Private Cities

Stellen Sie sich vor, ein privates Unternehmen bietet Ihnen als „Staatsdienstleister“ Schutz von Leben, Freiheit und Eigentum in einem abgegrenzten Gebiet. Titus Gebel skizziert dieses Szenario in seinem Buch „Freie Privatstädte. Mehr Wettbewerb im wichtigsten Markt der Welt“ bis ins kleinste Detail.

Over the past 10 years, urban planners, technology companies, and governments have promoted smart cities with a somewhat utopian vision of urban life made knowable and manageable through data collection and analysis. Emerging smart cities have become both crucibles and showrooms for the practical application of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and the integration of big data into everyday life. Are smart cities optimized, sustainable, digitally networked solutions to urban problems? Or are they neoliberal, corporate-controlled, undemocratic non-places?

Private Investigator Jim Bean has worked hard to create his new identity in Vegas. He doesn't have a great life, but it's his. When his ex-fiancée, Erica Floyd, walks into one of his investigations looking for her missing sister, the tragic past he wanted to leave behind comes flooding back. Despite serious reservations, Jim agrees to search for Erica's sister. Clues lead him to a human-trafficking ring and one of Vegas' most influential mobsters.

It's strictly Friends & Family as V.I. Warshawski, "the detective mystery fans have been waiting for" ( Time), makes return appearances in a collection of stories that bring new meaning to "ties that bind." Decked out in her silk shirts and no-nonsense Attitude, V.I. is out to make a living - by the skin of her teeth.

Stella DeSoto has had it with Vegas and her life. She's experienced the worst of people, and now a sailboat in the Florida Keys is calling Stella's name. All she needs is the cash to buy it. And she's got an idea. It’s reckless, risky, and downright illegal. But big risks can mean big rewards…if you don’t get caught.

Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no grades, and every day begins with 20 minutes of contemplative silence in the Meetinghouse. It is during one of those meetings that an airplane hits the Twin Towers. For two Idlewild outcasts, 9/11 serves as the first day of an intense 18-month friendship. Fay is prickly, aloof, and obsessed with gay men; Nell is shy, sensitive, and obsessed with Fay. The two of them bond and spend all their waking hours giddily parsing their environment for homoerotic subtext.

After a crippling wave of crime and decades of economic deterioration, a large-scale movement to revitalize the city is underway. For the first time in a long time, there’s cause for optimism. That is, until Malick’s latest investigation finds him tugging the threads on a criminal conspiracy that touches all rungs of Cain City society.

Despite her innate ambition and summa cum laude smarts, Kate Pearson has turned into a major slacker. After being dumped by her handsome French "almost fiancé", she abandons her grad school plans and spends her days lolling on the couch, leaving her apartment only when a dog-walking gig demands it. Her friends don't know what to do other than pass tissues and hope for a comeback while her practical sister, Angela, pushes every remedy she can think of, from trapeze class to therapy to job interviews.

Freiheit und Demokratie, so der Investor Peter Thiel 2009, seien nicht länger kompatibel. Wer die Freiheit liebe, müsse daher versuchen, der Politik in all ihren Formen zu entkommen. Zuflucht suchen könnten Libertäre im Cyberspace, im Weltraum und auf dem offenen Meer. Das mag verblasen klingen, steht aber in einer jahrzehntealten Tradition marktradikaler Ideen: Denker wie Milton Friedman begeisterten sich für das noch unter britischer Oberhoheit stehende Hongkong; Margaret Thatcher träumte von einem Singapur an der Themse.

What do Jeffrey Dahmer's murderous glove, a brick from Lizzy Borden's fireplace, a girl missing for over a decade, and an old mob boss have in common? That’s what PI Jim Bean must find out to solve his next case. When Irving Silverland hires him to find some missing murderabilia objects from his museum, Jim Bean struggles to find a motive behind the strange theft. But when one of the exhibit’s employees is bludgeoned to death with the stolen brick that came from Lizzie Borden’s fireplace, the bigger picture behind the crimes begins to take shape.

