Peter Chambers

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  • Bibliography:
    37 Books (1 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1961
  • Latest Book:
    January 1992
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Full Series List in Order

Mark Preston

1 - Murder Is for Keeps (1961)
2 - Wreath for a Redhead (1962)
3 - The Big Goodbye (1962)
4 - Dames Can Be Deadly (1963)
5 - Down-Beat Kill (1963)
6 - Lady, This Is Murder (1963)
7 - This'll Kill You (1964)
8 - Nobody Lives Forever (1964)
9 - You're Better Off Dead (1965)
10 - Always Take the Big Ones (1965)
11 - No Gold When You Go (1966)
12 - Don't Bother to Knock (1966)
13 - The Bad Die Young (1967)
14 - The Blonde Wore Black (1968)
15 - No Peace for the Wicked (1968)
16 - Speak Ill of the Dead (1968)
17 - They Call It Murder (1973)
18 - Somebody Has to Lose (1975)
19 - The Deader They Fall (1979)
20 - Lady, You're Killing Me (1979)
21 - The Day of the Big Dollar (1979)
22 - The Beautiful Golden Frame (1980)
23 - Nothing Personal (1980)
24 - The Deep Blue Cradle (1980)
25 - A Long Time Dead (1981)
26 - The Lady Who Never Was (1981)
27 - Female - Handle With Care (1981)
28 - Murder Is Its Own Reward (1982)
29 - The Highly Explosive Case (1982)
30 - A Miniature Murder Mystery (1982)
31 - Jail Bait (1983)
32 - Dragons Can Be Dangerous (1983)
33 - Bomb Scare: Flt. 147 (1984)
34 - The Moving Picture Writes (1984)
35 - The Vanishing Holes Murders (1985)
36 - The Hot Money Caper (1992)

Book List in Order: 37 titles

  • Murder Is for Keeps

    Mark Preston - 1

    When private eye Mark Preston was hired to chase an amorous musician away from teenage heiress Ellen Chase, it sounded simple. But within twenty-four hours he was beaten up and made the number one suspect in a case of murder. He was also in trouble w...

  • The Big Goodbye

    Mark Preston - 3

    When gorgeous Juanita Morales arrived in Monkton City looking for bright lights and glamour, she found herself mixed up in an elaborate racket and finally murder...Mark Preston didn't mind so long as women like Dixie Whitton and Sylvia Le Fay kept cr...

  • Wreath for a Redhead

    Mark Preston - 2

    If redhead Cheryl Vickers thought she could blackmail a prominent industrialist like Benedict Van Huizen, she was mistaken. Mark Preston was called in, and he soon found himself dealing with double murder. As usual, the dames complicated everything. ...

  • Dames Can Be Deadly

    Mark Preston - 4

    When blackmailer Perry Sloan was murdered, nobody in Hollywood wept; not even Mark Preston, although the police found him with the corpse. Preston wandered through a world of odd characters like Panama Hat, and Lovely Lina, who might know something, ...

  • Down-Beat Kill

    Mark Preston - 5

    Somebody had taken a shot at TV disc-jockey Donny Jingle and had tried to poison his food. Mark Preston was being paid to keep him alive, and when the news of Jingle's murder broke it did nothing for the private eye's ego. Everybody seemed more scare...

  • Lady, This Is Murder

    Mark Preston - 6

    Jeannie Benson was a sweet and lovely girl who suddenly disappeared from Vale City. Six months later she was found on a mortuary slab in Monkton City. But now she was Ruby Capone, a cheap bar pick-up. Boss of the rackets, Benito, gave Mark Preston ...

  • Nobody Lives Forever

    Mark Preston - 8

    Mark Preston reluctantly agreed to investigate the death of a junked-up kid who killed himself joyriding. When Preston found wealthy Albert Augustin's dead body, he also found Avis, the new widow who did her mourning in a bikini. Then there was the c...

  • This'll Kill You

    Mark Preston - 7

    Nobody had thought about the Hogan baby snatch for twenty years. Neither the child nor the ransom money was ever seen again. Then Slip Cahoon, a long-term model prisoner, suddenly broke jail and people began to die. Mark Preston became involved when ...

