In his first chronicled adventure, the NAMELESS DETECTIVE hires on to handle the ransom payoff in a kidnapping case. Financier Louis Martinetti doesn't trust the police to deal with the man who snatched his 9-year-old son from his military prep school, nor is it clear that he trusts the members of his own household. On the appointed evening, NAMELESS takes a briefcase that contains $300,000 in cash to a secluded location chosen by the kidnapper. Then all hell breaks loose.

When Master Sergeant Roy Sands disappears after arriving in San Francisco from Germany, his fiancée seeks the help of a private investigator

A routine case turns into a complex mystery for a San Francisco private detective when the man he has been paid to observe is suddenly murdered

Beset by his own fears and uncertainties, a detective answers an old service buddy's call for help and finds himself in an isolated fishing camp where theft, sexual intrigue, and murder add to his troubles

Pronzini and Wilcox combine their superlative talents—and their two popular San Francisco-based detectives, "Nameless" and Lieutenant Frank Hastings—on a harrowing case of murder and bizarre conspiracy surrounding an old California wine-making family.

Without grasping the connection between the murder of a young woman on a deserted road and his new bodyguard assignment, the Nameless Detective follows a trail of corpses unaware of the deadly conspiracy that is engulfing him

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) who wrote for the pulps called the "Pulpeteers" have all received blackmail notes. Nameless is in seventh heaven as he meets many of his favorite pulp writers, buys pulp novels for his collection and meets a stunning younger woman who is the daughter of two famous pulp writers. For once, Nameless has some luck with the ladies. But is Kerry Wade attracted to him, or to his job as a private eye? Is he really attracted to her, or to her connection to the pulps? The convention is unexpectedly disrupted when one of the guests is found dead in a locked room while Russell Dancer is holding a gun that's been recently fired. It looks like an obvious case of murder by Dancer, who has been feuding with the man. Dancer denies his guilt, and only Nameless is willing to believe him. As Nameless tracks down the guilty party, he finds himself faced with a second locked room mystery... and a target for a murderer.

The "Nameless Detective" finds his career and reputation threatened and his life in jeopardy, when he becomes caught in a web of intrigue, robbery, extortion, and murder

Investigating the shooting of his friend Lt. Eberhardt, the "Nameless Detective" finds himself caught in a life-threatening web of murder, bribery, violence, and organized crime in San Francisco's Chinatown

Just getting back into action the "Nameless Detective" lands a case involving two double-dealing sisters, who require him to track down their father, a hobo riding the rails

The author sets his latest Nameless Detective mystery in San Francisco's Japantown, where the sleuth tries to trace the source of Mrs. Haruko Gage's lavish but anonymous gifts and discovers a grisly ritual murder in the Nippon Mafia

The Nameless Detective is hired to investigate an accidental death and finds himself caught between greedy land developers and the handful of citizens of an isolated ghost town in northern California

Sharon McCone has come home to her warm, troubled family, to San Diego and a convention of private detectives in a posh seaside hotel. For Sharon it's a chance to catch up with old friends—all except for the one who fell four stories from one of the hotel spires. Now, Sharon is determined to find out why her friend died. Martin's Press.

An old grave opens a new case of murder. Recent murders are difficult but not unsolvable. This time Nameless is called upon to solve a murder that happened four decades ago. Called to do the impossible, he takes the case merely because the victim was a pulp writer. Nameless of course is a pulp fan. We follow Nameless in his quest of trying to quell the questions of a neurotic son determined to find out how his writer-father really died. Was it a suicide or murder? "Pronzini makes people and events so real that you're living those explosive days of terror." —Robert Ludlum "Once in a crocodile's age you come across a writer whose work you instinctively like... I've found one—Bill Pronzini. Buy him, read him, and relax." —Los Angeles Times "A skilled writer working at the top of his ability." —Denver Post "Pronzini delivers breathtaking suspense" —San Francisco Examiner "His novels are packed with adventure, fresh characterization, and minute-by-minute suspense." —Chicago Tribune "Pronzini is the master of the shivery, spine-tingling it-could-happen suspense story." —Publisher's Weekly "Pronzini is a pro." —The New York Times

Nameless hears the final words of a dying a man, and he's off on a case with dying relatives and danger all around. Martin's.

