In Double, the “Nameless Detective” and Sharon McCone — reunited at a private eye convention in sunny San Diego — team up to tangle with kinky lifestyles, double dealing and multiple murder. When Elaine Picard, head of security at the posh Casa del Rey hotel and an old friend of Sharon’s, falls to her death from a hotel tower, “Nameless” is a distant witness. And when McCone’s zealous pursuit of clues lands her in jail, it’s “Nameless” who posts bail. While Sharon continues to risk her life trying to unravel the mystery of Elaine’s death, “Nameless” puts his own on the line investigating the odd disappearance of a little boy and his mother who’ve vanished from the Casa del Rey without a...

A collection of suspense stories, puzzle stories, whodunits and tricky whydunits involving police detectives, private eyes, talented and sometimes lucky amateurs, armchair detectives, and ethnic detectives.

Dashiell Hammett and William Vollmann are just two treats in this stellar sequel to the smash-hit original volume of San Francisco Noir, which captures the dark mythology of a world-class locale.

For the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, stopping extortionists is not only grand, but excitingly lucrative. A pleasant afternoon’s bicycling through Golden Gate Park with a friend ends with the revelation of threatening letters, followed by a gunshot in a mansion garden, Sabina Carpenter knows this is a case that demands her immediate and undivided attention. The questions her partner John Quincannon has to unravel are not difficult: Wrixton, a wealthy banker, has met his extortionist’s first demand, but the order to pay another five thousand dollars is too much to face. The banker’s real problem is something he doesn’t want to reveal. That’s was...