Private Eye Mysteries

Ex-police officer Joe Copp takes a case, and he's not even sure who he's working for. Surrounded by a cast of frightened actors, and the theater's gorgeous director, he's been assigned the role of bodyguard for the leading man.

This exciting collaborative by the Private Eye Writers of America and Sisters in Crime contains short stories by well-known mystery writers including Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton. The stories are presented in pairs, each linked to the other by a common theme or topic.

Chet Gecko loves a good mystery. Almost more than he loves his fee: stinkbug pie. So when fellow fourth grader Shirley Chameleon asks him to find her missing brother, Billy, Chet expects the case to be as easy as pie. But Billy's disappearance is part of a larger plot, one that involves the Rat...

It has been one hell of a fall from grace for former Homicide Detective Maxwell Floyd. He’s hit rock bottom. Broken, bleeding. It took only a New York minute to change his life forever — his marriage, career, and sobriety left to die in the aftermath. He thought he could still make a difference as a private eye, but all the alcohol in the world can’t keep the ghosts of his past from haunting him.

Joe Copp, ex-cop, finds himself once again pulled into the down-and-dirty back streets of Los Angeles. His new case sends him into the back lots of Hollywood, behind the glamorous facade of the movie industry, where the subjects of a stakeout begin dying, one by one.

Serious trouble is brewing in Brighton, California, a sprawling coastal community on the eastern edge of the Los Angeles Basin: Its Mayor has just been murdered, and the chief of police has resigned amid rumors of corruption in his department. Now, ex-police officer Joe Copp has been hired by an old friend, the current Brighton City administrator, to get to the bottom of the municipal mess.

Fred Berr's Lester Caine hard-boild noir fiction, finds the detective tracking another murderer. Someone hung the Silver Screen's top female box office attraction from the balcony of her Palm Beach mansion. Lester Caine and his associate, Scarecrow, must hunt a murderer from the Florida beaches to the glitter and sometimes sinister make-believe world of a foreign film martial arts stuntman and other luminaries of the Hollywood film industry.

A missing woman Steve Fraser is hired to find, but he soon realizes she keeps going missing.

Fresh off solving the biggest case of his career, Private Eye Maxwell Floyd’s life has completely changed. Old habits have died hard. Late one night, the beautiful Helena Krivka shows up at Max’s office, distraught over the disappearance of her husband. Lukas Krivka is a senior developer for a multitrillion-dollar software company, and it seems he’s gotten involved with the wrong people. Worried the man’s wife is in danger as a result, Max takes the case. Clues to Lukas’ fate lead Max into a dangerous game of intrigue with the Lithuanian mob and a deadly Russian assassin.

Joe Copp is recovering from a three week bout of partial amnesia after a perp almost blew him away with his own gun. His doctors have assured him his memory will eventually return, but that isn't soon enough. It seems that during the last three weeks he married a lady who is now a corpse in the Los Angeles morgue.

PI Truman Smith has become a loner after failing to find his sister Jan during a recent search of Galveston Island. He jogs on the Seawall, plays with his cat, and reads lots of Faulkner books. He is pulled from his self-imposed retirement when his old high school football buddy Dino asks him to find a young girl named Sharon. As Tru begins his investigation, dead bodies begin to appear and Tru himself is attacked.

Don Pendleton is the creator of the enormously popular The Executioner series, featuring Mack Bolan. Now he has created the Joe Copp series which develops against the backdrop of violence and corruption in Los Angeles. Joe Copp is an ex-cop, tough, smart, but caring and compassionate. In Copp for Hire, Joe is hired by a stripper to investigate a stalker, but before he can even begin the investigation, the woman is killed by a hit-and-run driver, who has now turned his sight on Joe.

Struggling private investigator Kate Myles is shattered to learn her late father isn't her biological dad. She's still reeling when she discovers that an unknown distant relative is the prime suspect in a decades-old murder investigation. Trying to convince her to take on the case for free, an old colleague recommends her as an investigator for a recent arson murder in the same small town.

Seventh-grade detective Harper Madigan works alone. He doesn't need the vice principal assigning him a new partner to keep him in line, especially a stuffed-shirt wannabe-journalist. And he especially doesn't need his troublemaker ex-girlfriend showing up out the blue and asking for his help. She's accused of attacking the star of the school musical, and with her less-than-sparkling track record, she's only one suspension away from getting expelled.

After he failed to find his missing sister, whose remains finally turned up in a bag in an overgrown field, Texas PI Truman Smith retired to become a housepainter on Galveston Island. But when an alligator is killed and its carcass left on display on a family friend's property, Tru is persuaded to search for the culprit. Soon the brooding gumshoe is stumbling over the bodies of dead humans, is shot at and run down by a souped-up four-by-four as he's embroiled in a plot complete with crooked police, a possible land-grabbing sheme and assorted "bad guys".

For fans of Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, Alex Jennings, and Tia Williams, a private eye's detective agency offers salvation for troubled couples in a tale full of seduction and supernatural twists. Linda Villaneuva is private investigator who runs a mystical detective agency where she’s able to sense...

The Las Vegas desert. A once famous pop singer lies dead. The only clue to her murder—a bizarre disfigurement. Only one thing to do. Call in Parker and Steele. To avoid the hassle of a media frenzy, the local police sergeant decides contact his old mentor, Wade Parker, and ask him to consult on the case. After nearly dying eight months ago, Miranda Steele can't wait to get back to real detective work.

A publishing company wants to do a book the entire Cooper clan, starting with Matt. The publisher also has a movie deal lined up after the book is released. The Coopers' private lives will soon become public-very public. Things heat up during the interview process when Clay lets some family secrets slip out and they end up in the book. Meanwhile, Clay, Elliott and Gloria enlist retired police lieutenant Dean Hollister's help in tracking down the man who killed Gloria's father more than three years earlier.

Cassie Woods just landed her first big case. Determined to prove herself as a private investigator and catch a cheater, Cassie discovers more than she bargained for, when the unveiling of a devastating secret initiates the emergence of an unwanted gift. Nothing is ever simple. Her personal life is chaos. Her professional life is a minefield. Her hormones are raging out of control.

Casey Derry has a gambling habit, and he knows he’ll get lucky one day if he just keeps trying. If only he can win big, he and his wife, Jen, can live happily ever after with no more worries, no more money problems, and no wondering whether they’re going to lose their house and live on the streets. With the last roll of the dice, he loses once again—his money and his dignity. It’s time to go home with his tail between his legs and endure Jen’s wrath and verbal abuse.