Private Detective Fiction

Forced to retire from the D. C. police, newly minted P.I. Frank Marr is recovering from rock bottom when a friend asks for help -- and now, he must revisit the dark, drug-fueled world he left behind. Ostracized by his family after a botched case that led to the death of his baby cousin, Jeffrey...

From "the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world" (Esquire) comes this powerful early novel--the noirish story of how a Washington, D.C., liquor store heist shows a drifter named Constantine what it means to be a shoedog...

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.

An unsolved case from DCI Battle's past returns to haunt him when it seems that a killer from over a decade ago has struck again. Daisy Riddle went missing fifteen years ago and Battle failed to keep his promise to bring her home. Now, her dead body has been discovered. What happened to her, and where has she been all this time? Battle must overcome his guilt in order to catch Daisy's killer, a task that becomes desperate when another girl is taken.

Private Eye Jade Cavendish thought she was just attending another somber funeral, paying respects to the late Benji Thompson. But when an elegant woman named Hilda Bauer urgently pulls her aside, Jade's day takes an unexpected turn. Hilda's mother’s brooch, a family heirloom, was lost during World War II. Her only lead is a cryptogram left by the deceased along with a message that Jade could solve it.

When Charity Deacon witnesses a car crash, she can’t believe the police push her aside. Sure, she made some enemies on the force, but what happened to forgive and forget? Deep inside, something keeps pushing her to help, and it speaks louder than everyone she loves. For her first case as a PI, Charity searches for justice in the dark streets of Vancouver where missing prostitutes stay gone unless someone cares enough to risk their life to find them. From Vancouver to the south of France, Charity digs into secrets everyone wants to keep hidden.

When the young woman who, with four others, stole the promising cancer medicine is knifed in the gut, Denny is hired by her mother to find the killer. Soon after, Denny is kidnapped and mistaken for a man who stole a plutonium purification process, and he becomes enmeshed in an increasingly deadly affair. A week later, the young woman's best friend is shot along a freeway.

Jack Irish - lawyer, gambler and people finder - is hunting down the villains who hijacked the winnings from his latest betting coup when he is hired by a mystery client to find missing barman Robbie Colbourne. But Robbie turns up dead of a drug overdose.

Private investigator Delanie Fitzgerald and her computer-hacker partner Duncan Reynolds are back for more sleuthing in Glitter, Glam and Contraband. In this fast-paced mystery, the Falcon Investigations team is hired to find out who is stealing from the talent at a local drag show. Delanie gets more than she bargains for and a few makeup tips in the process. Meanwhile, a mysterious sound in the ceiling of her office vexes Delanie. She uses her sleuthing skills to track down the source and uncover a creepy contraband operation.

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.

Someone is murdering the homeless in Detroit’s Cass Corridor―by immolation. These horrific crimes wouldn’t require an investigation by Charlie Mack and her crack team investigators, except that one of the burned bodies is her mother’s friend. There’s a lot wrong with this case: the police won’t admit a serial killer is on the loose, drug trafficking intersects with the deaths, and a rogue cop is involved. The timing also couldn’t be worse―Charlie and Mandy are finally moving in together.

A hate group operating in Oakland County, Michigan, has claimed responsibility for a six-month-long string of arson fires and robberies at mosques, temples, and Black churches around Detroit, eluding police and federal agencies. The most recent fire, at a mosque in Dearborn, kills a respected imam. His children—suspicious of law enforcement’s treatment of Muslims and afraid of reprisal—hire Charlie Mack and her team of investigators to find their father’s murderers.

When Charlie and her team of investigators are asked to take on a seemingly impossible case―to identify and thwart an attack on the upcoming Detroit Auto Show―it takes a $100K incentive and the help of a dozen freelancers for Charlie and her crew to unravel a twisted plot that runs through several countries and many more bank accounts. But finding out who’s behind the intricate plot only solves half the problem. Charlie and her crew are drawn into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as they try to locate dozens of hidden bombs before they can be detonated.

It gives us considerable pleasure to be able to offer to the public the “inside” record of those of former District Attorney Markham’s criminal cases in which Mr. Philo Vance figured so effectively. The true inwardness of these famous cases has never before been revealed by S. S. Van Dine, Mr. Vance’s lawyer and almost constant companion, being the only person who possessed a complete record of the facts and has only recently been permitted to make them public.

Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron knows Kim Rafferty is bad news the moment they meet. Desperate people always spell trouble in his experience, and Mrs. Rafferty is as desperate as they come. What she is asking for is insane, and if he agrees to help the wife of the notorious East-End gangster, the consequences for them both could be fatal. Twenty-four hours later, another betrayed woman with a hopeless case is pleading for Charlie's help. The PI is her only chance to keep an innocent man from serving a prison sentence for murders he didn't commit.

Pearl’s detective agency takes a back seat as she prepares to offer a warm welcome to a group of special visitors. A local arts festival is being held to honour a cultural exchange visit from representatives of Borken - Whitstable’s Twin Town in Germany. Yet very soon, personality clashes surface among the participants; local politicians try to use the festival for their own ends, while others jostle for improved billing on the festival programme. Tempers flare, old feuds re-surface, and on the eve of the first event, a cryptic message is received by the local police.

Gavin Law exposed a tragic case of medical malpractice but now he’s missing. It’s just another case for Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron, until he comes to believe Law was murdered. Did the disgraced surgeon abandon his sacred oath to become a killer? Or did the hospital itself have Law permanently silenced? As Charlie digs deeper, he discovers just how bad the world of medicine could be for his health.

Arthur Nakai, now armed with his newly minted private investigator license, has visitors at his doorstep on White Mesa. Melanie Manygoats and her young son arrive on a cold winter’s day asking him to locate her missing daughter, whom she fears has become one of the stolen. Arthur accepts and soon finds himself wading through the world of teenage prostitution where he discovers April has already been sold into the darker, more horrifying world of human trafficking and sexual slavery.

Alfred Preston, ordinario di Storia Antica presso la Fallas University di Filadelfia e la sua assistente Jeannie Madigan scompaiono nello stesso giorno dalla prestigiosa Università americana. Claire Freelander, investigatrice privata, riceve l'incarico dai vertici dell'ateneo di indagare su quella che viene definita dai colleghi dei due accademici, una inspiegabile scomparsa. Seguendo le tracce lasciate dalla ricercatrice, giungerà nella città di Lucca; si troverà risucchiata da un vortice terrificante all'interno del quale opera da oltre duemila anni una pericolosissima setta.

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.