Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

A client from a decades-old case reaches out to Boston PI Spenser-but can he rescue troubled April Kyle once more? Longtime Spenser fans will remember that once upon a time, though not so long ago, there was a girl named April Kyle-a beautiful teenage runaway who turned to prostitution to escape her terrible family life. The book was 1982's Ceremony , and, thanks to Spenser, April escaped Boston's "Combat... (more)

And Be a Villain (Crime Line) (Crime Line)

And Be a Villain (Crime Line) (Crime Line)

by Rex Stout

Radio talk show host Madeline Fraser's worst nightmare comes true when one of her on-air guests collapses at the mike after drinking a glass of the sponsor's beverage. Reissue. NYT.

Downriver: An Amos Walker Mystery (Amos Walker S.)

Downriver: An Amos Walker Mystery (Amos Walker S.)

by Loren D. Estleman

In this outing, Walker goes "Downriver," which is a Detroiter's term for any part of Michigan that does not include the city. Actually, he goes to the Upper Peninsula to give a released con a ride back to Detroit. When he and the con get run off the road and the con hires him to help find 200,000 dollars from a heist for which he was convicted but which he did not commit, Walker has his hands full.

Motor City Blue (Amos Walker Mysteries (Paperback))

Motor City Blue (Amos Walker Mysteries (Paperback))

by Loren D. Estleman

"If I see my name in tomorrow's paper yours will be in the next edition. Bordered in black." Marla Bernstein is a pretty, dark-haired teenager? who also happens to be the ward of Ben Morningstar-a semi-retired mobster who prefers to keep family business out of the newspapers. When Marla suddenly disappears, the gang boss is forced to call in private eve Amos Walker, who quickly learns his new ... (more)

Fer-de-Lance (Crime Line)

by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth, returns--with his perambulatory man-about-town Archie Goodwin in tow--playing snake charmer in a case with more twists than an anaconda, and hoping to catch a killer who's still got poison in his heart. **MASS MARKET PAPER**

Before Midnight

by Rex Stout

When a contestant is killed during the final round of the Pour Amour perfume contest, Nero Wolfe must find the person who stole the recipe to the dead contestant's perfume in order to solve the crime. Reissue. NYT.

A Family Affair (The Rex Stout Library)Rex Stout

A Family Affair (The Rex Stout Library)

by Rex Stout

When a bomb kills his favorite waiter from his favorite restaurant, sedentary sleuth and gourmand Nero Wolfe is determined to go to any length to find the killer. Reissue. NYT.

Murder by the Book

by Rex Stout

When everyone who has read Leonard Dykes's unpublished manuscript--including the author himself--is found dead, Nero Wolfe, along with his sidekick, decides to set a trap. Reissue. NYT.

If Death Ever Slept

by Rex Stout

This latest entry in the estimable Nero Wolfe audio canon is a veritable time machine, transporting listeners back not only to the upscale New York City of the 1950s, but also to an era when wit and literacy flourished in the mystery genre. Prichard again proves that he is the perfect Archie Goodwin, surely the most interesting sidekick of them all the voice of Stout's most liberal instincts as well as a shrewd... (more)

The Red Box

by Rex Stout

A lovely woman is dead, and the fortunes of overextended theatrical producer Llewellyn Frost depend on solving the mystery of the red box: two pounds of candied fruits, nuts and creams, covered with chocolate -- and laced with potassium cyanide. When Nero Wolfe's suspicion falls on Frost's kissing cousin, Frost wants the detective to kill the sickly sweet case--before it kills him. "It is always a treat to... (more)

Some Buried Caesar

by Rex Stout

A prize bull, a restaurateur's tacky publicity stunt, a family feud (among the bull's owners), and the death of a family scion pit Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin against a special breed of killer. Reissue. NYT.

In the Best Families (Crime Line)

by Rex Stout

Aging millionairess Mrs. Rackham asks Nero Wolfe to find out where her penniless husband has suddenly been obtaining mysteriously large sums of money, a request that leads to murder and to threats against the master detective himself. Reissue.

Midnight Pass (Lew Fonesca)

by Stuart Kaminsky

Lew Fonesca is a guy just trying to get along. When his wife died in a senseless auto wreck, he got up and left his old life--and when his car gave out in sunny Sarasota, Florida, he stayed. He takes small process-serving gigs and various odd jobs helping people out, and he tries, although maybe not as hard as he should, to fix the gaping hole in his heart. But for a man who just wants to ease through life... (more)

Blue Lonesome

by Bill Pronzini

Jim Messenger is a CPA who hates his job, loves jazz, and can't forget a woman he has seen eating at the Harmony Café. She goes by the name of Janet Mitchell, and when he introduces himself, her only comment is, "It won't do you any good." When she commits suicide, Messenger is driven to find out why. Her name is only the first of the lies he uncovers. In "historic Beulah," Nevada, secrets coil like rattlesnakes... (more)

Lieberman's Law (Abe Lieberman)

by Stuart Kaminsky

Abe Lieberman, the Chicago PD detective, has never has it easy when it comes to emotional cases, but this time the action is getting little too close to home. His temple has been vandalized along with four others, and it looks like the vandals have more sinister plans in mind. Finding the culprit opens a window on the broiling ethnic tensions on Chicago's North Side, and what's happening in Abe's family life... (more)

Aces and Eights

by Loren D. Estleman

Dead Man's Hand No one paid any mind to Jack McCall as he unloaded a .44 caliber slug into Wild Bill Hickok's brain at point-blank range. Deadwood's legendary gunslinging marshal was dead, holding a poker hand of aces and eights, a dead man's hand. The question the law wanted to know: was McCall a hired killer or did he kill Hickok to avenge his brother's death?

Lieberman's Choice

by Stuart Kaminsky

"Kaminsky gets his details exactly right....Tightly plotted...The best mysteries work on multiple levels, and this one is no exception." CHICAGO TRIBUNE Detective Sergeant Abe Lieberman is about to wake up to every policeman's nightmare--an out-of-control colleague hell-bent on revenge. After gunning down his wife and her lover, a fellow cop, Bernie Shepard has retreated to a makeshift bunker atop his high-rise... (more)

Lieberman's Folly

by Stuart Kaminsky

Sixty-year-old Chicago police detective Abe Lieberman is having all the troubles he can handle when Estralda Valdez, a stunning Mexican prostitute, comes to him with a proposition he can't refuse: Estralda will help him with valuable information if he'll get a john off her back. But Lieberman's good intentions pave the way for a brutal murder. A murder that will lead Lieberman into the darkest depths of Chicago... (more)

Leslie Charteris' Count on the Saint (His The Saint series)

Leslie Charteris' Count on the Saint (His The Saint series)

by Leslie Charteris

Trouble Is What I Do: Point Blank

by Rob Kantner

"Ben Perkins is back! It feels so good to say that. Twenty-three years ago, when Rob Kantner introduced his Detroit PI in the short story "C Is for Cookie," he probably had no idea he was heralding in a new era of mystery fiction. Before Rob, the private eye genre was glutted with down-in-their-luck losers who wore trench coats and talked like Bogart. Stereotypes ruled the paperback racks, and a revamp... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: old time detective

by Robert B. Parker

by Rex Stout

by Loren D. Estleman

by Loren D. Estleman

by Rex Stout

by Rex Stout

by Rex Stout

by Rex Stout

by Rex Stout

by Rex Stout

by Rex Stout

by Rex Stout

by Stuart Kaminsky

by Bill Pronzini

by Stuart Kaminsky

by Loren D. Estleman

by Stuart Kaminsky

by Stuart Kaminsky

by Leslie Charteris

by Rob Kantner