Private Detective Fiction

As the mists roll over the fens and enigmatic lights twinkle in the distance, only the locals know their way along the hidden paths through the mysterious watery terrain of one of England's most beautiful and sometimes dangerous places. Detective Matt Ballard may have retired but there's still plenty going on in the fens to keep him busy. Someone trashes an old lady's garden and daubs her isolated cottage with hateful graffiti. Emilia Swain seems to be totally harmless, so why is she being targeted?

It is the autumn of 1880, and Dr. John Watson has just returned from Afghanistan. Badly injured and desperate to forget a nightmarish expedition that left him doubting his sanity, Watson is close to destitution when he meets the extraordinary Sherlock Holmes, who is investigating a series of deaths in the Shadwell district of London. Several bodies have been found, the victims appearing to have starved to death over the course of several weeks, and yet they were reported alive and well mere days before.

When 14-year-old Zoe Johnson doesn't come home on a Monday night in early December, the alarm bells in Kings Lake Central police station do not ring straight away - after all, she's from the Dockmills, one of the toughest estates in the town. But for Detective Sergeant DC Smith, due to retire in just three weeks' time, there are some strange echoes of the case that has haunted him for the past 13 years. Maybe it's simply his over-developed sense of irony, or maybe, in his final days as a police officer, Smith must look once more into the eyes of a serial killer.

Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has become a worldwide phenomenon thanks to the appeal of endearing protagonist Precious Ramotswe and the author’s charmingly quirky prose. In this 13th installment, Mma Ramotswe’s attention is focused on a pesky disciplinary problem at her adopted daughter’s school - while Grace Makutsi adjusts to wedded bliss and the famed Clovis Andersen arrives in Botswana looking for more than bush tea.

Attorney Rhonda Bird returns home after a long estrangement when she learns her father has died. There she makes two important discoveries: Her father stopped being an accountant and had opened up a private detective agency, and she has a teenage half sister named Baby. Baby brings in a client to the detective agency, a young man who claims he was abducted.

The story that made Agatha Christie famous ends with one of her most dramatic twists. The villagers of King’s Abbot are shocked when a wealthy local widow commits suicide and the very next day her fiancé, Roger Ackroyd, is stabbed to death. Dr. James Sheppard, the local physician, discovers the body of his friend and narrates the ensuing hunt for the killer. All the guests and staff at Ackroyd's country house seem to have solid alibis - except for his missing stepson.

Charlie Hills, former desk sergeant at Kings Lake Central, is in trouble. He hasn't told Smith, his old friend and sparring partner, but someone has, and now the two former policemen are about to embark on a difficult and potentially dangerous search for the truth. For one of them, it could be life-changing.

They call him the gourmet detective; the only thing sharper than his mind is his palate. When chefs need a rare ingredient, an ancient wine, or simply a new idea to gain that extra Michelin-star boost, they come to the detective's cozy London office and plead for his help. For top-notch cooking, he is always happy to lend his taste buds to the cause.

On Christmas Eve, DCI Mackenzie Jones is called to a shooting at a remote farmhouse. Ralph Mallender believes his father lies dead inside. When three more bodies are discovered, it's clear a festive family gathering has turned into a gruesome tragedy. At first it seems like an open and shut case: a murder suicide committed by Ralph's volatile brother Cameron. Then new evidence makes Mack suspect the man who reported the crime is in fact the perpetrator. But Mack isn't the only one with a stake in the case.

Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York - for her first London season.

When a local man, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, goes missing, his parents have good reason to be concerned. Emily Willows is a friend of the family and says that she knows just the person to find him - and, as Summer Lane soon points out, the fact that this also fits in with Emily's plan to set up her very own detective agency is surely just a fortuitous coincidence.

London, 1941: Miss Jane Treen is at her desk, strong black coffee in hand and fluffy ginger cat by her side, when her top-secret government work is interrupted by an urgent call to Devon. A woman has been found dead in a lake in a place where she shouldn’t have been. Jane needs to gather the clues and find the killer before someone else from the agency gets hurt… Shy and handsome code-breaker Arthur Cilento is bewildered by the arrival of the efficient Miss Treen and her cat Marmaduke.

When their best friend is murdered, Angela begs Slater to take the case. Maggie, the little sister he barely remembers, offers to help. It turns out the feisty redhead is one hell of an investigator. As their feelings turn romantic, Maggie and Slater follow a trail of deception and murder, hoping to prove their dead friend innocent of what they fear most. No one is safe, and the men involved will stop at nothing to cover their tracks - tracks that will lead the pair into the bleak world of human trafficking and expose the darkest secrets of Point Road and the Jeffries family.

An old friend's sister disappears without a trace. There's no sign of foul play, but she'd been acting very peculiarly. Meanwhile, Liz's cousin, Christie, comes to stay. She takes an immediate - and uncharacteristic - dislike to the local bookshop owner, Gina. Why does everyone put up with her awful behavior? Christie is convinced that Gina is manipulating everyone around her. Is she onto something dangerous or just pushing her new friends away? No one believes her suspicions until another friend goes missing late at night on the misty Fen marshes.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "A well-written, gripping story. Great characters, great location and plenty of drama." ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "A stunning crime and mystery debut with twists and turns to keep you turning the pages." Exe Marks the Spot is perfect for fans of crime, mystery and detective stories by authors like Richard Osman, Ian Moore, Sarah Yarwood-Lovett, Fiona Leitch and Robert Thorogood. A disappearance. A murder. Two mysteries connected. Meet Angus Darrow, straight-laced, ex-police detective, turned private investigator. He’s hired to find a missing vulnerable ...

The first three crime thrillers in the Detective Sebastian Clifford series together in a single collection for the first time. This collection includes Web of Lies, Speak No Evil, and Never Too Late.

The new mystery series for fans of Agatha Christie and cozy crime. Penny Küfer has finally realized her lifelong dream by beginning her first week of training as a detective. But instead of the hoped-for well wishes from friends and family, she finds herself disinherited by her class-conscious mother and dumped by her grasping fiancé. There is only one consolation left to her: the long-dreamed-of trip on the Occident Express, the most luxurious train ever to run on Europe's rails. But even before the ambitious young sleuth can enjoy her first glass of champagne, she finds herself with a ...

Thomas Fool is an Information Man, an investigator tasked with cataloging and filing reports on the endless stream of violence and brutality that flows through Hell. His job holds no reward or satisfaction, because Hell has rules but no justice. Each new crime is stamped "Do Not Investigate" and dutifully filed away in the depths of the Bureaucracy. But when an important political delegation arrives and a human is found murdered in a horrific manner - extravagant even by Hell's standards - everything changes.

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.

The first of Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant mysteries concerns the murder of a man, standing in a ticket queue for a London musical comedy. With his customary tenacity, Grant pursues his suspects through the length of Britain and the labyrinth of the city.