Comedy Crime Fiction

A darkly comic noir about a chicken living in a world of anthropomorphic eggs who's wanted for a murder he didn't commit. Life is tough for an embry. Considered a vestigial organ at best and a parasite at worst, chicken embryos are usually aborted by the egg folk early in life. Once in a while, one survives and slips through, hatching into an embry, an ostracized, lower caste anthropomorphic chicken. They have their own ghettos, and are barely tolerated by polite society.

Nada Alic's women—the perverts, nobodies, reality TV stars, poetic hopefuls, shameless party girls, and self-help addicts of Los Angeles and its environs—are all wrestling with a shared stark reality: the modern world. To cope, they live in their baddest thoughts: the lush, strange landscape of female make-believe.

No one is more surprised than Lem Altick when it turns out he's actually good at peddling encyclopedias door to door. He hates the predatory world of sales, but he needs the money to pay for college. Then things go horribly wrong. In a sweltering trailer in rural Florida, a couple Lem has spent hours pitching to is shot dead before his eyes, and the unassuming young man is suddenly pulled into the dark world of conspiracy and murder.

Coalville is on fire—from below. The old mines are burning, and everyone has poison gas in their brain. Maybe that’s why the town is so corrupt. Now that he’s a Benedictine monk, Tommy Martini never wants to see the place again—hell-raisers there hold a grudge till they die, and he’s on their wish list. But a girl he once loved has gone missing, and his best friend from childhood has been murdered. Among the living is a shy girl from Tommy’s past, who wants to help. Together, they learn the secret of the elephant’s graveyard, and it’s not in Africa.

When the manuscript of a debut crime novel arrives at a Parisian publishing house, everyone in the readers’ room is convinced it’s something special. And the committee for France’s highest literary honor, the Prix Goncourt, agrees. But when the shortlist is announced, there’s a problem for editor Violaine Lepage: She has no idea of the author’s identity. As the police begin to investigate a series of murders strangely reminiscent of those recounted in the book, Violaine is not the only one looking for answers.

Detective Roger LeCarre: a man on a quest to rid the world of crime (starting with Devon and Cornwall and then working outwards) so he can concentrate on his watercolours. LeCarre runs 10 km a day but probably burns more calories shaking his head at what has become of his city. Now Exeter is set to become the UK Capital of Culture and the ambitious lord mayor wants to turn things around. But when a young man's (dead) body is found in the centre of town, things get murky.

Depressed, lonely, and tired of life, George Thring leaves work one night but never makes it home. Before he knows it, he's driven over 200 miles in the wrong direction and finds himself in a strange little town, in the middle of nowhere, during their annual Elvis Presley appreciation festival. As he stumbles from one mishap to another, George meets the woman of his dreams, unwittingly aids in a bank robbery, and finds himself pursued by both the police and a gang of angry criminals.

Chloe and her husband Scott are holidaying with their families on the beautiful Greek island of Mykonos. But Chloe has a secret... She has hired a hitman to kill Scott when they return home. This week, her plan is to pretend to be such a happy wife that no suspicion can possibly fall on her after the murder. But she's reckoning without Scott’s meddlesome sister, Tori, plus the rivalries and demands of both families. Can she deal with them all while keeping her murderous intentions hidden?

Victor Svensson, un tipo ambicioso y sin escrúpulos, se casa con la hija de un multimillonario galerista en los últimos momentos de la vida de este. Cuando el hombre fallece, Victor engaña a su mujer y logra hacerse con el negocio y ver colmadas por fin sus ansias de dinero y poder. Sin embargo, la aparición en escena de un hijo bastardo de Victor, fruto de una antigua relación, podría dar al traste con sus planes, y no está dispuesto a permitirlo.

When builder Mark Poynter discovers a murder on his worksite all of his financial problems suddenly seem a lot closer to home: was this a warning his debts are overdue? Suspected of being the killer and worried at being the intended victim, the murder only makes Mark's money problems worse, leading him to turn to the local villain, Hamlet, who has his own unique repayment plan in mind for Mark. When two more deaths plunge him even further into debt, Mark finds himself faced with a choice - help the police and clear his name or help the villain and clear his debt.

