American Detective Fiction

A murder in a locked room… A faceless ghost… Throw in a cross-dressing detective-savant plus his assistant extraordinaire in this new mystery series! A high profile murder calls for a high profile detective. When the famous Sushi Czar is found dead in a room that’s locked from the inside, the evidence just doesn’t add up. Of course, a killer ghost is no match for the deductive skills of Michael Archangel. The fabulous cross-dressing former FBI agent can rock a set of sky high stilettos and assemble clues like puzzle pieces, but can he actually prove a ghost committed murder? Only ...

An engineer is dead. His friend has been charged with his murder. How many lives would the conspiracy take before it is unveiled to its roots? Blake Turley grew up in a series of foster homes and joined the police force in Page, Arizona to give back to the community. The community of native Navajo people around and the city of vendors and employees of power plants was bewildered by the murder of a young engineer. The evidence pointed towards his colleague and his sole friend in the city. Blake was not convinced about all the evidence, though. The accused claimed of a deeper conspiracy that ...

Murder of Emma, the billionaire at twenty-two, threatened the town of business owners. Can the police bring justice before anyone else gets hurt? Detective Avery Hudson thought the dead body at the Crompton Gardens Park would be a routine investigation. When the dead body was identified as the body of Emma Holden, the owner of a tenth of the city real estate, then Avery felt some extra pounds on her shoulder. The entire town is watching Avery with their microscopes. The height of public attention wrecks Avery’s nerves. Investigation of Emma’s murder turns ever more complicated because ...

Lives in the city are all under attack. Can she nab the killer or the attackers before they hurl on another life? Young yet respectable Keira Jones is a detective in the Collinsville Police Department in Illinois. Each case appeared before her as a new challenge as it is difficult for others to accept that her eyes are as sharp as those of the eagles. The difficulty deepens when she is asked to take part in a joint investigation with the federal agents. To prove her smartness she always needed to move fewer steps ahead of her partner from the federal agencies. The stress pushed her on the ...

A severed finger. A missing person. Are they linked? Detective Amber Cooper believed in resolving cases fast. When visitors picked up a severed finger in a national monument, Detective Cooper felt that the leads were just like needles in a haystack. In addition, Amber found out that a man had gone into thin air. Amber felt that the vanished man was the key to saving lives. She risked almost everything in her pursuit of solving the mystery, though time was not on her side. Could she bring the perpetrators to justice? Just a Finger is the second book in the American Small Town Mysteries ...

A dead bride and a missing maiden - in a small town, surrounded by loved ones. Can detectives save lives and bring the killer to justice? Detective Danielle Hall believed in the goodness in everyone. When her best friend found the dead body in the bridal suit she was about to rent for her own wedding, Danielle had no option other than finding the killer in their small town community. She discovered that one of the bride’s maids disappeared. Danielle felt that the bride was not killed because she was hated. She risked her personal relationship with her town folks to get to the bottom of ...

Veteran fashion designer Claude Macaron was killed during his own after-party following an annual fashion show celebrating Valentine’s Day. Can the city police bring justice to the artistic soul? Detective Anna Barnhurt of Moon Township Police Department, was quick in reaching conviction in nine out of ten cases. When a famous fashion designer from France was killed in the town, Detective Anna Barnhurt was the obvious choice of her supervisors to bring justice to a deceased foreigner so that the city could save some face. Many out of town suspects were hurrying to leave the town making ...

The pet doctor of the town who knew too much about the animals was murdered. Would the community come forward and stand together to take the devil? Jennifer Moore was a brilliant Detective in the East Liverpool Police Department in Ohio. The community was shaken when the body of the popular pet doctor was discovered in Beaver Creek. The prime suspect had left the country even before the discovery of the dead body. Moore was not sure if the killer would ever be back. Hatching a plan to catch the killer would further put the lives of the community members at risk. Could Moore measure her ...

In Calico Springs, Willie’s life has been defined by two powerful forces: God and the river. The “miracle boy” died for five minutes as a young child, and ever since, Willie is certain he survived for a reason, but that purpose didn’t become clear until he found the Game. The Game is called Manifest Atlas, and the concept is simple: enter an intention and the Game provides a target—a blinking blue dot on the map. Willie’s second time playing Manifest Atlas, his intention takes him to an ominous target: three empty graves. Willie is sure the Game is telling him he’s going to die.