Kidnapped by a ruthless, amoral ex-con seeking revenge, the Nameless Detective is left to die, chained to the wall of a remote mountain cabin, and only his strength of will and determination stand between him and a lingering death

The Nameless Detective investigates the curious suicide of his friend's brother—a man who had won a fortune at a Lake Tahoe casino prior to his death—and uncovers a complex scam in the world of high stakes gambling and mob-run casinos

Wrongly accused of running down and killing Frank Hanauer on a dark night outside a factory in San Francisco, Thomas Lujack hires the Nameless Detective to clear his name

Old Man Hass is concerned by the near-catatonic behavior of his daughter, Grady. The young woman showed up at his doorstep a few days earlier, refused to admit that anything was wrong, and has been wandering around the farm, not talking and barely eating. The Nameless Detective thinks the old farmer would have been better off calling a psychiatrist-but he's at least willing to ask a few questions. As Nameless begins to investigate, he discovers that Grady's affliction is more than just a broken heart: she has been the victim of brutal psychological torture. In order to save her, he's not only going to have to find her tormentor, he's going to have to call on his own darkest impulses and turn the quarry into the victim.

The Nameless Detective offers to do an old man a favor by finding his missing granddaughter, Gianna, a job that thrusts him into the company of a pimp, a murderer, and some beautiful people. Reissue.

For the Nameless Detective, investigations involving matters of the heart are to be avoided at all costs. When an old poker buddy asks him to help frazzled and distraught Kay Runyon, whose husband, Victor, is having a clandestine affair with a mystery woman named Nedra, Nameless unwillingly relents, but he soon discovers there is much more at stake than a simple affair. Nedra is a modern-day Circe who attracts men who become dangerously obsessed with her. Compounding the sticky situation at hand, Victor's obsession with her takes a bizarre twist when she suddenly vanishes without a trace. Did she disappear willingly or was she the victim of one of her lovers' private demons? Nameless must find out before it's too late to save Victor and Kay from tragic ends. And he must do so while trying to cope with a very personal and private demon of his own.

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 which 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. In the course of his investigation, Nameless quickly learns why Melanie's parents never told her she was adopted and why everyone is so eager to keep it quiet. Melanie's biological mother, an emotionally disturbed young woman who died in her early twenties of a brain tumor, was raped by a then teenage delinquent named Steven Chehalis. In his attempt to piece together the past, Nameless tracks down Chehalis only to discover that he's a serial rapist responsible for a large number of rapes and at least two murders as well. Nameless finds himself in a race to bring Chehalis to justice. Chehalis, aware of Nameless' intention, sets his psychotic sights on both his biological daughter, Melanie, and Nameless' new bride. Hardcase is Pronzini's most suspenseful mystery to date.

Hired by the mother of a college student who, along with her boyfriend, vanished during a trip from Oregon to San Francisco, the "Nameless Detective" journeys into the wilderness of northern California and stumbles into an evil web of silence and fear. Reprint.

The "Nameless Detective" investigates the suicide of his estranged friend and detective partner while searching for his missing ex-wife, who holds the secrets to his death

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.

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.

A simple case gets murderously complicated when "Nameless," Bill Pronzini's seasoned private-eye, exposes a nasty scam that involves junior account 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—top his list of worthless human parasites. So there's nothing he enjoys more than putting another one or two of them out of commission and returning the $75,000 in blackmail cash to its rightful owner. "Nameless," though, cannot so easily close his Cohalan file—not when he finds his client face down in the middle of a four-poster bed with a bloody, powder-scorched hole behind the right ear. And only by a hair's breadth does "Nameless" himself escape a similar cold-blooded fate. His mind and gut wrenched by his brush with death, "Nameless" embarks on a relentless hunt for his unknown assailant in San Francisco's shadowy underworld. There he encounters bleeders of every ilk before he finds his quarry—and confronts his own demons—in a climax as powerful as it is shocking and unexpected.

Roll out the red carpet. Uncap a bottle of decent beer. Nameless is back, and Bill Pronzini's much-praised Bleeders did not conclude a series that Booklist calls "a stunning and unique achievement in crime fiction" and "one of the greatest-ever detective series." Instead, in Spook, the pivotal new twenty-eighth novel in the remarkably successful award-winning Nameless series, Pronzini, working at the top of his form, takes his seasoned private-eye hero to a new phase of a still-evolving thirty-year career. Shaken after a hair's-breadth escape from death, Nameless has made changes in his professional life, but he's not put himself out to pasture. Again he enters San Francisco's shadowy underworld, this time in a search for the identity of a gentle, mentally disturbed homeless man who has been found dead in an alley doorway. Clues are few, but eventually they bring the Nameless Detective to the small California town that drove the nameless victim tragically to murder and madness.

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 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.

EVERYONE IS MOURNING SOMETHING Nameless has seen enough death in his years; spending his time watching someone drive to several funerals a day, funerals for people Nameless doesn't even know, is more than he can take. Then the bits and pieces begin to fall into place: The funerals James Troxell is attending are all for women who died violently. Is he the killer? One woman thinks so—she insists Troxell is the one who murdered her sister. But there are too many deaths, too many roads leading nowhere, too many crimes and secrets and fears. This might be the one case that breaks Nameless—but the mourning has to stop, so Nameless will have to see it through…

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' 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 a murderer or a victim, and life at their San Francisco detective agency has everyone on edge.

