Private Investigators Mysteries

Journalist Tatiana Petrovna is on the move. Arkady Renko, iconic Moscow investigator and Tatiana’s part-time lover, hasn’t seen her since she left on assignment over a month ago. When she doesn’t arrive on her scheduled train, he’s positive something is wrong. No one else thinks Renko should be worried - Tatiana is known to disappear during deep assignments - but he knows her enemies all too well and the criminal lengths to which they’ll go to keep her quiet.

In The Lady in the Lake, hard-boiled crime-fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wives - one a rich man's and one a poor man's - who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo, and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

Everyone knew the kind of girl Jean Timberlake was: wild, looking for trouble. But she certainly wasn't looking for murder. She was found dead on the beach 17 years ago, and an ex-boyfriend named Bailey Fowler was convicted of her murder and imprisoned, and then escaped. Now private eye Kinsey Millhone steps into a case that should have never been closed, in a town where there's no such thing as a private investigation.

The Black Angel begins with the disappearance of a young prostitute from one of New York City's seamiest neighborhoods. Like so many tormented souls before her, the girl's mother is inevitably drawn to Charlie Parker's doorstep desperate for redemption and revenge. Despite the danger that his chosen profession imposes on his wife and newborn daughter, Parker knows that the woman and her troubles cannot be ignored.

When a bright young heiress with a flair for romance and one too many enemies is found brutally murdered, Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, find themselves embroiled in a case that is not as black and white as it first appears.

To Miami Jones, fishing is a pastime best done with a cooler of beer and low expectations. So when a cable TV personality hires him to investigate irregularities in a competitive fishing tournament in Spanish Wells, Bahamas, Jones is less than enthusiastic. He expects to find a bunch of old geezers kicking back with lazy rods and a bucket of worms. What he finds is a high-stakes and big money game, where winning is measured not in inches and pounds but in views and sponsorship deals. Before he knows it, Jones finds himself in over his head.

The third cold-case investigation for Enzo Macleod, from the author of the Richard and Judy best seller The Blackhouse. France. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, Enzo Macleod is running out of time to crack the most confounding of unsolved French murders. His daughter is nearly killed, Enzo is mugged - and then he is arrested. Someone is trying to destroy his character. Someone is framing him for murder. Killers from the past will stop at nothing to halt Enzo, who must use all his forensic skills to solve the case - before they succeed.

In this dark and gritty collection - featuring short stories from Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, and Rob Thurman - nothing is as simple as black and white, light and dark, good and evil.... Unfortunately, that's exactly what makes it so easy to cross the line.

Sid Halley, a private investigator, has a new left hand, having had a transplant since his last appearance in Refusal. After receiving death threats, an ex-jockey trainer friend calls Sid to ask for his help, but Sid has his own problems to deal with, like recovering from surgery and saving his crumbling marriage. When his friend’s stable yard is torched, horses killed and the friend is found dead, Sid can only blame himself for not helping sooner. The police think it’s suicide, but Sid is not convinced after his friend’s terrified phone calls.

A bitter divorce is only the beginning. First the father hires thugs to kidnap his son. Then the mother hires Spenser to get the boy back. But as soon as Spenser senses the lay of the land, he decides to do some kidnapping of his own.

Ten years ago, Rowan Thompson was found stabbed to death with a pair of scissors in his student house. It turns out that Rowan was quite a lover, with many disgruntled partners left in his wake. But did any of them have a strong enough motive to murder him?

Aileen Travers thought she had it all figured out. Part private investigator, part fixer to the supernatural community, she was slowly building a reputation as the go-to vampire in Columbus. If you had a supernatural problem and nowhere to turn, she was the girl for you. The best part - no one had tried to kill her in weeks. Aileen's peaceful existence comes crashing down around her when an unwilling visit to the police station results in her picking up a stalker - or two. Now, Aileen is dodging suspicious looking portals while evading kidnapping attempts.

When London’s finest jazz musicians, the Dizzy Heights, are booked to play the glitzy Midsummer Ball at a country house in Oxfordshire, they expect a weekend filled with flappers and toffs having a roaring good time. But the festivities at Bilverton House take a turn for the worse when the group are stranded by a summer storm. And when a member of the Bilverton family turns up dead in a locked room in an apparent suicide, Skins, Dunn and Ellie realize this is going to be a much tougher gig than they thought.

Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away -- until the comic strip ransom note arrives. It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture -- an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with his fists

Ezekiel "Easy" Porterhouse Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of Los Angeles. But when Easy is approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran - a young White man who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a White woman from a Black man - he knows he shouldn't take the case.

Chet and Bernie are contacted by a terribly scared young woman who seems to want their help. Before she can even tell them her name, she flees in panic. But in that brief meeting Chet sniffs out an important secret about her, a secret at the heart of the mystery he and Bernie set out to solve. It's a case with no client and no crime and yet great danger, with the duo facing a powerful politician who has a lot to lose.

DS Lucas Walker is off duty. He's supposed to be showing his little sister Grace the Australian outback, on her visit from Boston, but instead they're headed out bush- where Walker's cousin has been mining for boulder opal. Something seemed off when Walker heard that Blair wanted to get out of Kanpara, so he and Grace are en route to bring him home to Caloodie. But Kanpara is in Channel Country, and a major flood is on the way.

Le docteur Carlotti hait copieusement sa patiente Maria Grazia Battestini. Comme tous ceux qui se voient contraints de la côtoyer, car la vieille femme est aussi avare qu'acariâtre. C'est toujours à reculons qu'il se rend à sa consultation hebdomadaire. Mais ce jour-là, exceptionnellement, il ne se fait pas malmener, pour la simple et bonne raison qu'il la découvre assassinée dans son appartement vénitien, mis sens dessus dessous. À l'exception d'une pièce : la chambre de la femme de ménage roumaine qui s'est curieusement volatilisée.

Miami Jones—Palm Beach's favorite PI—enjoys a quiet beer with friends as much as the next guy. He just never really saw the point of doing it while floating around with 2,000 strangers. But when he is hired on a most delicate case, Miami finds himself navigating not only the turquoise waters of the Bahamas, but also a mystery man who may or may not exist, a crazed Cleveland Browns fan harboring a grudge, and a gaggle of Palm Beach's finest—and most infamous—residents.

Elvis Cole is hired to find a woman who’s disappeared, a seemingly ordinary case, until he learns the missing woman is an explosives expert and worked for a Defense Department contractor. Meanwhile, LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his patrol dog, Maggie, track a fugitive to a house filled with explosives - and a dead body. As the two cases intertwine, they all find themselves up against shadowy arms dealers and corrupt officials, and the very woman they promised to save may be the cause of their own deaths.