In the 20s and 30s, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler pioneered the clever, tough-talking, detective who was not afraid to face violence and never got too distracted by a pretty face. The term comes from hard-boiled eggs that are tough and hard to destroy. Don your trench coat and wide-brimmed hat and follow some very interesting cases to the end.
Staff Picks
Eleven years after his investigation into the disappearance of Marie Gesto goes cold, Harry Bosch finally gets a chance to solve the case when a man accused of two brutal killings agrees to come clean about others.
Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro delve into the disappearance of a four-year-old girl, involving a strangely cool mother, a pedophiliac couple, and a shadowy police unit.
Burke, an unlicensed ex-con private eye, tries to rescue a former lover's daughter from a Brooklyn cult. Very edgy, street-smart investigation of New York's underbelly.
The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby apartment in a meager section of the 87th Precinct was nothing surprising. But everyone has a story, and this old man's story stood to make some people a lot of money.
When a man who fled the 1965 Watts riots is suspected of killing a woman in a nearby apartment building, Easy Rawlins begins a murder investigation and learns that the case has racial origins.
A Spenser novel which takes the PI to South Carolina to investigate a wife's murder and leads him into the confidence of a powerful senator.
Ex-cop Derek Strange is hired by the mother of a slain police officer to investigate the killing. Strange uncovers the guilty feelings and questions of the cop responsible for the shooting.
When the son of his long-time girlfriend goes missing, Elvis Cole finds himself haunted by his personal demons, the dark secrets of his childhood, and long-supressed memories of his service in Vietnam.
Viet Nam vet and free-lance investigator Jack Reacher is tracked down by an investigator who is later murdered. Reacher determines to find out who was looking for him and why.