Private Detective Fiction

This collection features two mysteries. In the first, Madame Duclos employs Pascale Tourret to help her save her daughter from a life of crime, and the investigation takes Pascale from his home in the Lot region of France to the busy streets of Paris. There, he encounters Maurice Gautier, who is producing bad methamphetamine that is killing college kids. In the second mystery, an old flame asks for Tourret's help to find out who has stolen this year's batch of Chateau Trepagnier Beaujolais Nouveau wine, and what he finds isn't what he expects.

There are around 40 murders per day in the United States. It's not often that they are related. On a cold night in the suburbs of Philadelphia, an attorney returns home from a long day at work only to be gunned down getting out of his car. Two hours later and 20 miles away in southern New Jersey, a truck driver is shot while making a late night delivery. When the sun rises the next morning, many more unexplained homicides plague the Tri-State area.

It isn’t every day that Detective Chris Bailey is handed a triple homicide. They may have their share of problems in the scenic wooded hills of Tennessee, but news that a young man—a child, really—wiped out his entire family sends a ripple of shock through the whole community. Seventeen-year-old Colin Simon is witnessed fleeing the scene, gun in hand. He’s arrested for murder, but refuses to explain any of it. Not even what he did with the gun. The police have their suspect, so is it case closed?

In a cave near Weston, potholers discover what they think are human remains. The bones are identified as belonging to Hugo Latchford, a boy who went missing a decade ago, and whose parents belonged to a quasi-religious cult masquerading as environmental activists. It’s not long before rumours that he was sacrificed in a midsummer ritual resurface. Returning to duty from maternity leave, DI Louise Blackwell finds herself leading the investigation, soon discovering that Hugo’s parents are still alive and the cult very much still active.

Two-year-old Abigail is fast asleep in the back of the car, clutching her little red lion. Tony, her father, steps out onto the pavement. The man he’s meeting punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground. Before it all goes black, Tony sees his car speed away—with his little girl inside. When he finally gets home after the worst day of his life, the house is empty. His wife is gone too. The place is ransacked and the kitchen is streaked with blood.

l laboratorio di Westerley non è un posto per i deboli di cuore. Si tratta di una struttura che studia i cadaveri in decomposizione. Ma quando la detective Kim Stone e la sua squadra scoprono proprio lì il corpo ancora caldo di una giovane donna, diventa chiaro che un assassino ha trovato il posto perfetto per coprire i suoi delitti. Quanti dei corpi arrivati al laboratorio sono sue vittime? Mentre i sospetti di Kim si fanno inquietanti, una seconda ragazza viene aggredita e rinvenuta in fin di vita con la bocca riempita di terra.

Stella Darnell is a cleaner. But when she isn't tackling dust and dirt and restoring order to chaos, Stella solves murders. Her latest case concerns a man convicted of killing his mistress. His daughter thinks he's innocent, and needs Stella to prove it. As Stella sifts through piles of evidence and interview suspects, she discovers a link between the recent murder and a famous case from forty years ago: the shocking death of six-year-old Sarah Ferris, killed in the shadows of an empty playground. Stella knows that dredging up the past can be dangerous.

A military-trained PI struggles to protect a beautiful woman from the Russian mob while plotting revenge on the killer who murdered his army brother and two children. Connor Marin and five team members had been part of a Ranger squad fighting the cartels in South America when their communications got hacked. That meant that Sanchez, Connor's closest friend, a man he had laughed and drank with, had been butchered by the cartels. The army brass never suspected the murders were more than simple executions. But Connor found a trail back to the real killers. How could this have happened?

The Great Detective, by prominent Sherlock Holmes Society of London member Roger Johnson, offers the Holmesian another perspective on the beloved Canon. From a surrealist perspective, we find here a different and refreshing approach. We are transported to another time through the warmth of an English public house and immediately transfixed by the fascinating voices of those who contributed to the name Sherlock Holmes. This is a must listen for all those worshipers of the great detective.

Violet Hunter consults Holmes after being offered a governess job subject to a number of unusual conditions, including cutting her hair short. The wage is extremely high, £120, and she decides to accept the job, though Holmes tells her to contact him if she needs to. After a number of strange occurrences, including the discovery of a sealed-off wing of the house, she does so. Holmes discovers that someone had been kept prisoner in the wing, but when Holmes, Watson and Hunter enter, it is empty.