Like the first book, The Covid Murders is a fictional and captivating medical detective story, this time exploring a mysterious death in a hospital in suburban Nashville, Tennessee. But like the first, it also connects this entertaining tale simply and understandably to the very real problems of American health care policy. It explains what has gone wrong with our system historically and now, including the great impact of our recent national experience with the Covid pandemic.

Detective Jack Yu returns in a pulse-pounding fifth investigation in New York's Chinatown - can he save an old gangster friend from a ruthless killer? Chinatown gang leader "Lucky" Louie was shot outside of a Chinatown off track betting establishment on the 13th of January and lay in a coma for 88 days, waking on Easter Sunday. The number 88 is a double-helix double-lucky Chinese number; religion and superstition all lean Lucky's way. But Detective Jack Yu, Lucky's boyhood blood brother, fears his friend's luck is about to run out.

Severed hands, five victims, one crime family, and an extra body. Detective Rugbee’s day started out like any other until the call came into dispatch about hands on the beach. He wasted no time in responding to the distress call. Upon his arrival, he found two men, one on the ground, unresponsive, lying next to fingers poking up from the sand. The men are friends and have been for decades. Since retirement, they search for treasures on the beach. This morning, they found severed hands on a dune, and the finder had a heart attack. After Rugbee secured a ride to the hospital for the men, he...

In 1910, American author and social critic Jack London began writing The Assassination Bureau, Ltd., a work that he never completed. Now, thanks to the recently discovered manuscript of Dr. John Watson, we know why. The early part of London's book describes a secret organization - scoffed at or ignored by police officials - that conspires to murder influential political and social leaders. Not until Sherlock Holmes is provoked into action by threats close to home does anyone appear able to stop the Assassination Bureau.

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection Evil Roots. Best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, this short story by Conan Doyle preceded the famous detective by almost a decade. After an altercation, a disgruntled American storms off into the night, only to disappear mysteriously. Could a giant flytrap really be capable of engulfing an adult victim?

Sherlock Holmes had never met a writer who had ridiculed him as bitterly as Samuel L. Clemens had. For that matter, Holmes had never met a writer who fancied himself a detective. Yet Sam Clemens not only unraveled Holmes' investigation into the murder of the hot-blooded woman on Thor Bridge, but also, while writing as Mark Twain, belittled Holmes' highly-touted detecting skills. In this recently discovered narrative, Doctor Watson sets the record straight.

In Strawberry Yellow, he returns to the strawberry farms of his youth and encounters family intrigue, danger, and murder. The series' most compelling and evocative mystery yet is set in the strawberry fields of Watsonville, California, where young Mas first arrived as a Hiroshima survivor in the 1940s. He returns for the funeral of a cousin and quickly gets entangled in the murder of a young woman. Was his cousin murdered, too?

Sofie's a young Greek American woman living in Queens. If you'd asked her a few months ago what she'd be doing now, she'd have replied, "I'm going to be married to a wonderful guy and working at my father's Greek restaurant." That was before Sofie caught the groom in a compromising position with her maid of honor. Before she punched the priest who tried to get her to marry the cad anyway. Before she chucked her engagement ring into the garbage disposal. Before she became a junior detective for her uncle's detective agency.

Mas Arai's best friend, Haruo, is getting married, and he has grudgingly agreed to serve as best man. But when an ancient Japanese doll display of Haruo's fiance goes missing, the wedding is called off with fingers pointed at Haruo. To solve the mystery and to save Haruo's life, Mas must untangle a web of secrecy, heartbreaking memories, and murder.

Can you figure out who the killer is before the guilty culprit is revealed? During an Easter egg hunt, Roland “Beanie” Bean and his two-year-old son Evan are searching for eggs when they find a woman sprawled in the dirt beneath a hibiscus bush. Little Evan thinks the lady is just sleeping, but Beanie knows better. The woman is dead. As an investigative reporter at the Palmchat Gazette, Beanie is the perfect person to cover the story, considering that he found the victim. Narrowing down the field of suspects, Beanie finds out the victim had plenty of enemies. Not only was she unfaithful...

Two corpses, a stolen diamond necklace, a Russian connection, and a dandified American writer who pals around with denizens of the theater - all add up to a murder investigation with international implications. Leave it to Sherlock Holmes who, in a classic assemblage of suspects in a high-tone British men’s club, employs his celebrated powers of deduction to reveal the guilty party.