  • Always Take the Big Ones

    Mark Preston - 10

    Marty Sawyer operated some sweet rackets from the Sunny Side Club. When he bled to death in a cheap rooming house, the police charged a small-timer called Second Storey Schuster, who'd been threatening the dead hoodlum. Schuster hired Preston to get ...



  • You're Better Off Dead

    Mark Preston - 9

    Mark Preston was hired to trace General Hudson's grandson, but the case took a twist when he found there were stolen paintings involved. Preston knew little about art, but he did know people, especially those like Quake who had the disposition of a r...

  • Don't Bother to Knock

    Mark Preston - 12

    Out at Palmtrees Racetrack, the little man in the noisy clothes wanted Mark Preston. All Preston wanted was revenge on the bookies. He got busy with that, somebody else got busy shoving an ice-pick in the little man. People began to crawl from holes....

  • No Gold When You Go

    Mark Preston - 11

    In five centuries, Seldon's Gold had travelled far. Kings and cut-throats, freemen and freebooters, all had chased it. Toots McKern definitely had an ancient coin in his pocket when they fished him from the bay. A wealthy collector hired Mark Preston...

  • The Bad Die Young

    Mark Preston - 13

    Lovely Mona Stanford had a lot of unexplained money, and her husband hired Mark Preston to get it explained. Preston soon found himself in the rundown city of Forbesville, where they welcomed strangers at gun-point. Mayor Clegg seemed to be in the po...

  • The Blonde Wore Black

    Mark Preston - 14

    A name like Poetry Brookman seemed trouble enough for one man, but Brookman also owed money to bookie Jake Martello, until somebody ended his misery one dark night. Martello hired Mark Preston to look into it, and he ran into some odd people. He pref...

  • No Peace for the Wicked

    Mark Preston - 15

    Hired to find a concerned family's missing son, Mark Preston got slugged on the head, giving someone the opportunity to stick a knife into gambler Manny Glazer. The organization sent men from Nevada with orders to buy Manny's Casino, or burn it down....

  • Speak Ill of the Dead

    Mark Preston - 16

    Anthea Horan was a country girl who left for the bright lights fourteen years earlier. Mark Preston was given the hopeless task of tracing her, and found himself on an involved and twisted trail. He preferred to investigate delectable Louise Peters, ...

  • They Call It Murder

    Mark Preston - 17

    Mark Preston was minding his own business in a bar when newspaperman Steiner called him, wanting a few enquiries made. Preston obliged, but was soon being threatened, beaten up, and finally dragged out of bed as a murder suspect. Rourke of Homicide c...

  • Somebody Has to Lose

    Mark Preston - 18

    Written by Peter Chambers. When American Private Investigator Mark Preston had been sent to find a wealthy missing girl he thought it would take a long time, but he got lucky fast. Then his luck started to run out with shady characters around like Ba...

  • The Day of the Big Dollar

    Mark Preston - 21

    Someone filled Rick Donovan with booze and turned him loose on an eight-lane freeway. Mark Preston began asking questions around the small clubs and jazz-cellars. There were night-people involved - including a trumpet-player with the name of Sonny Gu...



  • The Deader They Fall

    Mark Preston - 19

    The Redbourne jewels had been missing for two years. Silky Sam Willard wanted Mark Preston to locate them, sharing the reward. But people interfered - hard-faced people, like Marco, the cigar-butt specialist, Henny the shotgun artist, and Mr. Laurent...

  • Lady, You're Killing Me

    Mark Preston - 20

    The shooting of Jim Vernon was a professional job, and that should have kept Preston out - but there was money missing, and maybe something else, that kept him in. So did Marcia, the curvy widow. More people were dying, and Randall of Homicide was fi...

  • The Beautiful Golden Frame

    Mark Preston - 22

    Millionaire Bernard Rivers hired a private detective when a vengeful madwoman threatened to burn down his magnificent home. Rivers didn't care about his house but he did care about the picture inside, for it was the sole reminder of his beautiful wif...