Cecil Younger never thought it would come to this: providing surveillance for a chicken coop being raided by a fowl thief. But things have not exactly been breaking right lately for the Alaskan P.I. The logical thing to do? Take a vacation, of course. Well, it's not exactly a vacation. Younger has been paid to investigate a doctor aboard a luxurious first-class cruise ship up the Alaskan coast. Except passengers are dying. Now Younger finds himself trapped on a ship of fools with a murderer who is leaving a trail of well-to-do passengers in his wake...and leaving evidence pointing an accusing finger at Cecil!

Inspector Hardy has retreated to Dorset on the south coast where he plans to spend long overdue quality time with his young daughters and pregnant partner. The sabbatical is short-lived when he is thrust back into the dark world of murder after a family with twin boys is found dead at their home in the countryside. Hardy pulls together a small team to investigate the devastating crime, which is the latest in a series of similar crimes. With no apparent motive and the only similarity between the families being twin boys, the team struggle to hunt a killer who seems unstoppable.

When the body of a child is found in Paris, Interpol involvement is resented by Inspector Le Fur - a proud French man who believes that the inquiry should be carried out on French soil. However, when Jobin explains the case's history to him. Le Fur is more accepting of the way the inquiry progresses. With child trafficking becoming more and more common, Interpol are involved in the case. With victims under the age of nine years old, concern is mounting as the killer leaves his calling card.

Detective Dave Robicheaux becomes entangled in the affairs of the Fontenot family, descendants of sharecroppers whose matriarch helped raise Dave as a child. They are in danger of losing the land they've lived on for more than a century. As Dave tries to discover who wants the land so badly, he finds himself in increasing peril from a lethal, rag-tag alliance of local mobsters - and a hired assassin with a shady past.

For the last nine months New Orleans Private Detective Moses Byone has worked the cases that have the entire Crescent City donning him the Voodoo Detective. Mose and Armond race against time to protect themselves from the terribly dark and malevolent forces threatening them and the beautiful, seductive women of La Petite Fleur Rose.

It's normal for Charles Bainbridge, chief inspector of Scotland Yard, to be called to the scene of a crime, but this is the third murder in quick succession where the victim's chest has been cracked open and their heart torn out. Bainbridge suspects there's a symbolic reason for the stolen hearts, so he sends for supernatural specialist Sir Maurice Newbury and his determined assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes. Unfortunately, neither of them are in much shape to take the case....

1850: Charles Dickens is in Manchester, performing at the Queen's Theatre with his acting group. But his career on the stage is cut short when a man is shot dead - on set. With Dickens himself caught with the gun in his hands, he is immediately arrested. Along with the help of his good friend Superintendent Sam Jones, Dickens must do all he can to find the real killer, before he is locked up for a crime he didn't commit. Can Dickens convince the authorities of his innocence? Will he unmask the true assassin?

The last thing Tree Callister wants is to get involved in the movie that is being shot on Sanibel Island. But the film deals with the Hollywood life of his best pal, Rex Baxter. Cast as Rex is the legendary movie star John Twist who was lured out of retirement to play the role. Twist is a nasty, difficult drunk who needs a minder to make sure he stays sober. Tree, against his better judgment, gets dragged into the job. As filming begins, everyone involved soon comes to despise Twist. Tree has his hands full trying to keep the aging star in line.

Special private detective Jimmy Smiles started dating Gabriela and is happier then ever. He brings Adrian the vampiresque friend and neighbour to Professor Grau to analyse his affliction. Meanwhile, Jimmys life starts to crumble when he is asked to help a prisoner, that is haunted by the Baba Yaga.

Hettie and Tilly are summoned to a mysterious tea party hosted by Tilly's long-lost great-aunts. The ancient windmill they live in is not what it seems, and very soon the mill begins to reveal its terrifying secrets of murder and betrayal. Tilly must face her family's demons as Hettie fights to unravel the tragedies of the past. Who are the hippy cats camped in the field? Why do the walls of the windmill whisper at night? And who haunts the derelict priory? Will Hettie and Tilly have the wind blown out of their sails before this baffling case is brought to a grinding conclusion?