Bill Pronzini

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...

"The latest Carpenter & Quincannon mystery: "Attractive characters, a finely tuned plot, and fascinating snippets of California history. Who could ask for more?"-PublishersWeekly on The Stolen Gold Affair Quincannon's pursuit of two con men who have absconded to Hawaii with a considerable sum of his employer's assets dovetails nicely with Sabina's vision of a second honeymoon. But neither is wont to stay out of trouble, and Sabina inadvertently becomes...

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,...

With two con games being run by two deadly villains, Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon are forced to split up, but when Sabina's life is in danger, John realizes just how much she means to him. Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, is frequently called on to recover money-- and dignity that has been lost to conmen. When one case leaves Sabina Carpenter the only witness to a murder, the family of the culprit vows to stop at...

"We're told that there are seven deadly sins; not on the list is the deadliest of them all: Betrayal. For each of the detectives at the agency, a betrayal-- personal, against a child, against the elderly-- becomes not only the driving force behind an investigation, but the source of the kind of resolve that cannot be derailed by threats of any kind. Tamara's case began as something personal but explodes as her investigation of her former lover Lucas...

After a near brush with death, the Nameless Detective searches for the identity of a gentle, mentally disturbed homeless man who was brutally slain, a search that leads him to a small California town rife with murder and mayhem.

Investigating the death of a woman that has been ruled accidental by the police but that her sister insists was a murder by a known perpetrator, a reluctant Nameless begins to suspect that the victim's sister is telling the truth when he learns unsettling facts about her life.

A ruthless and amoral man feels fury and a desire for revenge upon "Nameless," the man he believes is responsible for ruining his life. One night he abducts "Nameless," takes him to a mountain cabin, chains him to a wall, and leaves him to die a horrible death. In the icy whiteness of dead winter, "Nameless" has nothing to do but search his memory. Who is his captor? When did their paths cross? And what could he have done to warrant such revenge?

Jordan Wise is a mild-mannered accountant with a large San Francisco engineering firm in the late 1970s. By his own admission, the first thirty-four years of his life were dull, empty. But that all changes when he meets and falls in love with Annalise Bonner, an ambitious young woman who craves excitement, a life on the edge. With her as the catalyst, Wise concocts and executes a meticulous plan to steal more than half a million dollars from his

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Agreeing to investigate threats by a mysterious extortionist against a newly rich young woman, Jake Runyon makes a series of surprise discoveries that cause him to be wrongfully accused of a crime and his employers to be subjected to a vicious legal vendetta--Publisher.