Nameless had told Mitchell Krochek that he’d do whatever he could to find his missing wife, Janice. She’d run away before—propelled by a gambling fever that grew ever higher—and Mitch had always taken her back. This time, when Nameless, his partner Tamara, and the agency’s chief operative Jake Runyon finally found her in a sleazy San Francisco hotel, she demanded a divorce. A few days later, a beaten and bloody Janice stumbled into the agency begging to go home. No one is surprised when, soon after her homecoming, she disappears again. But gambling addiction has a way of twisting things, and the blood on Mitchell and Janice Krochek’s kitchen floor was a card off the bottom of the deck. Janice is missing again, Mitchell is the prime suspect, and as Nameless searches for the truth behind her disappearance, he uncovers a vicious racket that preys on gambling fever victims…

A new Nameless Detective story from the 2008 Mystery Writers of America Grand Master... A locked room mystery that goes from stolen books to stolen lives and the hunt for a phantom stalker with a penchant for pouring acid to make his point give Nameless and his partner Jake more than enough work to earn their fees—as long as neither turns his back at the wrong moment. Nameless wasn’t supposed to come into the office on Mondays; he wasn’t supposed to answer the phone. On this Monday, he did both. The call was from Barney Rivera—once a friend, now despised—at Great Western Insurance. Against his better judgment, Nameless agreed to meet with him. The investigation was relatively simple: a multimillionaire rare books collector had reported the theft of eight volumes, worth a half million dollars. From a locked library. To which he has the only key. The books were all crime fiction and suspense—a locked room mystery about mysteries. This ordinary Monday brought a second oddball case. The Henderson brothers were being stalked. Someone had dug up the ashes of their late father and poured acid over them, then destroyed the headstone the same way, and left a sign warning that this was just the beginning. Searching for peace of mind and the distraction of work, Jake Runyon is more than happy to bring an end to the brothers' terror.

We’re told that there are seven deadly sins; not on the list is the deadliest of them Betrayal. For each of the detectives at the agency, a betrayal—personal, against a child, against the elderly—becomes not only the driving force behind an investigation, but the source of the kind of resolve that cannot be derailed by threats of any kind. Tamara’s case began as something personal but explodes as her investigation of her former lover Lucas Zeller leads to a scam bilking charities in the name of helping the homeless and indigent. For Nameless, with a case he doesn't want but can't turn down, trying to find out who is gaslighting an old woman only exposes the ugly side of family. When he goes home, tired and annoyed, he discovers that his adopted daughter, Emily, has a secret of her own. Runyon has a different his case of a bailjumper with some bad family ties is easy enough as these things go, but he’s being confronted by a demon that is going to try to force him into a betrayal…. Three people who care, three people devoted to helping others trying to help themselves, three people finding themselves in a world of hurt because of the betrayers.

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’s 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 isn’t his wife. Then he disappears and his fiancée hires Nameless to find out why. Clearly, someone is trying to make Nameless the monkey in the middle. The investigation that Nameless' 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.

Bill, the "Nameless Detective," and his wife Kerry were in the Sierra foothills, just outside of Six Pines, falling in love with a cabin. It was all perfect, until Kerry went missing. They'd seen Balfour at breakfast at the diner and Kerry remembered his name…PR people are like that. Which was unfortunate, because when she ran into him along the trail on that sunny afternoon and called him by name, he panicked. And that's when Bill's nightmare began. In a small town with limited resources, where a major case was keeping everyone busy, a private investigator demanding action wasn't very popular. They were doing all they could, Bill was told. But it wasn't enough. With the help of his longtime associate Jake Runyon, Bill begins a search that uncovers just what price the citizens in a town without pity might have to pay. Bill and Jake follow the few leads they have, and come face to face with the Hellbox. The Nameless Detective series is the longest-running series of its kind, and Bill Pronzini only gets better with each new Nameless title.

Young, newly rich Verity Daniels claims to be receiving threatening demands for money from a mysterious caller. When Jake Runyon agrees to investigate, it seems a relatively simple matter to expose the extortionist by setting a trap for him. The case, however, is nowhere near as clear-cut as it first appears. And Verity Daniels is nowhere near the helpless victim she pretends to be. A series of surprise revelations culminates in Runyon being falsely accused of a crime that never happened, and he and his employers then become the targets of a vicious legal vendetta. A sudden act of violence turns the case upside down, leading to a much more serious charge against Jake. With the help of partner Tamara Corbin, Nameless (known as Bill to his associates) puts aside the difficult personal issue that has kept him sidelined at home and works to clear both Runyon's and the agency's good names. The task requires untangling Verity Daniels' bizarre past and present relationships, and before Bill succeeds, he must overcome a deadly threat to his own safety. Nemesis continues author Bill Pronzini's acclaimed Nameless Detective Series.