  • The Deep Blue Cradle

    Mark Preston - 24

  • Nothing Personal

    Mark Preston - 23

    Heather Dentman had written love letters which fell into the wrong hands, and now she was being blackmailed. She wasn't afraid of her husband, but of her strait-laced mother-in-law Cecile, who would tighten the purse-strings if she found out. Mark P...

  • Female - Handle With Care

    Mark Preston - 27

    The bundle of dynamite that erupted into Mark Preston's office called herself Abigail H. O'Hagan the First. She was anxious to trace Joseph P. McEvoy, who had decamped with her wealthy father's company payroll. Preston found himself asking questions ...

  • The Lady Who Never Was

    Mark Preston - 26

    Wealthy Edith Forster summoned Mark Preston and asked him to check on her husband's business movements. The assignment seemed routine, but things took quite a different turn when Forster was brutally murdered. Preston couldn't explain his presence cl...

  • A Long Time Dead

    Mark Preston - 25

    The murder of Napoleon Scotsman the Fourth brought Mark Preston to Isobel's Towers. There he met the Towers girls, including the gunslinging lady known as Bill...Old Uncle Tommy had been kidnapped - with his jewellery - for a ransom of $100,000. Unfo...

  • The Highly Explosive Case

    Mark Preston - 29

    The briefcase Mark Preston had to deliver was likely to explode. For five thousand dollars a man expects certain risks, and international financier Stavros Kurti paid for results, not excuses. So, when Preston lost the briefcase, he knew he was in bi...

  • A Miniature Murder Mystery

    Mark Preston - 30

    Mark Preston took the case reluctantly. The verdict on Honoria Lockhart was accidental death and no one had any reason to murder her. An elderly woman of modest means, she lived quietly, concentrating on her hobby of copying old manuscripts. Preston ...



  • Murder Is Its Own Reward

    Mark Preston - 28

    The tiny man with the shifty eyes was named Jumbo Cousins. He wanted to revive the three-year-old New York kidnapping and murder of millionaire Alfred Grassman and his girl friend Lynda Peters. He also wanted the quarter-million-dollar reward. Mark P...

  • Dragons Can Be Dangerous

    Mark Preston - 32

    Wealthy Gene Armstrong called in Mark Preston to recover antique Chinese pottery. He was promised five thousand dollars by Armstrong and half promised other things by Armstrong's new wife, silky dragon lady Roxanne. Nobody mentioned murder and genera...

  • Jail Bait

    Mark Preston - 31

    It was bad luck for Mark Preston when he found Benny Hall murdered. Benny was Family, and dangerous people were involved. Hired by one faction and under threat from another, Preston found himself in a twilit world of blue movies and child prostitutes...

  • Bomb Scare: Flt. 147

    Mark Preston - 33

    Smog delayed Flight 147, and so prevented a bomb exploding in mid-air. Walter Keane was one of those rescued, but he found that during the crisis he had been robbed of his jewel-bag. Mark Preston was hired to locate the missing gems without involving...

  • The Moving Picture Writes

    Mark Preston - 34

    When tycoon Thaddeus Rockwood celebrated his wedding anniversary, he screened a movie record of the wedding, along with a choice piece of pornography. The petty thief who stole the guests' valuables meant to take the blue movie, but lifted the weddin...

  • The Vanishing Holes Murders

    Mark Preston - 35

    Dexter Hadley hired Mark Preston to investigate his wife's behavior, but was murdered before Preston could begin. Hadley's employers then wanted Preston to look into some shenanigans at their tractor plant. A client claimed that a model had been deli...

  • The Day the Thames Caught Fire

    An offer of a quarter of a million pounds for a day's work, attracts mercenary Philip Baxter, but leads him to distrust his new employers, who plan on stealing gold bullion from a riverfront warehouse...

  • The Hot Money Caper

    Mark Preston - 36

    What starts as a straightforward case of rich man's wife being blackmailed by ex-lover quickly turns into a matter of life and, more probably, death for cynical private eye, Mark Preston. How much does the gorgeous Ellen Ralph really know? Is he bein...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Peter Chambers has published 37 books.

Peter Chambers does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Hot Money Caper, was published in January 1992.

The first book by Peter Chambers, Murder Is for Keeps, was published in January 1961.

Yes. Peter Chambers has 1 series.
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