Bill Pronzini

A locked room mystery that goes from stolen books to stolen lives and the hunt for a phantom stalker with a penchant for pouring acid to make his point give Nameless and his partner Jake more than enough work to earn their fees--as long as neither turns his back at the wrong moment.

"Cody Hatcher is the kind of teenager you don't want your kids hanging with. That's the book on him and it's why the citizens of Mineral Springs have no problem at all believing that he's guilty of three rapes. His mother, Cheryl, an old lover of Nameless's, is also being harassed by vindictive townspeople. It's against such odds that he must work to prove Cody innocent. There are few to help him and plenty to get in his way. It's a classic situation...

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...

Two novellas and two short stories featuring Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Bill Pronzini's iconic Nameless Detective! Zigzag is an original novella, in which a safe and simple accident investigation becomes the unraveling of a twisted murder scheme. Grapplin, which first appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, deals with the kind of missing person case that can end in only one of two ways, closure or heartbreak. In the second short,...

Carpenter and Quincannon Professional Detective Services is a fixture in San Francisco at the dawn of a new century. Sabina and John will protect their clients, doing what is necessary to run the dregs of society into the arms of the law. Sometimes that involves brute force. Other times, a more subtle touch is needed. Professor A. Vargas, medium extraordinaire, and his partner, Annabelle, don't use picks to open locked doors, and most certainly don't...

In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita, California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes, and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a case that has...

"Aside from the occasional drunken brawl or minor disturbance out on the reservation, he hasn't had to resort to his fists or sidearm in years. That is, until mid-October, 1914, when the theft of a wooden cigar store Indian sets off a crime wave like nothing Lucas has ever seen. Teenager Charity Axthelm goes missing, Reba Purvis's housekeeper is poisoned with cyanide Reba is sure was meant for her, and Lucas's gut tells him that this is only the beginning."--Amazon.com....

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.

The police said it was an accident, the dead woman's sister said it was murder... and that she knew who did it. Nameless isn't certain, but the more he learns about Nancy Mathias's life, the more inclined he is to accept the likelihood of murder-especially as the players still alive become more and more distasteful. Combine that with the situation Jake Runyon, one of the agency's partners, is facing as he searches for a young man who is either a murderer...

A mysterious stranger sparks mistrust and violence in a gripping tale of small-town prejudice, jealousy, and murder from Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini The arrival of big, ugly John C. Faith in a battered Porsche sends up warning flags throughout the small Northern California resort community of Pomo. No one trusts the stranger who refuses to talk about why he is there. And when a local beauty with questionable morals is found...