Showing results by author "Bill Pronzini" in All Categories

It's a lazy mid-August Sunday afternoon. The nameless detective and his old friend Lieutenant Eberhardt are relaxing on the patio, drinking beer and shooting the breeze, when the doorbell rings. As Eberhardt answers the door, the detective hears two sharp echoing reports - gunshots; they could only be gunshots.

A collection of short mystery stories by award-winning author Bill Pronzini. In "The Man Who Collected the Shadows", a mild-mannered file clerk with a passion for pulpy detective stories learns that he has supernatural powers. In "Shade Work", a con man picks the wrong marks. Fans of mysteries and detective novels will enjoy listening to these 14 entertaining stories.

Intrigue, crime, and murder create suspense in this edge-of-your-seat collection of cat mystery stories whose plots are all centered on a beloved feline, written by some of the finest, best-selling mystery writers of all time.

Former pulp writer and current hack Russell Dancer invites Nameless to the first annual Western Pulp Convention in San Francisco. He wants Nameless to help him locate the person who is trying to blackmail Dancer for a purported plagiarism of a story called "Hoodwink". Arriving at the convention, Nameless discovers that a group of former friends (and now uncomfortable colleagues) have all received blackmail notes.

Not all the folks who roamed the Old West were cowhands, rustlers, or cardsharps. And they certainly weren't all heroes. Give-a-Damn Jones, a free-spirited itinerant typographer, hates his nickname almost as much as the rumors spread about him. He's a kind soul who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's what happened in Box Elder, a small Montana town. Tensions are running high, and anything -or anyone - could be the fuse to ignite them.

Bill, the "Nameless Detective," and his wife Kerry were in the Sierra foothills, just outside of Six Pines, falling in love with a cabin. It was all perfect, until Kerry went missing. They'd seen Balfour at breakfast at the diner and Kerry remembered his name - PR people are like that. Which was unfortunate, because when she ran into him along the trail on that sunny afternoon and called him by name, he panicked. And that's when Bill's nightmare began.

In The Bughouse Affair, the first of a new series of lighthearted historical mysteries set in 1890s San Francisco, former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her detective partner, ex-Secret Service agent John Quincannon, undertake what initially appear to be two unrelated investigations. The two cases eventually connect in surprising fashion, but not before two murders and assorted other felonies complicate matters even further. And not before the two sleuths are hindered, assisted, and exasperated by the bughouse Sherlock Holmes.

"Checkmate." That was the last word uttered to Charlie Chan and Prefect of Police Claude DeBevre by a dying reporter. The man had been murdered....stabbed to death and left to die in a vacant hotel room. It is the second murder in 24 hours at the Transcontinental Chess Tournament, and Charlie Chan has been summoned from a peaceful and long-deserved vacation to help solve the crime before international scandal ruins the tournament's good name!

A con man always has a bag of tricks, ready to fool the unsuspecting, and almost everyone is unsuspecting until they get taken. When that happens, they turn to Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, to recover their money and what’s left of their dignity, and perhaps even to save their lives.

When a pleasant afternoon's bicycling through Golden Gate Park with a friend ends with the revelation of threatening letters, followed by a gunshot in a mansion garden, Sabina Carpenter knows this is a case that demands her immediate and undivided attention. The questions her partner John Quincannon has to unravel are not difficult: Wrixton, a wealthy banker, has met his extortionist's first demand, but the order to pay another $5,000 is too much to face. The banker's real problem is something he doesn't want to reveal.

In response to a string of gold thefts in a Mother Lode mine, Quincannon goes undercover as a newly hired miner to identify and capture the men responsible. Meanwhile, Sabina finds herself not only making plans for her and Quincannon’s wedding, but also investigating both an audacious real estate scam and an abusive young man’s villainous secret.

Drug lords, missing millionaires, corrupt cops… just another day for Carpenter and Quincannon Detective Services. Two missing bodies and two separate investigations take Carpenter and Quincannon from the heights above San Francisco Bay to the depths of Chinatown's opium dens. For John Quincannon, this is a first: searching a Chinatown opium den for his client's husband, missing in the middle of a brewing tong war set to ignite over the stolen corpse of Bing Ah Kee.

The Nameless Detective has taken many cases over the years...and these two will test his agency's resources. The first involves a woman whose husband is accidentally killed in a remote cabin in the Sierras. The wife isn't buying that he was alone, and she's determined to uncover his secret and get closure...in spite of any potential heartbreak. Nameless' next case is a missing person - a person who was agoraphobic and never left the house.

Matthew Cape has no time to worry about his fears; caught up in events not of his making, but inescapable, he does things he's never dared and goes places he's only dreamed about. He's given up everything he ever had, but nothing at all of what he is, and if there's a price to pay, Cape is the one who will pay it. The Corvette is easy, the skydiving fun, and gambling, well... that has always been a passion, though never at stakes this high.

Things are heating up in Big Coulee. Unorthodox road agent Horse-shy Halloran, who got his name because horses always do him dirt, has been seen in town buying women's clothing. The gold miners' association is about to ship $70,000 of gold dust. The brutal and fearsome Burgoyne brothers are in the neighborhood. And Wells Fargo agent Samuel Quarternight has fallen in love with the banker's daughter, Faye.

Men who participated in a never-solved robbery of an armored truck are being picked off one-by-one 11 years after the crime.

Three outlaws arrive in the country town of Big Tree, California, on a blazing hot day of a long dry summer, in this well-crafted western by veteran Pronzini ( The Last Days of Horse-Shy Halloran). A huge shipment of munitions is a-sittin' in Big Tree just a-waitin' to be stole-and they're a-goin' to do it. But the burglary gets bungled, an explosion sets the town on fire, and there is only one way out of the parched valley for the townsfolk - by train.

Secret Service agent John Quincannon has found little joy in his life since the day his stray bullet killed an innocent young woman and her unborn child. Still in mourning a year later, Quincannon seeks his solace at the bottom of a jug of sour mash. But he'll have to buck up-and sober up for his next mission. The Service needs him to bring down a major counterfeiting ring responsible for the death of one of his colleagues.

Broke and fleeing his shattered marriage, Jack Lennox takes a bus towards the southwestern desert. He takes work with Al Perrins, only to see two well-dressed men murder Perrins the following morning. But they see Lennox, and he becomes both hunter and hunted. A novel of suspense by the author of The Snatch.

The sleepy town of Tule Bend came alive with terror after a drifter was found hanging. The constable knew his job was on the line if he didn't do something. When more swinging bodies appeared he knew he had to move fast because he was next on the hangman's list.