Two-bit private detective Stanley Hasting's growing sense of worthlessness prompts him to refuse the case of a bonafide client, but when that client is killed, Stanley vows to find the murderer

Stanley Hastings, the New York private detective, is back in the swing of things. But playing it safe and toning down his investigations doesn't work for him because he is a magnet for trouble. Stanley needs to help an apparently innocent housewife/call girl get out of a prostitution ring and retrieve a compromising video of her held by her pimp. Unfortunately, Stanley walks into the pimp's apartment while a slaughter is in progress. To make matters worse, Stanley himself is the number-one suspect.

When clients whom bumbling private detective Stanley Hastings is routinely investigating for a law firm are being strangled, he must clear his own name and track down the serial killer

"What's wrong with me?" is the thought that crosses Stanley Hastings' mind when he gets his first paying client. Stanley has absolutely no interest in being a P.I., but hey, he needs to pay the bills. The novice P.I.'s first victim . um . client is Marvin Nickleson, an ex-husband on the rampage. Stanley's first job seems easy-just get a picture of Nickleson's ex-wife with another man-until . well . he finds her DEAD AS A DOORNAIL. The murder weapon? In Stanley's car, of course. Stanley's second case is to save his own hide. What will this aspiring-writer-turned-detective do?

With the exception of the beautiful fellow juror he has befriended, self-employed private investigator Stanley Hastings finds jury duty a dreadful bore, that is until his new friend is murdered and the police suspect him. Reprint. NYT.

When a wealthy woman offers him two hundred dollars a day to follow her boyfriend, sleazy private eye Stanley Hastings finds his case complicated by the boyfriend's murder. Reprint.

When Manhattan private eye and part-time actor Stanley Hastings gets an offer to have his screenplay produced, he thinks he's finally hit it big. But when corpses keep turning up, he sees he will have to re-write the ending, to catch the killer.

Stanley Hastings has a client - a real-life, money-paying client. That's the good news. The bad news is that this client might be the most frustrating thing to come along in years. "I'm being set up," is all that six-foot-six Cranston Pritchert says to Stanley when he first darkens Stanley's doorway. Why is the investment firm partner being set up? How? By whom? Cranston can't seem to answer even the simplest of questions. Instead, he sends Stanley off to an East Side singles bar to track down an unforgettably endowed blonde. Stanley finds his woman, and even finds the theatrical agent behind her. But when he tries to unravel the alleged setup, all clues point to Pritchert himself...and murder. Suddenly, the players in this mystery are falling like dominoes, and a dyspeptic policeman decides that Stanley Hastings is the one to blame. Facing three counts of murder and having your face emblazoned across the television screen is not Stanley's idea of a good time. Going to prison - and maybe the chair - is even worse.

In this new Stanley Hastings mystery novel, the put-upon New York private investigator is vacationing at the Blue Frog Ponds Inn, a trendy New England bed-and-breakfast, with his wife, Alice. The cheerless room with its paper-thin walls, no TV, and a blue cartoon frog on the door does nothing for Stanley's spirits or his libido. Besides all that, someone has started bumping off the guests. Worse still, the first murder happened right under Stanley's nose, so he finds himself a key witness if not a prime suspect. Back home in New York City Stanley could call upon his friends on the police force to help him solve the crime, but not at Blue Frog Ponds. Here he has only his wits, his wife, and a cat—all of which he'll need if he's to catch a killer before the culprit strikes very close to home.

Having survived a murderously uncomfortable New England holiday in the much-praised Cozy, private eye Stanley Hastings returns to more familiar New York urban turf with his twisted logic and droll style effectually intact. With Joe Balfour—a client who did time 25 years ago for killing a man in a barroom brawl—Stanley embarks on an ingeniously plotted and frequently hilarious excursion that will confront him continually with like the arrest of his client for the murder of a notorious blackmailer who’s been found in his Upper East Side apartment with a carving knife in his back. And before he cracks the case, Stanley will be breaking and entering, contaminating crime scenes, concealing evidence (or else planting it), framing two innocent men for two different homicides, aiding an extortionist, hanging out in a topless bar, blackmailing a few attorneys, and outwitting the cops. This is the fifteenth novel in the long-running mystery series that the New York Times finds “very funny” in its “manic nonsense” and “fiendish constructions of sound logic.”

