With its roots in the American private detective fiction of the 1920s but traceable back as far as Sherlock holmes, the private eye store remains as popular as ever. Here are 24 of the finest short novels and stories from the hard-boiled world of the private eye. The characters in this collection range from the tough, cynical, hard drinking lunar Philip Merlot to hard-hitting female private eyes and the one armed intellectual Dan Fortune, from masters of the genre past and present.