Mostrando resultados por autor "Bill Pronzini" en Todas las categorías

Matthew Cape has no time to worry about his fears; caught up in events not of his making, but inescapable, he does things he's never dared and goes places he's only dreamed about. He's given up everything he ever had, but nothing at all of what he is, and if there's a price to pay, Cape is the one who will pay it. The Corvette is easy, the skydiving fun, and gambling, well... that has always been a passion, though never at stakes this high.

Twenty-three of Shamus Award-winning author Bill Pronzini's stories, all of which display his versatility, his clean, crisp narrative style, and his keen awareness of detail. These tales, including three that feature his well-known series chararacter, the "Nameless Detective", run the gamut from psychological suspense ("Strangers in the Fog") to satire ("A Craving for Originality") to Western gothic ("The Hanging Man" and "His Name was Legion").

Big, sort-of-sloppy, brew-loving P.I. opens up his files on some of his most fascinating cases. Here are 10 stories and two novelettes, giving Nameless fans a page-turning potpourri of his toughest and most dangerous adventures. Case File is a 12-pack to be popped open and enjoyed on an off-duty afternoon. So sit back and spend some time with one of America's favorite P.I.'s who has caught more criminals - an imaginations - than any other gumshoe in recent American fiction.

Former pulp writer and current hack Russell Dancer invites Nameless to the first annual Western Pulp Convention in San Francisco. He wants Nameless to help him locate the person who is trying to blackmail Dancer for a purported plagiarism of a story called "Hoodwink". Arriving at the convention, Nameless discovers that a group of former friends (and now uncomfortable colleagues) have all received blackmail notes.

It's a lazy mid-August Sunday afternoon. The nameless detective and his old friend Lieutenant Eberhardt are relaxing on the patio, drinking beer and shooting the breeze, when the doorbell rings. As Eberhardt answers the door, the detective hears two sharp echoing reports - gunshots; they could only be gunshots.

Nameless is called in by his friend, police lieutenant Eberhardt, when a dead woman's purse contains Nameless's business card. Nameless has never met her, and cannot make a connection. Next, Nameless is hired to track and protect a disturbed man, Martin Talbot, who may be harmed by the husband of a woman who died when Talbot's car collided with theirs after Talbot fell asleep at the wheel. But despite keeping a close tail, things go horribly wrong.

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.

He's just gotten some bad news, and its impact has made him immobile and fearful. He's always known that the racking cough was not just something that was going to go away, that the ache in his chest was indicative of something more serious. And now he's found out that he has a lesion on his lung which could be malignant. He's set to sit and wait and do nothing else until he gets the results, but is swayed into action by a call from an old buddy of his from the service, Harry Burroughs.

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.

Few characters have the loyal readership of Bill Pronzini's "Nameless Detective." The 14 stories in this collection span his entire 35-year life on the printed page. They include "It's a Lousy World," where Nameless proves that a friend did not commit the crime he was accused of; "Dead Man's Slough" and "The Ghosts of Ragged-Ass Gulch," which take him out of San Francisco into the hinterlands; and "Souls Burning," where he tries to help an old friend make one last try at setting things right.

A collection of short mystery stories by award-winning author Bill Pronzini. In "The Man Who Collected the Shadows", a mild-mannered file clerk with a passion for pulpy detective stories learns that he has supernatural powers. In "Shade Work", a con man picks the wrong marks. Fans of mysteries and detective novels will enjoy listening to these 14 entertaining stories.

For over 30 years, Bill Pronzini has created fictional sleuths. The most famous dubbed the "Nameless Detective" appeared in 25 novels. But there are many others like Fergus O'Hara who, with his wife Hattie, plies his trade at the time of Civil War; John Quincannon and Sabina Carpenter, a mismatched pair who operate a detective agency in 1890s San Francisco; Christopher Steele the magician who specializes in solving impossible crimes; and so many more. Each of these colorful characters is represented in this detectives' round table - a must-listen for mystery lovers.

The Nameless Detective is hired by a young wife to find out whether her husband has been having an affair. He trails the husband to a motel of cabins in a small village, sees him meet with a bald man, and then return to his cabin. Hours later, Nameless realizes the cabin may have a backdoor; he investigates and finds the husband has been murdered!

A debutante's missing body, murder most foul, and weird spectrallights in the fog make for a thrilling gas light-era tale of mystery and detection. In 1895 San Francisco young debutantes don't commit suicide at festive parties, particularly not under the eye of Sabina Carpenter. But Virginia St. Ives evidently did, leaping from a foggy parapet in a shimmer of ghostly light.

The West Coast crime cartel known as "The Organization" has been beset by a series of problems: members are being murdered and merchandise hijacked. In walks troubleshooter Flagg, whose methods are those of a sharp-witted detective rather than a criminal. Soon he lays bare a plot behind the Organization's front - and now everyone is in danger.

Jordan Wise was an ordinary, unexciting accountant with a San Francisco engineering firm, insecure about his future - until he met Annalise Bonner. She only cared for adventure and the good life and, intoxicated by her, Jordan Wise resolved to get it for both of them. Drawing on his considerable bookkeeping skills, he embezzled half a million dollars of his company's money and arranged the perfect escape for him and Annalise. However, he couldn't control what happened next...

More Oddments features 14 more detective stories featuring characters such as Fergus O'Hara and the "Nameless" Detective. The stories included in this collection are: "Fergus O'Hara, Detective", "Chip", "Opportunity", "A Craving for Originality", "One of Those Cases (A "Nameless Detective" Story)", "I Didn't Do It", "Quicker Than the Eye (with Michael Kurland)", "Angel of Mercy", "Connoisseur", "Mrs. Rakubian", "Smuggler's Island", "A Taste of Paradise", "Under the Skin", and "Prose Bowl (with Barry N. Malzberg)".

In a remote spot, Hannigan is burying a body he claims is his dog. A man suddenly emerges from the fog, asking if he can call for help, since he had to quickly escape a nearby house from a jealous husband. The district is tense, since the news warns of an escaped lunatic killer from a mental hospital is on the loose. The two men return to Hannigan’s house and unexpectedly meet a third man in the fog, claiming to be a policeman, whose car broke down. Is one of them the escaped lunatic killer?

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, 23-year-old Melanie Ann Aldrich discovers some papers that 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.

Carmody, a sometimes detective who also works as a freelance bodyguard and smuggler, operates off the Mediterranean island of Majorca. There he deals with thieves, smugglers, murderers, and other desperate men. By the author of Breakdown.