Stakeout

A Stanley Hastings Mystery

Parnell Hall

The new crime thriller in the ever-funny and charming Stanley Hastings mystery series, featuring the only detective in New York City who doesn't carry a gun.

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 . . .

Parnell Hall is an Edgar, Shamus, and Lefty nominee, and is the author of the Stanley Hastings private eye novels, the Puzzle Lady crossword puzzle mystery series, and the Steve Winslow courtroom dramas. An actor, screenwriter, and former private investigator, Hall lives in New York City.

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Endorsements & Reviews

"The Stanley Hastings mysteries depend on subversively sly wordplay. In Caper, catching criminals is all very well, but in the violently verbal world he inhabits, Stanley would be happy just to win an argument." Marilyn Stasio New York Times Book Review

"Parnell Hall succeeds in making Stanley Hastings one of a kind. Pleasantly reminiscent of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin." Wall Street Journal

"The charm in Stanley Hastings lies in his chummy, loquacious, self-deprecating commentary as the narrator of his adventures." Washington Post Book World