Criminal defense investigator Cecil Younger spends his days coaching would-be felons on how to avoid incriminating themselves. When Sherrie, a returning client with a good heart but a penchant for bad boys, asks him to track down some evidence that will help with her case, Cecil agrees. Cecil treks out to the shady apartment complex she mentioned, only to find his teenage daughter, Blossom, inside. He manages to get both the box Sherrie wanted and his daughter safely home, and later discovers the "evidence" is a large pile of cash - fifty thousand dollars, to be exact.

With an FBI sting on his misfit secessionist group closing in, Nat Cinder blasts from Flagstaff to Phoenix on his Triumph Rocket motorcycle. Soon he stumbles onto a packet of photos showing Governor Virginia Rentier lustily paired with three high-ranking women in state government. Though Cinder and the governor clashed 16 years before when his wife died in a car accident, Cinder prefers to keep his dislike of Rentier focused on her politics. But when the bullets fly, Nat asks questions, and learns his sudden war with the governor traces back 16 years.

Constable Nick’s beat is modernized, with his police bike replaced by a mini-van. He gets more than he bargained for as his work draws him into closer contact with villagers, in more ways than one. There are compromising positions aplenty in this next charming installment of Aidensfield life. Nick finds himself lost in heavy fog and runs across a couple of illicit lovers trapped in their car. He advises the village grocer about his very respectable lady shoplifter and discovers how farmer Owens copes with his bossy wife.

A ruthless gang. A corrupt government. A detective in search of the truth. A vigilante with a few screws loose…okay, maybe more than a few. Alex Wagner didn’t come to Hampton looking for trouble—but it sure as hell found him the day he crossed paths with Randy. Randy isn’t your ordinary vigilante. He’s a lethally trained ex-intelligence operative on a mission from God—that is, according to him, anyway. By day, he goes undercover as a drifter in threadbare disguise. By night, he lurks in Hampton’s shadows, pursuing his own warped version of justice.

Jerry has a traumatic past that leaves him subject to psychotic hallucinations and depressive episodes. When he stands accused of stealing a priceless Van Gogh painting, he goes underground, where he develops an unwilling relationship with a woman who believes that the voices she hears are from God.

Butler Helen Thorpe is not one to judge, but the participants in Close Encounters for Global Healing are astonishingly unpleasant. The five-day program brings together people from across the political spectrum with the goal of helping them bridge their ideological and personal differences. No one seems interested in a civil conversation, much less global healing, and each person has shown up with their own secret agenda.

The Consultant is very good at his job. He creates simple, elegant, effective solutions for…restructuring. Nothing obvious or messy. Certainly nothing anyone would ever suspect as murder. The ‘natural deaths’ he plans have always gone well: a medicine replaced here, a mechanism jammed there. His performance reviews are excellent. And it’s not as though he knows these people. Until his next ‘customer’ turns out to be someone he not only knows but cares about, and for the first time, he begins to question the role he plays in the vast, anonymous Company.

Chris Benson looks up to his older brother. In fact, everyone looks up to Chris’ older brother. Most have no choice when they're lying on their stomachs in the middle of Barclays bank. But when Gavin Benson gets sent down for 15 years, the somewhat unprofessional trio of Chris, Sid and Vince are left without a ringleader. As if Chris hasn't got enough problems, his adulterous partner Debbie is spending money faster than he can steal it, his sexually frustrated sister-in-law needs a man about the house and the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme want to sign him up for a tour of duty.

Homicide Detective Sydney Valentine investigates the death of a Jane Doe found in the backyard hot tub of a high-end home. When Valentine arrives at the scene, she discovers nothing is as it initially appears—far from it. Valentine's pursuit of Jane Doe's identity uncovers secrets some would prefer to keep hidden. Her investigation reveals treachery and deceit as more crimes change or end the lives of those connected to the victim. Throughout it all, Detective Valentine must face her own personal and professional challenges. She digs deeper to expose the truth behind what set everything ...

In Geppetto’s Daughter, family bonds are stretched, various appendages are cut off, castle walls are breached, warranties are voided, space battles occur, jokes are made about pianists and, of course, a liberal amount of alcohol is consumed throughout. All this for your reading pleasure. This novel supports Amazon’s ‘look inside’ feature so if you like witty dialogue and interesting characters coupled with an absorbing story line click on the cover image and read a bit. If you like it, buy it. If you really like it, buy three or four. Geppetto’s Daughter is the third book in the ...