For each of the detectives at the agency, a betrayal becomes not only the driving force behind an investigation, but the source of the kind of resolve that cannot be derailed by threats. For Nameless, trying to find out who is gaslighting an old woman only exposes the ugly side of family.

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, and only by a hair’s breadth escapes a similar fate. During a relentless hunt for his unknown assailant in San Francisco’s shadowy underworld, he encounters bleeders of every ilk, and, in a climax as powerful as it is unexpected, finally confronts his own demons.

David Virden’s case is simple enough: Namless must find his ex-wife and deliver some papers to her. But she refuses the papers, sends a message to Virden to never contact her again, and slams the door. His colleague, Tamara, tells Nameless that Virden threatens to sue, stops payment on his checks, and claims that the woman they located isn’t his wife. Then he disappears and his fianc+(r)e hires Nameless to find out why. Clearly, someone is trying to make Nameless the monkey in the middle. Then things take a decidedly more deadly turn…

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.

Nedra is a modern-day Circe who attracts men who become dangerously obsessed with her. Compounding the sticky situation at hand, Victor’s obsession with her takes a bizarre twist when she suddenly vanishes without a trace. Did she disappear willingly or was she the victim of one of her lovers’ private demons? Nameless must find out before it’s too late to save Victor and Kay from tragic ends. And he must do so while trying to cope with a very personal and private demon of his own.

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. The husband swears that while their relationship was strained due to his wife’s condition, he was still in love with her. He begs Nameless to clear him and find his wife before the cops come for him.

Endgame is a classic Nameless tale–twisty puzzles featuring one of mystery’s best-loved detective.

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 kind of place where people die. What happen to Gianna Fornessi? Ask Nameless: he’s the one gripping his .38 and writing epitaphs in his head …

Nameless had told Mitchell Krochek that 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.

But gambling addiction has a way of twisting things, and the blood on Mitchell and Janice Krochek’s kitchen floor was a card off the bottom of the deck.

Janice is missing again, Mitchell is the prime suspect, and as Nameless searches for the truth behind her disappearance, he uncovers a vicious racket that preys on gambling-fever victims …

Not all the folks who roamed the Old West were cowhands, rustlers, or cardsharps. And they certainly weren’t all heroes.

Give-a-Damn Jones, a free-spirited itinerant typographer, hates his nickname almost as much as the rumors spread about him. He’s a kind soul who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That’s what happened in Box Elder, a small Montana town. Tensions are running high, and anything–or anyone–could be the fuse to ignite them: a recently released convict trying to prove his innocence, a prominent cattleman who craves respect at any cost, a wily traveling dentist at odds with a violent local blacksmith, or a firebrand of an editor who is determined to unlock the town’s secrets.

Jones walks into the middle of it all, and this time, he may be the hero that this town needs.

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, twenty-three year old Melanie Ann Aldrich discovers some papers which 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.

In the course of his investigation, Nameless quickly learns why Melanie’s parents never told her she was adopted and why everyone is so eager to keep it quiet. Melanie’s biological mother, an emotionally disturbed young woman who died in her early twenties of a brain tumor, was raped by a then teenage delinquent named Steven Chehalis. In his attempt to piece together the past, Nameless tracks down Chehalis only to discover that he’s a serial rapist responsible for a large number of rapes and at least two murders as well.

Nameless finds himself in a race to bring Chehalis to justice. Chehalis, aware of Nameless’s intention, sets his psychotic sights on both his biological daughter, Melanie, and Nameless’s new bride. Hardcase is Pronzini’s most suspenseful mystery to date.

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 began. In a small town with limited resources, where a major case was keeping everyone busy, a private investigator demanding action wasn’t very popular. They were doing all they could, Bill was told. But it wasn’t enough.

With the help of his longtime associate Jake Runyon, Bill begins a search that uncovers just what price the citizens in a town without pity might have to pay. Bill and Jake follow the few leads they have and come face to face with the Hellbox.

Nameless had seen enough death in his years; spending his time watching someone drive to several funerals a day, funerals for people he didn’t know, was more than he could take. And he had a non-professional problem of his own: his relationship with his wife, Kerry, had hit a wall, and nothing he did got him over it and to the other side. There was one possibility, one thing he’d done (or not done), but knowing that didn’t seem to help. Also not helping was the mood in the office. Tamara had something eating at her and Jake, well, Jake needed a case so he could stop thinking about what was happening with his son. It was a mournful time for everyone.

Then the bits and pieces began to fall into place: The funerals James Troxell was attending were all for women who had died violently. Was he responsible? One woman thought Troxell had killed her sister, and her insistence was becoming a problem.

