Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Private Investigators

Despite being the granddaughter of an earl, Julia Renshaw is under pressure to marry for money - and has settled for the wealthy, and older, Gilbert Townsend. It’s clear to her sister Phoebe and lady’s maid Eva that this is not a love match. At the reception aboard the groom’s yacht, there is tension between Gil and several guests: his best man, his spinster sister and his younger cousin and current heir. Moreover, the bride has discovered that Gil’s pretty secretary, among others, will be joining them for the honeymoon.

Manchester PI Kate Brannigan finds herself with no choice but to take the only case on offer: bodyguarding a paranoid soap star. But the glitzy world of showbusiness has a darker side. And as Kate scratches the surface, she uncovers dramas, threats and bitter rivalries. And when a self-styled ‘Seer to the Stars’ is murdered, Kate is left with more questions than answers.

It was an open-and-shut case when 18-year-old Hannah Docherty was arrested for the brutal murder of her family; she's been incarcerated ever since. When psychotherapist Frieda Klein is asked to assess Hannah, she reluctantly agrees. What she finds horrifies her.... Frieda is haunted by the thought that Hannah might be as much of a victim as her family. Frieda soon begins to realise that she's up against someone who'll go to any lengths to protect themselves....

Hettie and Tilly are summoned to a mysterious tea party hosted by Tilly's long-lost great-aunts. The ancient windmill they live in is not what it seems, and very soon the mill begins to reveal its terrifying secrets of murder and betrayal. Tilly must face her family's demons as Hettie fights to unravel the tragedies of the past. Who are the hippy cats camped in the field? Why do the walls of the windmill whisper at night? And who haunts the derelict priory? Will Hettie and Tilly have the wind blown out of their sails before this baffling case is brought to a grinding conclusion?

Caught as a teenager at a wild party, and sent home in disgrace, Lucy Sheridan is finally returning to Summer River 13 years later. Lucy now works for a private investigation firm, and Summer River is now a trendy spot in California's wine country. Mason Fletcher, has changed, too, setting up a security firm of his own. But when he and Lucy make a shocking discovery inside her aunt’s house, Mason is determined to protect her.

Istanbul 1838. Lefevre, a French archaeologist, has arrived in Istanbul determined to uncover a lost Byzantine treasure. Yashim is hired to investigate him, but when the man turns up dead, there is only one suspect: Yashim himself. Once again, the investigator finds himself in a race against time to uncover the startling truth behind a shadowy secret society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, caught in a deadly game deep beneath the city streets, a place where the stakes are high—and betrayal is death...

Gordon Tilson is a lonely widower who befriends a young woman online. When her sister is injured in a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill and runs off to Ghana to surprise his new love. But he soon disappears without a trace. Frustrated by the inadequacies of the local police in Accra, his son Derek turns to a PI agency for assistance where there is a new detective on the scene determined to prove her worth.

Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count and rip apart language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable. When Frank is fatally stabbed, Lionel's world is suddenly turned upside down.

London, 1924. When shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, his life abruptly turns from books and lectures to daring chases and narrow escapes. Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he'd known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labor Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death with a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders?or are they next in line as victims?

So runs the blurb of ‘Schooled in Murder', a crime novel written by Ben Joseph, who is found dead in Barnes Pond the morning after giving a talk as part of the Barnes Book Festival. DI Garibaldi and his team are shocked to discover that the writer has been killed in exactly the same place, and in exactly the same way, as the victim in ‘Schooled in Murder'.

Sonny Boy Marsallas, a New Orleans street hustler, entrusts Detective Dave Robicheaux with a mysterious notebook, kicking off a series of violent incidents and raising questions that need answers, and fast... What did Sonny's girlfriend know that got her murdered? Why is Sonny known as Red Angel by Central American guerrillas? And what do the Mafia want with a desolate stretch of New Iberia? This time Sonny Boy may have pushed his luck with the Giacano family one deal too far.

The governor of Wyoming has given game warden Joe Pickett the thankless assignment of taking a tech baron on a hunting trip. But unbeknownst to them, as they trek further into the wilderness, a hunter is hot on their heels. Joe must rely on his wits and his knowledge of the outdoors to protect himself and his charge. Meanwhile, when Joe's closest friend, Nate Romanowski, and his own daughter, Sheridan, learn of the threat to his life, they follow him into the woods to rescue him, and all three come together for one final showdown.

When private investigator Sandro Cellini is invited to attend a glamorous launch party in Florence, he has no idea what he's walking into. The former head of security for this elite development has just died under suspicious circumstances, and Sandro finds himself stepping into a dead man's shoes. When one of the residents dies suddenly in suspicious circumstances, events begin to spiral out of control.

Sandro Cellini hasn't set foot in La Vipera, a derelict farmhouse just outside Florence that was once home to a free-living commune, for 40 years - until the discovery of two bodies nearby leads him back there. At the start of his career, Cellini investigated an accusation that minors were being corrupted at La Vipera, but no charges were ever brought. Now, tasked with tracking down former members of the community, he has a chance to discover what really went on. But in order to learn the true nature of the commune's mission, he must face his own traumatic memories.

The independent kingdom of Scotland flourished until the beginning of the last century. Its great trading port of Challaid, in the northwest of the country, sent ships around the world, and its merchants and bankers grew rich on their empire in Central America.But Scotland is not what it was, and the docks of Challaid are almost silent. The huge infrastructure projects collapsed, like the dangerous railway tunnels under the city. And above ground the networks of power and corruption are all that survive of Challaid's glorious past.

Irving Levy is a man with few roots and, now that he is terminally ill, is anxious to find anyone to whom he can leave his considerable property. When he learns that there may be more to the disappearance of his younger sister, who disappeared when she was a baby, he engages the services of Hakim and Arnold to investigate. Unwittingly in mortal danger, the private detectives and Levy enter the world of Barking Park Fair and the secrets its brightly coloured attractions conceal. Secrets that lead them back to the chaotic world of postwar Europe, where few people were what they seemed.

Freddy left her childhood home in Newhaven 22 years ago and swore never to return. But now her parents are dead and she's back in her hometown to help her brothers manage the family fishmonger. Nothing here has changed: the stink of fish coming up from the marshes; the shopping trolleys half-buried by muddy tides; the neighbours sniffing for a new piece of gossip. It's not what Freddy would have chosen, but at least while she's here she'll get to see her childhood best friends, Toni and Pauline. At school, the three of them were inseparable.

Brooklyn, mid-2000s. After leaving behind the comforts of a prestigious law firm, a restless attorney attempts to make ends meet by picking up odd jobs from a colourful assortment of clients. When the mysterious Anna Reddick turns up at his apartment with ten thousand dollars in cash and asks him to track down her missing husband, he trusts it will be an easy case.

Out of the blue, private investigator and ex-soldier Lee Arnold receives a visit from an old army mate, Abbas al'Barri. Now living in Ilford with his family, Abbas is convinced that he's had a message from his estranged son, Fayyaad, who was radicalised and was last thought to be fighting for ISIL in Iraq. Does Fayyaad's message indicate a change of heart? Abbas is desperate for Lee's help in establishing some contact with him.

Waldo, a onetime LAPD superstar, now lives in solitude deep in the woods. He has left behind his career and his girlfriend, Lorena, to pay self-imposed penance for an awful misstep on an old murder case. But the old ghosts are about to come roaring back. Alastair Pinch is a onetime Royal Shakespeare Company thespian who now slums it as the 'wise' Southern judge on a tacky network show. He's absurdly rich, often belligerent, and typically drunk - a damning combination when Alastair's wife is found dead on their living room floor and he can't remember what happened.