Private Investigator Thriller

Has Tom Hillman run away from his exclusive reform school, or has he been kidnapped? Are his wealthy parents protecting him or their own guilty secrets? And why does every clue lead Lew Archer to an abandoned Hollywood hotel, where starlets and sailors once rubbed shoulders with tycoons and hustlers? The once-popular palace is now boarded up. But for Archer, it may hold the key to a missing teenager and a hot murder.

Winner of both the Harper Lee Award and the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence, Carolyn Haines has thrilled countless readers with her Sarah Booth Delaney mysteries. Here, Sarah investigates when two wealthy heiresses claim a four-million-dollar family necklace was stolen. All the evidence points to insurance fraud, but when Sarah starts poking into the family’s dark secrets, one of the heiresses disappears.

When Paul Casablancas, Claire DeWitt’s ex-boyfriend and a popular musician in the Bay Area scene, is found dead in his apartment, his cherished guitars missing, the police are convinced it’s a simple robbery. But Claire knows that nothing is ever simple. With the help of her new assistant, Claude, Claire follows the clues, finding hints to Paul’s fate in her other cases - especially a long-ago missing girl in New York’s gritty East Village and a modern-day miniature-horse theft in Marin.

Las Vegas is a city of contradictions: seedy and glamorous, secretive and wild, Vegas attracts people of all kinds - especially those with a secret to hide, or a life to leave behind. It's the perfect location for Lester Olsen's lucrative business. He gets to treat gorgeous, young women to five-star restaurants, splashy shows, and limo rides - and then he teaches them how to kill. Private Jack Morgan spends most of his time in Los Angeles, where his top investigation firm has its headquarters.

When Jake Boulder is asked to help investigate the murder of Kira Niemeyer, he soon finds himself tracking a serial killer who selects his next victim in a most unusual manner. As the body count rises, Boulder has to work with the police to identify the killer before more lives are taken. What ensues is a twisted game of cat and mouse. Only Boulder or the Watcher can survive.

There are 96 names on the list. They are those of businessmen, judges, and senators - the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful. And they are all going to die. A man named Takahashi has hired the world’s finest assassins to eliminate these men in secrecy and style, crossing names off the list without raising any suspicion. And they are killing ahead of schedule. But someone has noticed the pattern of these seemingly unrelated deaths, and she knows enough to call Blaine McCracken.

The young girl lies in a ditch without a scratch on her - a white high school student stretched out dead in the black part of Atlanta. She was a rich girl from a cold family, too genteel for the neighborhood where she died, and only the baby in her belly suggests how she might have gotten there. For Detective Frank Clemons, the scene is far too familiar. Too close to how it was when he found his own daughter, dead in the woods by her own hand, her youthful beauty cruelly ravaged by depression. To hang on to sanity, he must do everything he can to find justice for the dead.

One year ago Alex Towne's body was found. One month ago his mother saw him on the street. One week ago David Raker agreed to look for him. He'll wish he hadn't. Mary Towne's son, Alex, had been missing for six years before he finally turned up - as a corpse in a car wreck. But now she's convinced he's still alive.

Marla Bernstein is a pretty, dark-haired teenager who also happens to be the ward of Ben Morningstar - a semi-retired mobster who prefers to keep family business out of the newspapers. When Marla suddenly disappears, the gang boss is forced to call in private eve Amos Walker, who quickly learns his new employer doesn't take "no" for an answer when he offers a job opportunity. Unfortunately, the only clue to Marla's whereabouts is a pornographic photograph that clearly proves that she's become part of a world that disgusts even her criminal guardian....

Leopoldo Estuardo, detective retirado, es contactado por Inés Polti para que investigue el asesinato de su hermano. Estuardo se hace cargo de la investigación de Jerasmus Polti, un reconocido multimillonario, cuyo presunto asesino confeso es David Polti, su hermano psicópata. Con la ayuda de Nina, su centenial asistente, el investigador tendrá que interrogar a los testigos, hacer sus pesquisas y detectar las pistas y mentiras, sólo a través de una pantalla.

Vivian, a former reporter and a newlywed, doesn’t know what to do with herself after an incident with her husband forces her to question their partnership and her future. Yearning for the ocean air and a sense of home, she retreats to Tybee Island to clear her head and visit her Nana, a retired PI who now struggles with dementia. The phone rings: Catherine Grant, a housewife living in a private development nearby, woke up to find her husband and their baby girl missing, and she is desperate for help.

Gabriel "Fox" Morrison is starting a brand new chapter in his life. He spent years drifting after his time in the military and finally felt ready to settle in one spot. This leads him to becoming the head detective of the recently opened Stonewall Investigations in Miami. His first case is one that not only hits close to home, but the result could have huge repercussions for more than just him and his client.

Far beneath the sands of Alexandria, an archaeological team digs deeper than anyone has before, seeking an ancient power older than the pyramids. What they unearth is an evil that threatens the whole world. First it targets the worst of humanity: Ex-Nazis, Central American warlords, and the pushers who peddle drugs to children are found massacred, ripped limb from limb without having fired a shot in their own defense. But the next to die will be ordinary people.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni attends a course hosted by the local chamber of commerce entitled “Where Is Your Business Going?”. But rather than feeling energized, he comes back in low spirits, unsure how to grow the already venerable and successful Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Then an old friend from school approaches him about a new business venture that could be just the ticket. When it turns out he will need to mortgage his property in order to pursue this endeavor, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi wonder what this will mean for his current business - as well as their own.

Meet Roy Ballard, freelance videographer with a knack for catching insurance cheats. He's working a routine case, complete with hours of tedious surveillance, when he sees something that shakes him to the core. There, with the subject, is a little blond girl wearing a pink top and denim shorts - the same outfit worn by Tracy Turner, a six-year-old abducted the day before. When the police are skeptical of Ballard's report - and with his history, who can blame them? - it's the beginning of the most important case of his life.

As a favor to her rock journalist boyfriend, Thai-boxing, rock-and-roll private detective Kate Brannigan agrees to track down a missing song-writer Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is only a prelude to murder. Juggling her other cases, including a search to uncover the source of counterfeit luxury goods, Brannigan finds herself for the first time on the trail of a killer.

As the youngest of the five Walsh girls, Helen has had a tough time finding her way in the world. At 33, her job as a private investigator has proven less than fruitful and after losing her apartment, she’s moved back in with Mammy Walsh. In desperation, Helen takes on a case to locate the missing member of a once wildly popular boy band. The only hitch is that she has to work with her ex-boyfriend.

Ever since Angie Russo woke up from a near fatal run-in with a coffee maker, she's been able to talk to - and even worse, understand - one very spoiled tabby named Octavius. He says his owner was murdered and that she's the only one who can help bring the killer to justice. And, well, that's just the first of the wonderfully whacky mysteries they solve together. Add in a traumatized terrier witness and two murderous Sphynx cats who speak only in riddles, toss on your favorite deerstalker cap, and let's go sleuthing!

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough - who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974. Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one 40 years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on.

Childbirth can be dangerous even for the wealthy. So when opera singer Claire Buchanan shows Prudence and Geoffrey a postmortem cabinet photograph of her deceased twin sister and newborn niece, they express sadness but not surprise. The popular black-bordered portraits are the era's way of coping with the devastating losses that plague every family. What makes this death different is that Claire is convinced Catherine and her child were murdered.