private eye

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The author of “Gravity’s Rainbow” sends a private eye on the trail of a missing heiress in a complex, comic, Prohibition-era caper.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 3, 2025

But Paco Ignacio Taibo II is best known for his fictional alter ego: Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, a one-of-a-kind private eye confronting injustice, corruption and crime in the noir depths of 1970s Mexico City.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 6, 2025

The article focused on Robert Winnett, the British journalist poised to take over The Post’s newsroom in November, and described his links to a private eye who used unethical media practices to land big exclusives.

From New York Times • Jun. 17, 2024

“The New York Trilogy,” which included “City of Glass,” “Ghosts” and “The Locked Room,” was a postmodern detective saga in which names and identities blur and one protagonist is a private eye named Paul Auster.

From Seattle Times • May 1, 2024

As one private eye put it, he might be a “miserable snake,” but he was also “the silent, secret, and effective Avenger of the outraged Majesty of the Law when everything else fails.”

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann