Showing results by author "Bill Pronzini" in All Categories

Carmody, a sometimes detective who also works as a freelance bodyguard and smuggler, operates off the Mediterranean island of Majorca. There he deals with thieves, smugglers, murderers, and other desperate men. By the author of Breakdown.

A simple case of blackmail gets lethally complicated when "Nameless" exposes a nasty scam that involves junior accounts executive Jay Cohalan, his unhappy wife, and a mistress with a serious drug problem. It's the kind of case Nameless likes, because bleeders - the blackmailers, extortionists, small-time grifters, and other opportunists who prey on the weak and gullible - sit near the top of his most-worthless-human-beings list. But soon Nameless finds his client shot dead in the middle of a four-poster bed.

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.

He's just gotten some bad news, and its impact has made him immobile and fearful. He's always known that the racking cough was not just something that was going to go away, that the ache in his chest was indicative of something more serious. And now he's found out that he has a lesion on his lung which could be malignant. He's set to sit and wait and do nothing else until he gets the results, but is swayed into action by a call from an old buddy of his from the service, Harry Burroughs.

For the Nameless Detective, investigations involving matters of the heart are to be avoided at all costs. When an old poker buddy asks him to help frazzled and distraught Kay Runyon, whose husband, Victor, is having a clandestine affair with a mystery woman named Nedra, Nameless unwillingly relents, but he soon discovers there is much more at stake than a simple affair.

Nameless had told Mitchell Krochek he'd do whatever he could to find his missing wife, Janice. She'd run away before - propelled by a gambling fever that grew ever higher - and Mitch had always taken her back. This time, when Nameless, his partner, Tamara, and the agency's chief operative, Jake Runyon, finally found her in a sleazy San Francisco hotel, she demanded a divorce. A few days later, a beaten and bloody Janice stumbled into the agency begging to go home. No one is surprised when, soon after her homecoming, she disappears again.

Old Man Hass is concerned by the near-catatonic behavior of his daughter, Grady. The young woman showed up at his doorstep a few days earlier, refused to admit that anything was wrong, and has been wandering around the farm, not talking, barely eating. The Nameless Detective thinks the old farmer would have been better off calling a psychiatrist - but he's at least willing to ask a few questions....

Things were quiet in Nameless' San Francisco agency, and his partner, Tamara, was itching to get back to work. A deadbeat father needed to be found, and Tamara needed to do some fieldwork, so she took off for his last known address. When Tamara goes missing, Nameless feels a sinking in his gut: A few years ago he had been kidnapped and left to die in a cabin in the woods, and something about Tamara's disappearance echoes too loudly.

So what if Nameless can't get his girlfriend, Kerry, to marry him? So what if he can't talk his partner, Eberhardt, out of his bitter funk? Skies are sunny, and the Nameless Detective wants them to stay that way. So he decides to do an old man a favor and find his missing granddaughter, Gianna. But no one said it would be easy. It seems Gianna's roommate is turning tricks, and Nameless' search quickly leads him to a pimp, a murder, and into a dark pit of human perversion.

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' life, the more inclined he is to accept the possibility that her sister is right. Combine that with the situation Jake Runyan, one of the agency's partners, is facing as he searches for a young man who is either a murderer or a victim, and life at their San Francisco detective agency has everyone on edge.

Cody Hatcher is the kind of teenager you don't want your kids hanging out 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, is being harassed by vindictive townspeople. It's against such odds that Nameless must work to prove Cody innocent. There are few to help him and plenty to get in his way. It's a classic situation for an iconic private investigator.

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 no easy solution.

In a remote spot, Hannigan is burying a body he claims is his dog. A man suddenly emerges from the fog, asking if he can call for help, since he had to quickly escape a nearby house from a jealous husband. The district is tense, since the news warns of an escaped lunatic killer from a mental hospital is on the loose. The two men return to Hannigan’s house and unexpectedly meet a third man in the fog, claiming to be a policeman, whose car broke down. Is one of them the escaped lunatic killer?

Nothing much happens in Peaceful Valley, Montana. And that's just how Sheriff Lucas Monk likes it. 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' housekeeper is poisoned with cyanide Reba is sure was meant for her, and Lucas' gut tells him that this is only the beginning.

Jordan Wise was an ordinary, unexciting accountant with a San Francisco engineering firm, insecure about his future - until he met Annalise Bonner. She only cared for adventure and the good life and, intoxicated by her, Jordan Wise resolved to get it for both of them. Drawing on his considerable bookkeeping skills, he embezzled half a million dollars of his company's money and arranged the perfect escape for him and Annalise. However, he couldn't control what happened next...

Today, Bill Pronzini is famed for his private-eye stories about the Nameless Detective and for his Shamus-award winning short stories, and Barry N. Malzberg is one of America's premier science fiction writers, but back in their salad days they collaborated on a number of stories, which have now become legendary. Problems Solved collects all their crime and mystery collaborations, mostly written during the 1970's and early 1980's, and a few recent collaborations (including two new stories written especially for this volume).

This is a "Nameless Detective" mystery story that starts with the thefts of several exotic animals from San Francisco's Fleishhacker Zoo - and ends with murder.

A "botched" hit and blackmail turn to revenge and betrayal in this gripping mystery by a master mystery writer.

Fresh from his recent marriage, the Nameless Detective returns to what appears to be a routine investigation, an adoption case. While searching through the effects of her recently deceased mother, 23-year-old Melanie Ann Aldrich discovers some papers that show she was adopted. With her father dead as well, it seems unlikely she will ever find out why she was never told. So she hires Nameless to find her true parents.

When his wife finally left him and filed for divorce, Rick Fallon put his house up for sale and took the last two weeks of his vacation. Then he loaded his Jeep and drove straight to Death Valley, the one place he truly belongs. On his third day in Death Valley, Fallon comes upon a deserted car, and soon thereafter, the almost-dead body of Casey Dunbar. After rescuing her, Fallon soon learns what had driven her to give up on life and - his own life on hold - he resolves to unravel the twisted and dangerous strands of hers.