Mostrando resultados por narrador "Mark Peckham" en Todas las categorías

Drug lords, missing millionaires, corrupt cops… just another day for Carpenter and Quincannon Detective Services. Two missing bodies and two separate investigations take Carpenter and Quincannon from the heights above San Francisco Bay to the depths of Chinatown's opium dens. For John Quincannon, this is a first: searching a Chinatown opium den for his client's husband, missing in the middle of a brewing tong war set to ignite over the stolen corpse of Bing Ah Kee.

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.

Ellery Queen returned to Wrightsville to solve the mystery of a rich man - believed poor - who died of "old age," a poor man - believed rich - who committed suicide, and a scholarly drunk who disappeared. Shortly it occurred to Queen that the puzzle had a pattern. A twisted mind was committing murder according to an old nursery rhyme! Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief…and to at least one person in town, the chief was Ellery Queen.

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.

Stoner is a private eye in the classic tradition: A loner with a history of failed relationships with women and all-too-successful relationships with bottles of scotch, he's unable to look away from the world's corruption, and unable to avoid trying futilely to do something about it. His latest hopeless cause is Cindy Ann, a teenage hooker. She's not very pretty or bright or engaging. She doesn’t have much to offer at all, in fact, and somehow that makes her disappearance all the more disturbing for Stoner.

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.

All police sergeant Burt March wanted was a chance to recover from a recent brush with the Grim Reaper. Sun, fun, and a willing broad - that was all he needed. But the broad had along a sugar daddy with his own private squad of goons with guns. And when the fun began, Burt found himself the gunmen's number one target.

"Let's face it, Alex: you were the KGB's top assassin, and they paid you off. Just as we might. A cushy lieutenant-colonelcy in Tokyo, riding pour le sport , a yacht, your pick of Eurasian dolls... Like? We can do you better in the USA, Alex--come on over, and bring your secrets with you." That was FACE's pitch to the would-be defector, and it got results. Witness one hell of a nice courier slashed and dumped in a Tokyo alley.

Leslie Gibson was a wealthy, beautiful, 17-year-old brat - out for kicks at any price. And Leslie had decided that Reid Rance, adventurer and travel guide extraordinaire, was just the man to show her the hot spots of Mexico. But touring led to trouble with a capital T, and Reid was soon minus one debutante, plus several unwanted corpses, and desperately wanted by Mexican and American police... as well as the Mexican underground.

Clients never tell the whole story. Harry Stoner had taken a snowy drive to Cincinnati psychiatrist Phil Pearson’s mansion to hear the tale of daughter Kirsten - emotionally disturbed and missing. But the doctor left out the parts about his first wife’s suicide and his second wife’s bedroom eyes that were already chasing the winter cold from Stoner’s blood. That’s why Stoner suspected the search for Kirsten could take a kinky turn.

The Syndicate - led by gangster Larry Cutter - is trying to take over Iroquois. They want the town, mayor, and police chief in their pocket. So they kill chief Andy Saxon and one of his top men. Then they move into clean up. But they hadn't reckoned on the chief's son, Lieutenant Ted Saxon.

All Hollywood producer Ben Sloane had wanted was to find Sol Dahlman, the mysterious film genius who had made The Wild Nymph - and now Sloane is dead. "Go up to Rockview," the governor tells Mike McCall, "and get me the killer!" But it isn't quite that easy. The Mann Photo Service, long rumored to be a center of the blue-movie industry, is torn by a strike, and nobody is talking to strangers.

Old Slater O'Shea, the golden goose, was ruler of a peculiar roost. A gaggle of free-loading O'Sheas were lazing around the mansion, letting Slater foot the bills, while they waited for him to die and leave them his money. But Uncle Slater was in fine health, and someone got tired of waiting. When Slater went upstairs for a little nip before his nap, his bottle of bourbon was labeled "Rest in Peace".

A phone ringing after midnight means trouble, especially in private eye Harry Stoner's business. This time the 1:30 call is trouble, all right. A motel clerk wants somebody to pick up the loser registered as Harry Stoner who just tried to kill himself. When the real Stoner gets to the Encantada Motel, he finds his old college roommate nearly dead and too many memories still alive.

She was perfect. She smelled of toothpaste, talc, and something sweeter than lilacs. And in that crazy season of autumn, when Cincinnati was ablaze in the blood-red color of fall, Kate Davis made Harry Stoner feel old, and a little in love too. But for Harry Stoner those were only two more reasons that Kate shouldn't have anything more to do with this case. Because what had started with a twisted act of vandalism in the local library had led Kate and Harry, paired together, on a twisting path to a brutal, unsolved murder.

In 1903 at the soon-to-open Luna Park on Coney Island, an elephant named Topsy was electrocuted, likely with advice from Thomas Edison,whose film crew recorded the horrible event. Over the past century, this bizarre, ghoulish execution has reverberated through popular culture with the ring of an urban legend. But it really happened, and today, Edison’s footage can be found on YouTube, where it has been viewed nearly two million times.

Sheltered but precocious Robbie Segal has run away from home, a small brick house on an unexceptional street. Her desperate mother has asked Harry Stoner to find her. What begins as an ordinary missing-persons case, a case that should be settled without any violence at all, suddenly changes in an impossibly terrifying way.

Detective Harry Stoner has seen too much of the seamy side of life not to notice the tarnish on Los Angeles's glitter or the gritty reality behind the never-never land of TV's biggest daytime soaps. A detergent manufacturer, already begrimed by scandal and rumor, doesn't want his image further muddied by the mysterious death of the head writer on the daytime series he sponsors. So it's up to Stoner to find out what really happened that sunny August weekend when Quentin Dover took his last shower.

To P.I. Harry Stoner, Ira Lessing had everything to live for: money, a beautiful wife, good friends, and a reputation that would do credit to a saint. But Lessing disappeared one hot July night, and Stoner knew in his gut that the man was dead. Years on the street had taught Stoner that no man is what he seems. Peeling away layers to the bone would reveal what had become of Lessing. It would lead Stoner into the underbelly of Cincinnati...into the places where desire and violence meet...into the darkest byways of the human heart where his own values would be tested to the bloody limit. By acts of love...and murder.

The professor was an eccentric old bird, and his daughter was a delicate flower. So how could Harry Stoner suspect the snake pit of hatred and greed he was walking into that winter day when he agreed to find a missing document for Professor Daryl Lovingwell?