself investigating a murder that gives him an unwanted glimpse into the not-so-glamorous side of the movie industry in 1940s Hollywood.

Days before the Pearl Harbor attack plunges the US into World War II, private eye Maggie Sullivan is hired to find a missing engineer in Dayton, Ohio. Has Gil Tremain been kidnapped, or has he turned traitor to his employer and, maybe, his country? As Maggie pieces together his last movements, she finds there are secrets the man’s ex-wife and his employers don’t want uncovered.

The gifting of Faberge eggs to wives and mothers began when the emperor of Russia gave gold Faberge eggs, crusted with jewels, to his empress and mother each year on Easter. Many were lost or destroyed during the Bolshevik Revolution, but others survived into modern-day and are valued in the tens of millions. One of the Faberges believed to be lost to history is recovered. Matt Kile finds himself surrounded by devious international criminals while trying to protect the safety of both the fabulous Faberge and its (apparent) rightful owner.

When a man offers 1940s private investigator Maggie Sullivan twice her usual fee to look into a "possible" jewelry theft from his hotel safe, she’s skeptical - until a maid’s body tumbles out of a trash can and a jeweler known for high quality fakes is murdered. Does a hotel guest who vanished without a trace hold a piece of the puzzle? Or, does it have to do with the Polish count and his family fleeing the start of WW2 in Europe?

For many years, Max Porter and his team have been caught between Mother Hope and Grandma Mobley, two witches that hated each other for over a century. Both witches hold power and both are dangerous. But now, their hatred has finally boiled over, and that power is about to be unleashed. Now, Max finds himself the rope in a tug-o-war that threatens to destroy his budding family, if not all of North Carolina. He will have to risk everything he knows and loves, push himself further than ever before. Because Max Porter will be in the fight of his life. And his death.

Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services is a fixture in San Francisco at the dawn of a new century. While the future is unclear, Sabina and John know one thing for certain: they will protect their clients from flimflammers, thieves, and murderers, and do whatever it takes to run these dregs of society into the arms of the law. Sometimes, that requires a subtle touch. Professor A. Vargas, self-styled medium extraordinaire, and his partner Annabelle, use guile and trickery to swindle bereaved men and women eager to contact the spirits of deceased loved ones.

Privatdetektiv William Arrowood ist ein Mann vieler Talente - und einiger Laster. Die Tagelöhner und Straßenmädchen im armen South London können sich keinen besseren Detektiv leisten und kommen daher mit allen Anliegen zu ihm. Voller Verachtung und Neid blickt er über die Themse auf seinen bekannten Kollegen Sherlock Holmes und dessen betuchte Klientel. Auch Arrowoods neuester Fall scheint nicht geeignet zu sein, ihn berühmt zu machen: Eine junge Französin bittet darum, ihren verschwundenen Bruder aufzuspüren. Doch hinter dem simplen Auftrag verbergen sich weit mehr Geheimnisse und Leichen, als Arrowood für möglich hielt.

A mansion, a title, and marriage to a wealthy Lord, Lady Eveline Cartwright has it all. Unfortunately, it's not enough to prevent her from being bludgeoned to death one night in the study of Merisham Lodge, the family's country estate in Derbyshire. Suspicion quickly falls on her ne'er-do-well son, Peter, but not everyone in the household is convinced of his guilt. Head kitchen maid Joan Hart and lady's maid Verity Hunter know that when it comes to a crime, all is not always as it seems.

A con man always has a bag of tricks, ready to fool the unsuspecting, and almost everyone is unsuspecting until they get taken. When that happens, they turn to Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, to recover their money and what’s left of their dignity, and perhaps even to save their lives.