Bill Pronzini
When Geena left him and filed for divorce, the first two things Fallon did were to put the Encino house up for sale and then take a six weeks' leave of absence from Unidyne. Then he loaded the Jeep Cherokee and drove straight to Death Valley...The desert country had a way of simplifying things, reducing life to an elemental and much more tolerable level. It cleansed your mind, allowed you to think clearly. Allowed you to breathe. It was in his
...2) The violated
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's life, the more inclined he is to accept the likelihood of murder—especially as the players still alive become more and more distasteful. Combine that with the situation Jake Runyon, one of the agency's partners, is facing as he searches for a young man who is either
...There is something about the sad woman eating alone night after night at the Harmony Café that intrigues San Francisco CPA Jim Messenger. Unfulfilled himself, Jim feels a kinship with her—and later, when she commits suicide,...
In this collection of 23 short stories, Bill Pronzini, prolific, award-winning west-coast mystery writer and creator of the well-known "Nameless Detective" series, the author's style and versatility truly shine. These talesincluding 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
...It was fifteen years ago when the big, sort-of-sloppy, brew-loving P.I. appeared on the scene, dazzling readers with keen solutions to seemingly unsolvable crimes. And just as his disheveled demeanor gave no hint of the brilliant mind that lay behind it, his lack of a moniker said nothing about his rising popularity with mystery readers everywhere.
8) Sleuths
For over thirty years, Bill Pronzini has created fictional sleuths. The most famous dubbed the "Nameless Detective" appeared in twenty-five novels. But there are many others.
9) Oddments
Plump, nondescript Theodore Conway works as a file clerk in a Manhattan law firm. His passion is collecting memorabilia related to the pulp-fiction heroes of his youth, especially The Shadow. Then one day this quiet little man learns that he, too, has the supernatural power "to cloud men's minds" and fight crime under the cloak of invisibility. "The Man Who Collected The Shadow" is just one of 14 stories in this collection of short fiction by the
...10) More Oddments
More Oddments features fourteen more detective stories featuring characters such as Fergus O'Hara and the "Nameless" Detective.
11) Small Felonies
This is a collection of fifty short stories by veteran mystery and crime writer Bill Pronzini, best known as fhe creator of 'The Nameless Detective' series. This collection crosses over a broad range of styles and characters, settings and plots, showing the breadth and depth of Pronzini's prodigious talent. Included are murders, swindles, double-crosses, crazed children, and much, much more.
rugged northern California coast, committed by an unknown dubbed by the
media the Coastline Killer. A young couple with marital problems, Shelby
and Jay Macklin, who 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. A
fierce...
13) The Eye
Lewis Collier watches the people living on West 98th Street through his telescope, the “Eye of God,” ready to mete out the ultimate punishment for every perceived sin. Those who transgress must suffer and die, and no...
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
...16) Nightcrawlers
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
...17) Nemesis
18) Strangers
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
...20) Mourners
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
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