Too many deaths, too many roads leading nowhere, too many crimes and secrets and fears were coming together as heavy as the fog rolling over the Bay. Too many answers were needed before there’d be sunshine again for anyone and the mourning could stop.

Young, newly rich Verity Daniels claims to be receiving threatening demands for money from a mysterious caller. When Jake Runyon agrees to investigate, it seems a relatively simple matter to expose the extortionist by setting a trap for him.

The case, however, is nowhere near as clear-cut as it first appears.

And Verity Daniels is nowhere near the helpless victim she pretends to be.

A series of surprise revelations culminates in Runyon being falsely accused of a crime that never happened, and he and his employers then become the targets of a vicious legal vendetta. A sudden act of violence turns the case upside down, leading to a much more serious charge against Jake.

With the help of partner Tamara Corbin, Nameless (known as Bill to his associates) puts aside the difficult personal issue that has kept him sidelined at home and works to clear both Runyon’s and the agency’s good names. The task requires untangling Verity Daniels’ bizarre past and present relationships, and before Bill succeeds, he must overcome a deadly threat to his own safety.

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. When he discovers the house she had investigated and sees the words “taking us to a house in the wood” scrawled on a wall, the echo becomes thunderous. Now it’s a race against time, and Nameless is already late.

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 and 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. As Nameless begins to investigate, he discovers that Grady’s affliction is more than just a broken heart: she has been the victim of brutal psychological torture. In order to save her, he’s not only going to have to find her tormentor, he’s going to have to call on his own darkest impulses and turn the quarry into the victim.

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.

Nameless wasn’t supposed to come into the office on Mondays; he wasn’t supposed to answer the phone. On this Monday, he did both. The call was from Barney Rivera–once a friend, now despised–at Great Western Insurance. Against his better judgment, Nameless agreed to meet with him. The investigation was relatively simple: a multimillionaire rare books collector had reported the theft of eight volumes, worth a half million dollars. From a locked library. To which he has the only key. The books were all crime fiction and suspense–a locked-room mystery about mysteries. This ordinary Monday brought a second oddball case: The Henderson brothers were being stalked. Someone had dug up the ashes of their late father and poured acid over them, then destroyed the headstone the same way, and left a sign warning that this was just the beginning. Searching for peace of mind and the distraction of work, Jake Runyon is more than happy to bring an end to the brothers’ terror.

My profession, bottom line, is helping people in trouble. It’s not just a job to me; it’s what I live for.

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.

The Bags of Tricks Affair is the latest charming historical mystery in MWA Grand Master Bill Pronzini’s detective series.

A con man always has a bag of tricks, ready to fool the unsuspecting, and almost everyone is unsuspecting until they get taken. When that happens, they turn to Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, to recover their money and what’s left of their dignity, and perhaps even to save their lives.

When one such case leaves Sabina Carpenter the only witness to a murder, the family of the culprit vows to stop at nothing to keep her silent. The threat leaves John Quincannon deeply concerned for Sabina’s safety, but there’s no rest for the wicked and so the crime-solving duo must split up to tackle two separate con games, run by two villains with deadly bags of tricks at hand.

And when Sabina’s life is put in danger, John must rush to save her while grappling with the terrifying realization of exactly how much she means to him.

The Nameless Detective is called upon to find out how rare books and maps are being stolen from an antiquarian bookshop with a faultless alarm system. He goes undercover in the store, only to be foiled when a theft occurs right under his nose. Then, as he ponders the case (while on a date with the lovely Kerry), he’s violently struck from behind by a car that seems bent on driving him off the road. Will Nameless survive this attempt on his life and solve the case?

In The Bughouse Affair, former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her detective partner, ex-Secret Service agent John Quincannon, undertake what initially appear to be two unrelated investigations. Sabina’s case involves the hunt for a ruthless lady “dip” who uses fiendish means to relieve her victims of their valuables at Chutes Amusement Park and other crowded places.

Quincannon, meanwhile, is after a slippery housebreaker who targets the homes of wealthy residents, following a trail that leads him from the infamous Barbary Coast to an oyster pirate’s lair to a Tenderloin parlor house known as the Fiddle Dee Dee. The two cases eventually connect in surprising fashion, but not before two murders and assorted other felonies complicate matters even further. And not before the two sleuths are hindered, assisted, and exasperated by the infamous Sherlock Holmes.

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 and 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 firm. They escape to the Virgin Islands, but their plans to live a life of quiet luxury are beset by unexpected pitfalls–and Wise is forced to

carry out two more ingenious schemes as a result. All three of his crimes are perfect–or are they?

The Crimes of Jordan Wise is a classic tale of love, greed, betrayal, and violence told with Bill Pronzini’s characteristic twists and turns and his special brand of suspense. It is also a powerful psychological examination of a man, a woman, and the wages of sin.