The latest in Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini's acclaimed Nameless Detective Series—Strangers. Cody Hatcher is the kind of teenager you don't want your kids hanging with. That's the book on him and it's why the citizens of Mineral Springs have no problem at all believing that he's guilty of three rapes. His mother, Cheryl, an old lover of Nameless', is also being harassed by vindictive townspeople. It's against such odds that he must work to prove Cody innocent. There are few to help him and plenty to get in his way. It's a classic situation for an iconic private investigator.

When Nameless is hired by Cory Beckett, a beautiful young woman who claims to be a model, to find her missing brother, Kenneth, it seems to be a routine matter. Kenneth has fled San Francisco in a drug-induced panic to avoid trial on a charge of stealing a valuable necklace from the alcoholic wife of the man for whom he works, wealthy yachtsman Andrew Vorhees. When agency operative Jake Runyon locates and questions the frightened young man, Cory Beckett's motives come into question and the case takes on darkly sinister complexities. Cory lied to Nameless about her livelihood, her relationship with Vorhees, her brother's alleged drug use, and the nature of his alleged crime. Not only is she Andrew Vorhees' mistress, Cory has a secret second lover, factory owner Frank Chaleen, with whom she conspired to frame Kenneth. This bizarre sibling betrayal is part of a diabolical plan that reveals her to be a deadly, designing woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her warped desires. A series of twists and turns drive the story to a truly shocking climax. For not until then do the detectives realize how devilish Cory Beckett really is, a femme fatale who has brought something new to the species—new, and terrible.

The Nameless Detective has taken many cases over the years... and this is one for the books. Or rather, two cases that will test his agency's resources. Love is in the air...more to the point, love gone awry. One case involves a woman whose husband died accidentally in a remote cabin in the Sierras. The wife isn't buying that her husband was alone, and is determined to find out his secret and get closure...in spite of any potential heartbreak. The other case is a missing person . . . but the person missing was agoraphobic and never left the house. The husband swears that while their relationship was strained due to his wife's condition, he was still in love with her. He begs Nameless to clear him and find his wife before the cops come for him. Bill Pronzini's Endgame is a classic Nameless tale—twisty puzzles featuring one of mystery's best loved detectives.

A Shamus Award-winning Author Few characters have the loyal readership of Bill Pronzini's "Nameless Detective." The fourteen stories in this collection span his entire thirty-five-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. Available only in Mystery 4.

SAME COVER AS STOCK PHOTO SHOWN. MINOR EDGE WEAR AND SCUFFING ON COVERS. CLEAN PAGES.

Allison Shay was traveling home from the University of Oregon with her new boyfriend, Rob Compton, when their car broke down near the tiny rural town of Creekside, California. Soon after, Allison and Rob went missing without a trace. Whatever happened, it felt like something bad to the Nameless Detective. Five days without a whisper of contact with the outside world. Long past the inconsiderate-kids stage; long past the silly and the harmless. Kinsmen takes Bill Pronzini's classic private investigator to California's northeast backwoods, where an isolated community is determined to keep a deep, dark secret: why Allison Shay and Rob Compton really vanished. The real question facing the Nameless Detective: are they still alive?

You hear the term a lot these days, usually in connection with noir fiction and film noir. But they're not just products of literature or film, the folklore of nearly every culture. They exist in modern society, too. The genuine femme fatales you hear about now and then are every bit as evil as the fictional variety. Yet what sets them apart is that they're the failures, the ones who for one reason or another got caught. For every one of those, there must be several times as many who get away with their destructive crimes... In the thirty years the Nameless Detective has been a private investigator, he has never once had the misfortune to cross paths with this type of seductress... but in Femme he'll meet Cory Beckett, a deadly woman who has brought some new angles to the species. New—and terrible.

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. "Proficient." - Kirkus Reviews

The Nameless Detective is called upon to find out how rare books and maps are being stolen from an antiquarian bookshop with a faultless alarm system. He goes undercover in the store, only to be foiled when a theft occurs right under his nose. Then, as he ponders the case (while on a date with the lovely Kerry), he’s violently struck from behind by a car that seems bent on driving him off the road. Will Nameless survive this attempt on his life and solve the case? Murder anonymous: solve another case with the Nameless Detective. ©1982 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. All rights reserved. (P)2011 BBC Audiobooks

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. Nameless opens up his files on some of his most fascinating cases. Collected here are ten stories and two novelettes, giving Nameless fans a page-turning potpourri of his toughest and most dangerous adventures. CASEFILE holds his greatest hits - a 122 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 (and most likeable) P.I's, who has caught more criminals - and imaginations - than any other gumshoe in recent American Fiction.