Nameless Detective

13 primary works • 25 total works

Epitaphs

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 October 1992

Demons

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 August 1993

Hardcase

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 January 1995

Illusions

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 August 1997

Following his success in Sentinels, "Nameless", who has been praised as the "thinking person's detective", is back! Caught between two difficult investigations - one personal and one professional. "Nameless" has become increasingly obsessed with his investigation into the suicide of his estranged friend and former partner, Eberhardt, when he is hired by a Santa Fe businessman to find his ex-wife. The job soon takes on frightening dimensions when the client turns up dead. Then disturbing facts about the couple's past begin to emerge. Both cases lead "Nameless" down a twisted path strewn with the illusions people adopt for themselves and perceive in others. Ultimately "Nameless" is torn between the two cases and must make a painful choice. Illusions is a superb psychological mystery that delves deeply into human imagination.

Nightcrawlers

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 March 2005

Bill Pronzini's "Nameless" detective has become one of the longest-lived, and consistently highly praised, private investigators in the annals of American crime fiction and the award-winning author proves, once again, that his skills are unmatched. Things were quiet in the San Francisco-based agency Nameless founded and his partners, Jake and Vanessa were itching to get back to work. A deadbeat father needed to be found, and Vanessa needed to do some field work, so she took the file and headed out to keep an eye on the last known address. Jake got to work on something much more personal...and dangerous. The Castro had become the stomping ground, literally, of two violent gay-bashers and the most recent victim was Jake's son's lover. Father and son are estranged, but maybe helping now would help them reconcile. That was Jake's thought when he started. For Nameless it was all a matter of letting everyone know that if they needed his help, he was there. Jake was handling his situation but for Vanessa, things got out of hand. Her perp never showed up, but when she saw a man carrying a young girl into the house across the street, she knew something was wrong....and about to get worse, because she was going to investigate what was going on. When she doesn't show up a few days later, Nameless feels a sinking in his gut: a few years ago he'd been kidnapped, shackled, and left to die in a cabin in the woods and something about Vanessa's disappearance echoed too loudly. When he discovers the house she'd investigated on her own and sees the words TAKING US TO A HOUSE IN THE WOODS scrawled on a closet wall, the echo became thunderous. Now it was a race against time, and the clock had begun ticking before "Nameless" and Jake heard the starter's gun.

Mourners

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 January 2006

Savages

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 July 2007

Fever

by Bill Pronzini

Published 27 May 2008

Betrayers

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 July 2010

Camouflage

by Bill Pronzini

Published 7 June 2011

Nameless may not like David Virden, but the case is simple enough: find his ex-wife, and they know where she is. Deliver some papers to her and it is is all done. But she refuses the papers, sends a message to Virden to never contact her again, and slams the door. His colleague, Tamara, tells Nameless that Virden threatens to sue, stops payment on his checks, and claims that the woman they located is not his wife. Then he disappears and his fiancee hires Nameless to find out why. Clearly, someone is trying to make Nameless the monkey in the middle. The investigation that Nameless's partner, Jake Runyon, has to undertake is personal and urgent. His girlfriend Bryn's son, a pawn in a bitter divorce settlement, is being beaten and every indication is that his father is responsible. Is he bitter enough to take out his frustrations on a young boy, to fracture his arm? Then events turn on Jake: a dead woman, a bloodied Bryn, and a scared and silent child force him to look in other, darker, more deadly directions.

Hellbox

by Bill Pronzini

Published 3 July 2012

Nemesis

by Bill Pronzini

Published 9 July 2013

Zigzag

by Bill Pronzini

Published 17 May 2016

Two novellas and two short stories featuring Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Bill Pronzini's iconic Nameless Detective! Zigzag is an original novella, in which a safe and simple accident investigation becomes the unraveling of a twisted murder scheme. Grapplin, which first appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, deals with the kind of missing person case that can end in only one of two ways, closure or heartbreak. In the second short, Nightscape, readers discover how, indeed, one thing just leads to another (First published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine as The Winning Ticket). The final work, Revenant, is another original novella and entangles Nameless in a weird crime with fearful occult overtones.

Boobytrap

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 March 1998

Emotionally exhausted from the events surrounding his partner's suicide, "Nameless" welcomes the chance for a quiet vacation that comes when San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Patrick Dixon proposes that the burnt-out detective drive Dixon's wife and son to their summer cottage on a remote High Sierra lake. In exchange, "Nameless" will have a week's free use of a neighboring cabin. The same week, unknown to both the assistant D.A. and "Nameless, " also among the vacationers at Deep Mountain Lake is a recently paroled explosives expert, Donald Michael Latimer. The timing is not coincidental, for Latimer has meticulously devised a warped plan for revenge against the men who sent him to prison. His viciously ingenious boobytraps have already claimed the lives of two of his intended victims, and at Deep Mountain Lake he has lined up his next three targets: Pat Dixon, Dixon's twelve-year-old son, and "Nameless" himself.

Schemers

by Bill Pronzini

Published 31 March 2009

Sentinels

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 August 1996

A "worried mother" job takes "Nameless" to a California backwater, where college student Allison McDowell has disappeared with her mysterious new boyfriend on a drive from Oregon to San Francisco. And behind a simple missing-persons case lies a sinister -- and deadly -- conspiracy.

Quarry

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 December 1991

Bleeders

by Bill Pronzini

Published 19 December 2001

Crazybone

by Bill Pronzini

Published 1 November 2000

Posh and affluent, a mecca for the horsy set, the California community of Greenwood hides its dirty laundry behind the stuccoed facades of Spanish-style houses and locks its secrets inside wrought-iron gates. Nameless knows that as well as 7 any, but he uncovers more deceit, adultery, fraud, and betrayal -- not to mention larceny and murder -- than he might have expected in this tautly concocted novel of crime and detection.Yet, even before Nameless visits the handsomely appointed offices of the blond, tanned insurance agent Rich Twining and the estate of the recently widowed Sheila Hunter, his private investigator's suspicions are raised. For why would anyone, however rich and beautiful and bereaved, refuse to claim fifty thousand dollars due in life insurance? The question is simple enough, but the answer lies several murders, many miles, ten years, a devious name game, and one baffling clue -- crazybone -- away.As always, Nameless proves himself the thinking man's detective (Chicago Sun-Times), and his creator, Bill Pronzini, keeps the suspenseful pages turning up to this uncanny novel's moment of revelation.

Spook

by Bill Pronzini

Published 15 December 2002