Duke Dempsey is a private investigator in 1938 Charleston, SC. He is thrust into the case of a lifetime when the Vatican comes calling and hires him to find an invaluable relic. Charleston is also hit with the mysterious murders of a prominent priest of St. Patrick's Cathedral and a local cop. Duke is forced into a partnership with the presiding detective, Johnny Stampkin, to find the relic and solve the murders. The case takes a multitude of twists and turns as they navigate through Roman Catholic puzzles, Civil War secrets, and a Nazi assassin.

Working security for a wealthy Indian businessman sounds like easy money to PI Jim Bean. He’s charged with watching the man’s teenage daughter, the stubborn and spirited Zevah Ralen. His task is simple: keep the girl out of trouble during her father’s business trip to Las Vegas. But trouble strikes as soon as the assignment starts, when a group of kidnappers ambush Zevah outside the mall. Jim barely has time to handcuff himself to her before they’re both knocked out and transported to the kidnappers’ remote cottage hideout.

Wide-eyed Kate Sullivan is thrilled when she scores a job as the assistant to the fabulous yet slightly unhinged Brazilian art dealer Rafaela de Souza. Struggling in her new position, fish-out-of-water Kate is on the verge of being fired when she catches the eye of both "it artist" Kodi Best and charming dealer Cole Beaumont. Suddenly her career takes off, and she’s swept into the murkier depths of the art market, where she must question how far she’s willing to go to make the illustrious career she imagined a reality.

As the Great Blizzard of 1888 cripples the vast machinery that is New York City, heiress Prudence MacKenzie sits anxiously within her palatial Fifth Avenue home waiting for her fiance's safe return. But the fearsome storm rages through the night. With daylight, more than 200 people are found to have perished in the icy winds and treacherous snowdrifts. Among them is Prudence's fiancé - his body frozen, his head crushed by a heavy branch, his fingers clutching a single playing card, the ace of spades.

Chicago, 1928. In the stifling summer heat, three disturbing events take place: a clique of city leaders is poisoned, a white gangster is found mutilated and a famous heiress vanishes without a trace. Detectives Michael Talbot and Ida Davis are hired to find the missing heiress, but it proves harder than expected, and so Ida must elicit the help of her friend Louis Armstrong. But will any of them find the answers they need in the capital of jazz, booze and corruption?

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.

Several years ago, Rushmore McKenzie became an unexpected millionaire and set about doing not much of anything. Now, showing up at his doorstep is the insurance company that paid the settlement that made him rich - and they want a favor. Someone has stolen a very expensive gem from a local art museum and is willing to ransom it back. The only condition is that McKenzie has to be the go between. And this is no ordinary gem - it is a jade sculpture with a history going back to the Qing Dynasty and a reputed curse that stories claim has ruined or killed everyone who has ever owned it.

Louise Wykoff is arguably the most recognizable woman living in Minnesota, known for her presence in over 100 paintings by the late and brilliant Randolph McInnis. Louise, known better as “That Wykoff Woman”, was just a young apprentice when her intimate representation and the fact of the McInnis’ marriage caused rumors to fly - and Louise to hide away for decades. All of McInnis’ paintings are in museums or known private collections, until Louise confesses to having three more that no one has ever heard of - and now they’ve been stolen.

During one of the first heavy snows of the winter, on the interstate outside the Twin Cities, Rushmore McKenzie is behind a truck behaving erratically when the man in the truck bed dumps a body out onto the road, right in front of McKenzie’s car. McKenzie avoids hitting the body, a bound woman who is just barely alive, but his stopped car in the middle of the road starts a chain of accidents, resulting in a 37-car pile-up. By the time the police arrive, and the EMTs and ambulances have taken care of the immediate injuries, the truck is long gone.

A child of Hell’s Kitchen and the bastard son of a beloved former police commissioner, Fritz Malone is all too familiar with New York City’s rougher side. So when a gunman opens fire at the crowded Thanksgiving Day parade, Fritz steps into action, giving chase. He then learns that someone dubbed “Nightmare” has been taunting the city’s leaders for weeks—and there’s more carnage to come, unless the city meets the madman’s impossible demands. The nervous police need an outside man, and Fritz fits the bill.