Private investigator Jack McPhee has a two-word business philosophy: no partners. Rules are allegedly made to be broken, but Jack didn't expect that a contract to nab the so-called Calendar Burglar would force him to team up with a ten-pound, hyperactive Maltese. Or that as McPhee Investigations goes to the dogs, he'd fall deeply in-like with Dina Wexler, an undertall groomer, whose definition of a P.I. comes from watching w-a-a-y too many detective shows. Or that his absolutely genius idea to catch a thief would make him the prime--and only--suspect in a cold-blooded, diabolical homicide.
The first book in Ledbetter's (West of Bliss, etc.) new historical mystery series, set in 1870s Denver, explodes into action when young detective/self-proclaimed "scientist" Josephine Beckworth Sawyer blows up her tool shed with homemade nitroglycerine. Blowing things up is only Joby's hobby; she pays the bills by manning her dead father's investigative firm. But since no one will hire a female detective, she pretends he's still alive. The intrepid private eye longs for something other than marital dispute cases, and she gets her wish when she's hired to track down a robber who may also be a murderer.
This is another colourful, action-packed Victorian detective novel about the exploits of agent Mary Quinn. At a young age, Mary Quinn is rescued from the gallows and taken to Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls. The school turns out to be a front for a private detective agency. At age 17, Mary takes on her first case (A Spy in the House). In this, the second book of the series, Mary Quinn sets out to uncover the truth behind a suspicious death at St Stephen's Tower, better known as the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament.
Judge Dee (also, Judge Di) is the titular protagonist of Robert van Gulik's series of detective novels. The series is set in Tang Dynasty China and deals with various criminal cases solved by the upright Judge Dee (judges often play the investigator role in ancient Chinese crime stories). Authentic 18th-century Chinese detective novels. Dee and associates solve 3 interlocked cases: The Case of the Double Murder at Dawn, The Case of the Strange Corpse, and The Case of the Poisoned Bride.
While investigating the murder of a young Long Island couple, an NYPD detective is stunned to find that they may have been involved in dealing genetically altered viruses.
