Private Cities

Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple and August Poe run the most in-demand private investigation agency in New York City. The three detectives make a formidable team, solving a series of seemingly impossible crimes which expose the dark underbelly of the city - from a priceless art theft, high-stakes kidnapping and a decades-old unsolved murder, to a gruesome subterranean prison and corruption and bribery at the highest levels of power. But it's not long before their headline-grabbing breakthroughs, unconventional methods - and untraceable pasts - attract the attention of the NYPD and the FBI.

Rushmore McKenzie is a retired cop, an unexpected millionaire, and an occasional unlicensed private investigator. So it isn't the biggest surprise in the world when he's attacked and kidnapped from his home - McKenzie has more than a few enemies out there with a grudge against him. But it is a surprise when it turns out his kidnapping is a case of mistaken identity.

David Stalin was one of the best detectives in the business, running head-to-head with data-jackers, organ thieves, and the tech-enhanced gangs who ruled the shadowy streets of Los Angeles. He could do no wrong, until what seemed like an easy case got out of control, and left his wife dead among the abandoned ruins of old LA.

After a crippling wave of crime and decades of economic deterioration, a large-scale movement to revitalize the city is underway. For the first time in a long time, there’s cause for optimism. That is, until Malick’s latest investigation finds him tugging the threads on a criminal conspiracy that touches all rungs of Cain City society.

Once a police detective in St. Paul, Minnesota, Rushmore McKenzie has become an unlikely millionaire and an occasional unlicensed private investigator, doing favors for friends. The favor, this time, is for a friend of a friend - Erin Peterson, a local business person and owner of a growing food company called Salsa Girl. Someone seems to have a beef with her: The outside locks on her factory having been systematically filled with superglue. But for some reason, Erin doesn’t want to report this harassment to the police.

Rushmore “Mac” McKenzie has a lot of old girlfriends, but only one went on to marry the current governor of the state of Minnesota. And only one is calling him with a desperate request to meet in secret. First Lady Lindsay Barrett is carrying an anonymous e-mail that contains the makings of an ugly rumor about her husband, the man about to run for higher office - perhaps even the highest office. Someone says they have evidence that Jack Barrett killed his high school sweetheart. Lindsay says it’s an outright lie, but the truth lies buried decades in the past.

Several years ago, Rushmore McKenzie became an unexpected millionaire and set about doing not much of anything. Now, showing up at his doorstep is the insurance company that paid the settlement that made him rich - and they want a favor. Someone has stolen a very expensive gem from a local art museum and is willing to ransom it back. The only condition is that McKenzie has to be the go between. And this is no ordinary gem - it is a jade sculpture with a history going back to the Qing Dynasty and a reputed curse that stories claim has ruined or killed everyone who has ever owned it.

When Private Investigator Jim Bean is called to conduct a simple insurance investigation at a Nevada trailer park, he finds himself wrapped up in a case that’s more complicated than anything he could have imagined. There’s a torched trailer. A missing woman named Emilee who harbors a dark past. And the Ward family, with their own sinister secrets to hide. Jim quickly realizes that if he wants to find Emilee, he’s going to have to get closer to the Ward family - and untangle their twisted web of lies. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more dangerous things become.

Fans of New York Times best seller The Nanny Diaries will rejoice in this wickedly hilarious novel, which acclaimed author Katharine Weber says is "much funnier and darker". Optioned for a major motion picture starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, The Ivy Chronicles skewers the twisted priorities of America's well-heeled elite.

Collected here are intersecting tales not just about Rimes but about friends, antagonists, and passersby who move through his world. Included are his first case as a PI, two pieces written by Bobby Chance, the backstory of a trial that shaped a friendship, the whereabouts of the Spider after his departure from Buffalo, and a novelette (inspired by two historic murder cases) that puts Rimes in the presence of someone truly demonic.

