“The mystery fiction that Sara Paretsky fashions from Chicago’s South Side is fully matched in Raleigh’s gritty North Side tales” (Publishers Weekly). Margaret O’Mara’s brother disappeared decades ago. But now that his last known associate has just been found dead, O’Mara hires PI Paul Whelan to investigate. Whelan makes the rounds through seedy bars and dilapidated apartment buildings, discovering connections to a long-gone Chicago amusement park that was once the site of another murder. Soon, Whelan is navigating his way through dark pasts, deep secrets, and a mystery that may cost him his life. “What makes this riveting private-eye yarn work is a mixture of superior Chicago atmosphere, with the ghost of the legendary Riverview amusement park lurking in the shadows; great dialogue; and compassionately drawn characters.” —Booklist

Meet Detective Inspector Luke Abbott. Set in the West Country, The Wychford Murders is the first in the series, from CWA Golden Dagger winner Paula Gosling. Wychford is a charming and quiet West Country village. Or rather, it was – until Mrs Tompkins was found with her throat slashed. Detective Chief Inspector Luke Abbott is sent to find the killer. He was born and brought up in Wychford – but he hardly recognizes it. The young girl he loved has become the local doctor. The boy who once bullied him is now a respected local Squire. And the people of Wychford are in hiding – fearful of who will next fall victim to the killer’s bloody knife. There are secrets behind these doors – love and hate, perversion, envy, greed and – eventually – a ruthless murderer . . . Continue the series with Death Penalties.

A Chicago PI hunts for a missing kid who fell in with the wrong crowd: “Raleigh presents a genuine good guy in the luckless Whelan” (Publishers Weekly). An elderly woman has asked private investigator Paul Whelan to look into the disappearance of Tony Blanchard—a young man she’d taken in after his parents died. Instead, Whelan discovers a string of murders, all tied to a car-theft ring. All the evidence suggests that Tony is dead as well, but Whelan keeps digging until he finds himself surrounded by a dangerous maze of silent witnesses, crooked cops, and people willing to kill to keep the truth from surfacing. When a friend from Whelan’s past emerges—a friend Whelan thought long dead—his investigation takes a dangerous turn: one that brings him no closer to Tony, and a lot closer to his own demise. “Raleigh’s Paul Whelan series brings to mind the late Ross McDonald’s Lew Archer novels . . . Read Whelan now; he won’t be a secret much longer.” —Booklist

When Kurt Larsen is hired to investigate embezzlement at Boston's latest entry into the fast-moving world of home-finance, he expects little more than an opportunity to take down some white-collar, rich-man wannabe, while paying something on account to his "credit-card company, two girlfriends, ex-wife, and bartender." But the theft of hundreds of thousands has only opened the door into New World Mortgage's labyrinth of secrets. Soon after the case begins, Karina Miller, the company's beautiful young accountant, is found strangled in her apartment. Crime follows bloody crime as Larsen and State Police Detective Stewart travel the seamy, underworld streets. They encounter high-class prostitution, stylish confidence games, and high-flying financial fraud. It's a nightmarish pursuit of a vicious mind whose path is strewn with uncontrollable lusts and unholy pleasures, even as the killer remains hidden in the polyester-like fabric of everyday life in corporate America.

In 1970s Chicago, a young man searches for the woman he lost—and finds a mystery: “Clever and surprising, a pleasure of a read” (Michael Allen Dymmoch, award-winning author of the Caleb & Thinnes novels). Home from military service, Billy Fox leaves Michigan and gets on a Greyhound to Chicago, hoping to find his ex-girlfriend, Rita—now another man’s wife. Chicago isn’t a town that takes kindly to strangers, and Billy finds himself barely scraping by, working odd jobs and living in squalor among ex-cons and men that the city hasn’t spit out just yet. Then a chance encounter lands him a job with Harry Strummer, the streetwise owner of the Peerless Detective Agency. At Harry’s oddball agency, Billy hones his skills, learning how to stake out a mark, find a bug, and spot a tail. His life begins to change in ways he didn’t expect—but as he continues to search for Rita, an even bigger mystery comes along, one that puts both men in the crosshairs.

Death on the Chicago waterfront pulls a PI into a twisting case: “An underappreciated, carefully crafted series” (Booklist). Two years ago, a computer software specialist was found dead in Belmont Harbor, an apparent suicide. Now, the body of a low-rent bookie has been found very close to the same spot—and the businessman’s wealthy widow hires Paul Whelan to find out whether her husband really killed himself at all. There are, in fact, connections between the two men—and as Whelan tries to sort them out with some unofficial help from a friend on the force, he’s drawn into a world of missing accountants, mysterious tough guys, and dirty deals . . . “Sleek plotting . . . Raleigh, who delivered the goods in his debut novel, Death in Uptown, shows no signs of faltering.” —Publishers Weekly

A killer terrorizes a diverse Chicago neighborhood in this “impressive first mystery” (Publishers Weekly). Private investigator Paul Whelan’s specialty is tracking down missing persons. But when his good friend is found slain in an alley, Whelan is steered down a path of violence as he searches for answers in a murder case. His investigation is interrupted by the arrival of an attractive young woman who is on her own search for her missing kid brother. But as clues lead Whelan to believe the two cases may be connected, the body count rises quickly, and he finds himself racing to catch a killer before he strikes again . . . “Raleigh seems to have gotten so deeply inside his hero and his seamy world that there may be nothing left for a sequel. But it would be great to be wrong about that.” —Kirkus Reviews