Best Private Detective Mystery Books

The Maltese Falcon

by Dashiell Hammett

Classic noir. Private detective Sam Spade is hired to search for a valuable, gem-encrusted antique in the shape of a falcon. Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with...

The Big Sleep

by Raymond Chandler

Philip Marlowe, a private eye who operates in Los Angeles's seamy underside during the 1930s, takes on his first case, which involves a paralyzed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail, and murder

The Galton Case

by Ross Macdonald

Private investigator Lew Archer is hired to find Anthony Galton, who disappeared twenty years earlier, taking several thousand dollars of the family fortune and a young pregnant bride with him. Archer discovers that Galt...

Bleeders

by Bill Pronzini

Winter and Night

by SJ Rozan

A is for Alibi

by Sue Grafton

A IS FOR AVENGER. A tough-talking former cop, private investigator Kinsey Millhone has set up a modest detective agency in a quiet corner of Santa Teresa, California. She's a twice-divorced loner with few personal posses...

The Sugar House

by Laura Lippman

A client named Ruthie — who seems to know Tess's father a little too well — asks the newspaperwoman-turned-p.i. to investigate a year-old "Jane Doe" murder and its grim aftermath. Ruthie's low-life brother, Henry, confes...

When the Sacred Gin Mill Closes

by Lawrence Block

The Bigger They Come

by AA Fair

Death Claims

by Joseph Hansen

Death Claims is the second of Joseph Hansen's acclaimed mysteries featuring ruggedly masculine Dave Brandstetter, a gay insurance investigator. When John Oats's body is found washed up on a beach, his young lover April S...