Showing titles in Private Investigators

Don't miss the final instalment in the Dales Detective series! 'A rollicking tale of everyday crime life among rural folk' - Daily Mail From death to danger and malice to mystery, Samson and Delilah have weathered many storms. Finally, things should be going smoothly. Except life’s never that...

1929: Miss Clara Vale is a woman ahead of her time. Rather than attending Oxford to bag an eligible Duke (as her mother, Lady Vale, so desperately hoped), she threw herself into a degree in chemistry, with aspirations to become a scientist in her own right. But the world isn't ready for Clara. Unable to land a job in science because she's a woman, she is stuck behind the desk at a dingy London library. Until her estranged Uncle dies suddenly, leaving her his private detective agency, and laboratory, in his will.

The world is in economic meltdown, but a mining town on the edge of nowhere is booming. With the town's population exploding, it's easy enough to hide a crime—or even a dirty past. Banished to the stock squad after the fallout from a police frame-up, Detective Senior Sergeant Cato Kwong is brought in from the cold to solve the case of a torso washed up on the wild shores of the Great Southern Ocean. When Kwong's investigation lifts the lid on the exploitation of migrant workers and disturbs an even darker criminal mind, the fallen cop faces powerful opposition.

Date with Justice, the ninth novel in Julia's Chapman's witty and engaging Dales Detective series, sees Delilah's brother under suspicion of murder. Can Delilah and Samson prove he's innocent? The Dales Detective Agency is on the brink of closure. Samson O’Brien has returned to his position as...

London, 1940. A woman lies dead in a bombed-out house. It looks like she's another tragic casualty of the Blitz, until police pathologist Aleck Northcote proves she was strangled and placed at the scene. But Northcote himself has something to hide. And when his past catches up with him, he, too, is murdered. Tewkesbury, 2020. Beneath the vast stone arches of Tewkesbury Abbey, a man has been fatally stabbed. He is Roddy March, an investigative journalist for a podcast series uncovering miscarriages of justice.

Snow dusts the cobbled streets of York as tourists flock to its famous Christmas markets. But for DCI Oldroyd, what starts as a peaceful evening on a ghost tour quickly turns deadly. The tour guide’s grim discovery is no theatrical performance—he finds the body of Henry Marlow, a notorious local landlord, in the doorway of a derelict building. Oldroyd soon has no shortage of suspects: a resentful ex-wife, angry tenants, and even the guide who knows every secret passage of the old city.

This is the world of the undercover operative: a world of lies, treachery, and deception. A world where violence erupts without warning, like a ticking time bomb on a crowded bus. It isn't a matter of if that bomb will go off - it is a matter of how close you are to it when it does.

Not every danger comes in the form of a mega-threat like a Titan. Some predators are a lot cozier...more personal. When one such creature threatens an independent tutor, Harry Dresden must shake off the blood and dirt of his most recent battles and rise to the occasion, even when it turns out that the new predator is far more dangerous and connected than first appearances would suggest.

It’s been twenty years since Madison James had any kind of success in Hollywood. Now she’s disappeared and a TikTok sleuth has found her purse discarded in a Los Angeles park. The news spreads like wildfire across a nation hungry for celebrity tragedy, and the struggling actress’s mysterious disappearance quickly becomes a national obsession. Detectives Sarah Delaney and Rob Moreno of the LAPD Missing Persons Unit take the case.

Saint-Sauver, home to Richard Ainsworth and Valérie d’Orçay’s detective agency, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its town twinning with Anglethorp Spa in Lincolnshire. Events are planned, a huge brocante, street parties and the centrepiece, an exhibition boules tournament between the two towns and a team of international boules all-stars.

Jim Butcher’s breakthrough #1 New York Times bestseller starring Chicago’s only professional wizard, Harry Dresden. When it comes to the magical ruling body known as the White Council, Harry is thought of as either a black sheep or a sacrificial lamb. And none hold him in more disdain than...

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.

In the eighth novel in the Dales Detective series, Date with Evil, Samson and Delilah are about to discover that all of their new cases may be connected to a network of evil that seems to be surrounding Bruncliffe. Will they solve them all before the danger comes directly to their door? 'A...

Dan Armstrong and the new love of his life, Anna, are heading to a hotel deep in the gorgeous Tuscan countryside for a long weekend, looking forward to some time away from the stresses of their day jobs. With the beautiful and historic city of Siena just around the corner, it promises to be relaxing and enjoyable. What could possibly go wrong? But when a mutilated body is discovered in the hotel grounds Dan is called in to help with the investigation. But who or what could have been responsible for such a vicious attack? Was it the work of wild animals, or is there a brutal murderer at large?

Maggie Gilbert and her children, Jack and Alice, live a pretty normal life. That is, until Maggie starts looking into her family tree. In doing so, she uncovers a dark mystery that endangers her children. She has to solve the mystery in the past, if she is to save her family in the present. Together with a fellow genealogist, Zelah, Maggie unearths more and more details about the drowning of a small girl and the unsolved disappearance of Maggie's ancestor.

DS Kat Ballantyne is still reeling from a revelation that turned life as she knew it upside down. But when a dog walker discovers the body of a woman among the standing stones known locally as the Three Sisters, there’s no time to focus on her own troubles. Kat is drawn back to work to investigate. At first, the death appears to be an accident. But then Kat discovers an infinity symbol branded onto the dead woman’s abdomen.

Private investigator Jim Bean is a straightforward, to-the-point man. He likes his cases to follow suit. But when his latest client, Sophie Evers, asks him to find her brother Daniel, Jim has no idea how complicated his life is about to become. As he falls deep into a manipulative game of cat and mouse, Jim uncovers the horrible truth about Sophie. Now he must set things right before her plan leads to the loss of innocent souls...even more than it already has.

Detective Sebastian Clifford and his partner Lucinda "Birdie" Bird are about to embark on their most challenging case yet when Lady Angelica Charing tasks them with finding the son she secretly gave away when she was only sixteen. Time's running out. This long-lost son isn't just a missing puzzle piece; he's the last hope for a life-saving kidney transplant for his dying half-brother. The stakes couldn't be higher.

Edinburgh, 1948. Welfare Officer Helen Crowther has enough on her plate between her hectic job, her complicated love life, and her growing reputation as a troublemaker. Last year's scandal did nothing to help with the disapproval she already gets as a woman in her line of work. All she wants now is to focus on doing what she loves: helping the poor of the Fountainbridge ward in the city of Edinburgh. The last thing she needs is another string of murders to distract her . . .

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic fiction read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly remastered stories are now available to download for the first time. This...