"What Mr. Hall does to the private eye formula is very funny, but it is not frivolous. His puzzles, for all their manic nonsense, are fiendish constructions of sound logic."- The New York Times Book Review Private Eye Stanley Hastings doesn't want for idiosyncrasies, as fans of this long-running "unconventional" and "very funny" (The New York Times) mystery series know. For instance, he doesn't carry a gun. So he seems a particularly improbable choice, among all of New York City's private investigators, for the cold-eyed Martin Kessler. Not that Kessler requires firepower. He's got a gun of his own-an automatic with a long, ugly silencer-although he'd like to retire it. A contract killer who wants out of the game, Kessler hires Stanley mostly to watch his back in the event that someone of similar professional skills is shadowing him. Someone is, in fact, only Stanley fails to spot him and dead bodies are soon piling messily up. There's an obligation a PI owes a client, so Stanley figures, and in the face of a situation that with more luck or diligence he might have averted, he determines to sort it out. The hapless PI thus begins an odyssey that will take him from a seedy topless bar to a plush corporate boardroom, and ultimately a Manhattan courtroom, in his attempt to uncover just what did go down, and why, during his client's last, decidedly dirty job. Edgar, Shamus, and Lefty nominee Parnell Hall is the author of the Stanley Hastings private eye novels, the Puzzle Lady crossword puzzle mysteries, and the Steve Winslow courtroom dramas. An actor, screenwriter, and former private investigator, Hall lives in New York City.

Poor Stanley Hastings. After getting hired by a hitman and nearly getting shot, the put-upon PI needed some fun, so when a gorgeous damsel in distress walked through his office door she seemed just what the doctor ordered. Wrong again. The fair maiden turned out to be a married mom who wanted Stanley to find out why her teenage daughter was skipping school. Playing truant officer wasn't exactly Stanley's idea of fun, but at least it should be easy. Fat chance. Stanley being Stanley, nothing goes right, nothing is as it seems, bodies start to pile up, and faster than you can say 'fall guy', guess who's left holding the bag? Before the case is resolved, Stanley will be nostalgic for the good old days, when all he had to worry about was a hitman.

Stanley Hastings finally felt like a real PI, staking out a New Jersey motel to get evidence on a woman's cheating husband. It should have been a piece of cake. Only the husband wasn't cheating, someone killed him, and the cops are trying to pin the murder on the man apprehended at the scene, who just happens to be Stanley. To clear his name, Stanley will wind up jumping bail, impersonating a police officer, staking out a mob boss, and appropriating a murder weapon from a sassy Jersey Girl who keeps trying to distract him by ripping her clothes off. And that's just for starters . . .

Stanley Hastings on safari? I don’t think so. Neither did Stanley, until Alice’s small inheritance—coupled with scrimping on a few luxuries like food and rent—allowed them to book a group trip to Zambia. Now the New York PI is hiking with lions, canoeing with hippos, and having close encounters with elephants and giraffes. It’s a dangerous safari. The leader is a reckless, gung-ho, great white hunter who delights in leaping from the jeep with a hearty “Come on, gang, let’s see where this lion is going!” And a series of bizarre accidents quickly dwindles the group’s numbers. Why was the guide’s young spotter foolish enough to walk under a sausage fruit tree . . . just as one of the huge sausage fruits fell? How did the leaves of a poisonous plant wind up in a tourist’s salad? Are these really accidents? A stabbing tips the scale. It’s murder, and the only policeman in a hundred miles is a park ranger (whose only murder case was that of an ivory poacher shot dead in plain sight). It’s up to Stanley to crack the case . . . if he can just avoid being eaten by a lion.

A young woman found naked and stabbed to death in her apartment. It's the type of case that should be perfect for Stanley Hastings. Instead, it's his nightmare. A sensational murder trial! A young woman found naked and stabbed to death in her apartment! The woman was the girlfriend of his boss, Richard Rosenberg, and the hotshot lawyer is charged with killing her. Now Richard's in court fighting for his life, and Stanley's out on the firing line trying to dig up some evidence in his favor. It won't be easy. The murdered woman was a law clerk for a prominent judge, and everyone Stanley needs to question is currently tied up in a high-profile Global Banking trial. As Stanley races back and forth between two courtrooms, searching for the key to the mystery through investigative techniques that could easily get him charged as an accessory, every fact tends to point to Richard's DNA evidence proves he is the man who had sex with the victim just before she died, eyewitnesses put him at the scene of the crime, and his fingerprints are on the murder weapon. In desperation, Richard resorts to a series of courtroom tactics so outrageous they would make Perry Mason blush. Before the case is over, everyone in the courtroom will be convinced that not only does Richard Rosenberg have a fool for a client, but the client has a fool for a lawyer.