A Jersey comedy with a little romance! Atlantic City social worker, Lucy Womzak, had always been able to find the good in people, to make the best out of bad situations, and to cook her way out of stress. So when her husband, Lester, leaves her for a slightly younger (but much skinnier) woman, she's sure she has the skill set to handle it and re-create a happy home for her and her sixteen-year-old twins. After all, she still has the ability to make a decent meatloaf. But positive thinking and a degree in therapy can only go so far. When Lucy discovers Les led a secret life as a mafia-...

Once a police detective in St. Paul, Minnesota, Rushmore McKenzie became an unlikely millionaire and an occasional unlicensed private investigator, doing favors for friends. But this time, he finds himself in dire need of working on his own behalf. His dear friend and first love Shelby Dunston attends a public reading by a psychic medium with the hope of connecting with her grandfather one final time. Instead, she hears McKenzie’s name spoken by the psychic in connection with a huge sum of stolen - and missing - money.

Mac McKenzie is rich. So rich that he’s left his job as a Twin Cities police officer and spends his time doing favors large and small for friends. So when an old Marine buddy of his father’s calls with a request, Mac takes the time to help him out. And it is one of the stranger favors he’s ever been asked: The elderly Mr. Mosley, a beekeeper, wants Mac to find out why his bees are suddenly dying in droves. Mac does some digging and before long turns up a hornet’s nest of trouble in the person of Frank Crosetti, a new neighbor on the property abutting Mosley’s bees.

In the days of Marco Polo, men risked their lives for spices. And in an age when black pepper was so valuable that it was sold one peppercorn at a time, there was no spice more valuable than the legendary Ko Feng. Known as the Celestial Spice, it supposedly vanished five centuries ago, and its name lives on only as culinary myth. But now a sack of it has turned up in New York City, and the leading experts of world cuisine will kill for a taste.

Louise Wykoff is arguably the most recognizable woman living in Minnesota, known for her presence in over 100 paintings by the late and brilliant Randolph McInnis. Louise, known better as “That Wykoff Woman”, was just a young apprentice when her intimate representation and the fact of the McInnis’ marriage caused rumors to fly - and Louise to hide away for decades. All of McInnis’ paintings are in museums or known private collections, until Louise confesses to having three more that no one has ever heard of - and now they’ve been stolen.

Charles 'Charlie' Werner Kennedy O'Brien is an Private Investigator who solves crimes all around the globe.

As a graduation present for her daughter, Tammy, Samantha Moon and the gang head down to South America for the vacation of all vacations. Next stop: El Dorado—The Lost City of Gold It all begins shortly after Sam and company arrive in Colombia, when a disembodied head awakens them in the middle of the night. Turns out, the head belongs to the famous explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh, who lost it to an executioner’s ax 400 years earlier. The very essence of determination, the intrepid explorer isn’t about to let a little thing like death stop his search for the legendary City of Gold. And ...

Homicide cop Bobby Dunston’s daughter has been kidnapped, taken in broad daylight on a city street in the middle of September. The kidnappers demand a million dollars and force Dunston to get the ransom from his friend McKenzie. It soon becomes apparent to the two of them that one of the kidnappers is childhood pal Scottie, a once aspiring drummer now gone astray, and that the kidnapping is payback for “crimes” committed in their past.

The death of a powerful Chinatown crime boss thrusts private eye Lydia Chin and her partner, Bill Smith, into a storm of double-dealing, subterfuge, murder, and New York City real estate scandal. Choi has left the Tong headquarters building to his niece, who hires Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, to accompany her to inspect it. The building is at the center of a tug-of-war between Chinatown preservation interests - including Lydia’s brother, Tim - and a real estate developer who’s desperate to get his hands on it.

Rushmore McKenzie is a former cop, current millionaire, and an occasional unlicensed PI who does favors for friends. Yet he has reservations when his girlfriend’s daughter asks him to help her father, a man in serious trouble. En route from St. Paul to a Canadian blues festival on Highway 61, he met a girl, blacked out, and awoke hours later in a strange motel, with the girl’s murdered body on the floor. Slipping away unnoticed and heading home, he thought he’d got away - until he started getting texts with photos of the body and demands for blackmail payments he couldn’t pay.