The Flimflam Affair is the latest charming historical mystery in Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini’s detective series.

Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services is a fixture in San Francisco at the dawn of a new century. While the future is unclear, Sabina and John know one thing for certain: they will protect their clients from flimflammers, thieves, and murderers, and do whatever it takes to run these dregs of society into the arms of the law.

Sometimes, that requires a subtle touch. Professor A. Vargas, self-styled medium extraordinaire, and his partner Annabelle, use guile and trickery to swindle bereaved men and women eager to contact the spirits of deceased loved ones. John and Sabina must not only unmask these charlatans, but also solve the riddle of an impossible murder in the midst of a seance.

Other cases involve brute force and personal danger. Such as the theft of a burglarproof safe mysteriously emptied of gold bullion. And John’s pursuit of a ruthless gang of counterfeiters, whose leader appears to be a man from John’s past in the Secret Service–a man thought long dead.

Adding spice to these exploits is Sabina and John’s personal relationship, which is rapidly progressing to an exciting new level.

Ravaged by time and abandoned by the people who once flocked there in search of golden nuggets, Ragged-Ass Gulch is a ghost town. What’s left is a small, proud, and close pack of people who aren’t looking for change. But change seems to be afoot as several mysterious fires plague the town. That’s where the Nameless Detective comes in.

A series of seemingly random murders have been happening along a fifty mile stretch of the rugged northern California coast, committed by an unknown dubbed the “Coastline Killer.” A young couple with marital problems, Shelby and Jay Macklin, decide to spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s at a friend’s remote coastal cottage. Two couples in a neighboring home, whose relationships are thick with festering menace, and a fierce winter storm lead to a night of unrelenting terror. These are the main ingredients in Bill Pronzini’s chilling and twist-filled tale about the hidden nature of crime and its motives.

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 belonged. On his third day in Death Valley, Fallon comes upon a deserted car, and soon thereafter, the almost-dead body of Casey Dunbar. Having rescued 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, a quest that leads him to the glitter dome of Las Vegas, among other destinations.

From Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini comes this historical mystery, The Paradise 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 involved in a locked room murder involving a dying message in Honolulu.

Bill Pronzini’s riveting western mystery, The Peaceful Valley Crime Wave, takes on the modern world with old-fashioned violence–and his Peaceful Valley is anything but …

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.

It’s not long before the first corpse shows up, bringing the peace in the valley to a thundering end.

The Stolen Gold Affair is the latest charming historical mystery in Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini’s detective series.

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.

Bill Pronzini is crime-writing royalty. His more than eighty published novels have won or been nominated for Edgar, Hammett, Anthony, Shamus, and Macavity awards–a clean sweep of the crime fiction award field–and received rave reviews from critics. He crafts masterful stories, often from multiple perspectives, in which the human condition is on full display. The Violated is no exception.

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.

Pronzini cleverly unfolds the case through alternating perspectives–Martin Torrey’s wife, caught between her grief and the fear her husband was guilty; the outraged husbands of the women violated; the enterprising editor of the local paper; the mayor concerned most with his own ratings; the detectives, often spinning in circles–until a surprising break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion. The Violated is Bill Pronzini at the height of his storytelling powers.

When Nameless is hired by Cory Beckett, a beautiful young woman who claims to be a model, to find her missing brother, Kenneth, it seems to be a routine matter. Kenneth has fled San Francisco in a drug-induced panic to avoid trial on a charge of stealing a valuable necklace from the alcoholic wife of the man for whom he works, wealthy yachtsman Andrew Vorhees. When agency operative Jake Runyon locates and questions the frightened young man, Cory’s motives come into question and the case takes on darkly sinister complexities.

Cory lied to Nameless about her livelihood, her relationship with Vorhees, her brother’s alleged drug use, and the nature of his alleged crime. Not only is she Andrew Vorhees’ mistress, Cory has a secret second lover, factory owner Frank Chaleen, with whom she conspired to frame Kenneth. This bizarre sibling betrayal is part of a diabolical plan that reveals her to be a deadly, designing woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her warped desires.

A series of twists and turns drive the story to a truly shocking climax, for not until then do the detectives realize how devilish Cory Beckett really is, a femme fatale who has brought something new to the species–new, and terrible.

Bill Pronzini’s Vixen is the latest in the Nameless Detective series, the longest-running PI series currently in print.

Two novellas and two short stories featuring Mystery Writers of America Grand Master 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, “Nightscape,” listeners discover how, indeed, one thing just leads to another. (This story was first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine as “The Winning Ticket.”)

The final work, “Revenant,” is another original novella and entangles Nameless in a weird crime with fearful occult overtones.