American Detective Fiction

Between strike violence and a bootlegging war, no one is safe in Western Maryland. Western Marylanders are anticipating a short visit from President Harding during the summer of 1922. While the local movers and shakers want to impress the President, Matt Ansaro discovers a coal miners’ union plot against the President. Matt sets about trying to disrupt the plot while maintaining his undercover identity as a coal miner. The fallout from David Lakehurst's time in Western Maryland continues. Before he fled the area, Lakehurst wrote a letter to the area union organizer, outing Matt as an ...

A devastating accident. An artificially intelligent prosthetic that makes her sleepwalk… A series of murders. Lena hates her parents’ tech company. The world worships each cutting-edge CyberCorp release, but Lena has her doubts. Machines that think for themselves? She doesn’t trust them… So when a car accident lands her with the company’s first cybernetic arm, she’s pissed. A glitch in the arm’s artificial intelligence makes her sleepwalk. Meanwhile, children of CyberCorp employees start dying in their beds, and thanks to her unwanted nighttime strolls, Lena has no alibi. Is ...

Sherlock Holmes examines the body of a murdered scrubwoman that lies on the floor of the South Kensington Museum of Art. But it is not a real corpse he looks at, for those remains have been removed by the coroner. The body Holmes studies appears in a drawing of the murder scene precisely rendered by an American art student. The drawing leads Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the artist-a young Frank Norris before he turns his talents to writing- across the English countryside in search of the killer.

Miguel was doing time for offenses that he did not commit. Will he be the free man of honor again? Detective Alexis Kawarski of Azusa Police Department was all for catching the criminals and helping the victims of crimes. When she found a body inside the closet of Benjamin King, she was not surprised, but sad. Nobody in the neighborhood was willing to come forward to testify against Benjamin. Alexis needed to search for roundabouts as all straight paths seemed closed for her. An assistant in the office of a defense attorney tried to trade favors with her, in exchange for proving her husband...

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...

When a Western star is gunned down at a rodeo, Ellery Queen saddles up to solve the mystery.

Buck Horne has roped thousands of cattle, slugged his way out of dozens of saloons, and shot plenty of men dead in the street - but always on the back lot. He's a celluloid cowboy, and his career is nearly kaput. The real box-office draw is his daughter, Kit, a brawling beauty who can out shoot any rascal the studio has to offer. Desperate for a comeback, Buck joins Wild Bill Grant's traveling rodeo for a show in New York, hoping to land one last movie contract.

With no way out, she’ll face a pissed-off artificial intelligence and two killers… Lena’s ready to put it all behind her. She helped catch two killers who used CyberCorp to commit murder, and starting right now, she vows never to set foot inside the company’s headquarters again. But when those killers show up at CyberCorp Tower to confess everything they’ve hidden, Lena can’t resist seeing justice done. As she steels herself to confront them again, decommissioned androids go berserk inside the headquarters, forcing a lockdown. Lena is trapped inside not only with the killers she...

Violent death of a veteran resident in the neighborhood shook everyone. Can Detective Harper Bush find the killer before anyone else is harmed? Detective Harper Bush is a meticulous detective with the Department of Police, Plano, Texas. Murder of Mrs. Tammy Jones appeared to her as a personal blow to her childhood memory of treasure hunting during Halloween for the candies in the neighborhood where she grew up with her sisters. The mystery deepens as another member of the community went missing. The missing person was Harper's English teacher. Harper’s sisters, Alice and Joan, started an ...

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 ...

Jimmy Johnson’s body appeared in his neighbor’s backyard long after he was dead. Can the detectives bring a joyful holiday to a mourning community? Peyton Anderson was a feisty young detective in the Police Department of Moscow, Idaho. When a half decomposed body was discovered by a long absent city home owner in his backyard as he returned home, Peyton became one of the investigators. Peyton felt helpless as it took a long time to establish the identity of the victim. Peyton spent restless nights thinking that the murderer could escape before the identity of the victim was confirmed. ...

When a visitor to the city of wonderful rocks and minerals got killed, the city caught a fever of awe. Can the city ever get back to its feet? Detective Paisley Kimbell of Moab Police Department was not thrilled to investigate the death of a visitor to the city. The city started to depend a lot on tourism since the closure of uranium mines decades ago and started coping with surging property investments in the city. The death of a teenager could be a deadly publicity for the businesses in the city. The small businesses were already hurt by increasing costs of doing business. The new homes ...

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 ...

This collection of early Agatha Christie short stories includes "The Actress", "While the Light Lasts", "Within the Wall", "The House of Dreams", and "The Lonely God".

Who shot Santa Claus? During a trip to see Santa Claus, journalist Roland “Beanie” Bean and his young sons Ethan and Evan are shocked when Old St. Nick is shot! Beanie is anxious to cover the story of Santa’s shooting, but his editor at the Palmchat Gazette has other plans for him. Beanie has to investigate the grisly murder of a victim found dead in a car that had been set on fire. After he learns the man died of a gunshot wound and that the car was torched to cover up the crime, Beanie searches for more information, but his efforts are hampered by the detective on the case, a man ...

Cara is on the cusp of adventure. Unlike her best friends, she doesn’t want to go to college, she wants different kinds of challenges. And anyway, home just doesn’t fit anymore. She is growing distant from her friends and hasn’t spoken to her father in eons. To make matters worse, her ex-boyfriend and fellow climber, Nat, has popped back into town after breaking up with her over text. So it’s the perfect time to leave, and she has big plans for a gap year to rock-climb in Patagonia. But when Cara hears that her father is actually missing, things change.

Nature and noir combine in a spellbinding new stand-alone murder mystery by Dwight Holing, author of the bestselling Nick Drake series. An Indigenous girl from the Amazon named Blue Macaw mysteriously disappears after oil drillers invade her ancestral homeland. When her brother is accused of murdering a company executive, a no-holds-barred activist persuades Jess Parks to use his search and rescue skills to find Blue Macaw and catch the real killer. The chase is on and the consequences grow increasingly dire when Jess discovers he’s not the only one hunting for her. The trail takes him ...

As coal strike violence escalates, Matt Ansaro’s undercover identity is thrown into jeopardy. Having survived a coal mine cave-in, undercover Pinkerton detective Matt Ansaro is recovering from a broken leg. However, the union has called a coal strike, and Matt needs to walk a thin line to remain undercover and not let his employers know Matt is working in his hometown of Eckart Mines, Maryland. The 1922 national coal strike is even more violent in the Western Maryland coal fields as the non-union miners make an all-out effort to unionize. As strikebreakers are brought in to replace ...

The Theory of Irv provides a suspenseful journey through not just the storyline of the book’s plot, but an overview of American health policy. How it came to be a hundred years ago. How it has adapted in the last several decades. Perhaps more importantly, how we can fix it so we can have better health and health care for all Americans into the future.

Aaron and Grace Templeton will never forget the 1998 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The day their daughter Kiera got lost in the crowd. Investigative journalist Miren Triggs has spent years trying to help the Templetons find her. But with no leads, Miren fears there's nothing more she can do. Until Kiera's 8th birthday, when a video arrives showing Kiera alive and well, playing in a bedroom. Miren can't believe it - finally, a lead she can follow. Until another video arrives. It's the same bedroom. But Kiera is gone.