Crime City

Before Area X, there was Ambergris. Jeff VanderMeer conceived what would become his first cult classic series of speculative works: the Ambergris trilogy. Now, for the first time ever, the story of the sprawling metropolis of Ambergris is collected into a single volume, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.

Brand-new stories by: Daniel Woodrell, Matthew Eck, Catherine Browder, Nancy Pickard, John Lutz, J. Malcolm Garcia, Kevin Prufer, Linda Rodriguez, Nadia Pflaum, Phong Nguyen, Andres Rodriguez, and others. Kansas City: where East and West collide, where naked ambition meets broken dreams, where blues and the night go together like rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. Yes, Kansas City is a surprising place of grit, gore, and betrayal, at least in the imaginations of our diverse lineup of contributors.

On a summer night in 2009, three lives intersected in one American neighborhood. Two people newly in love - Teresa Butz and Jennifer Hopper, who spent many years trying to find themselves and who eventually found each other - and a young man on a dangerous psychological descent: Isaiah Kalebu, age 23, the son of a distant, authoritarian father and a mother with a family history of mental illness. All three paths forever altered by a violent crime, all three stories a wake-up call to the system that failed to see the signs.

Meet Mickey Friday: San Diego’s newest werewolf private investigator. In a city where shifters—werewolves, bears, cougars, and more—live in secret, Mickey Friday is trying to carve out her niche. Street-smart but still building her reputation, most of her cases involve tracking down cheating spouses and solving petty mysteries. That changes when Mrs. Laine, a wealthy werewolf, hires her to recover stolen heirlooms. The catch? The suspects are bear shifters, and Mrs. Laine doesn’t want the police involved. As Mickey digs into the case, her love life takes a surprising twist with the ...

Nashville - a haven for aspiring musicians and a magnet for country-music fans. By the time Pat Postiglione arrived there in 1980, it was also the scene of an unsolved series of vicious sex slayings that served as a harbinger of worse to come. As Postiglione was promoted from street-beat Metro cop to detective sergeant heading Music City’s elite cold-case Murder Squad, some of America’s most bizarre, elusive, and savage serial killers were calling Nashville home. And during the next two decades, the body count climbed.

Was Harper Ellis murdered or was it suicide? Harper Ellis had everything to live for—a promising career as a beloved elementary school teacher, a tight-knit group of friends, and a dream wedding on the horizon with her fiancé, Daniel Kessler. Life in her beachfront condo in Panama City Beach, Florida, should have been the start of her happily ever after. But on the evening of January 26, 2021, Harper was found dead—brutally stabbed twenty times in her own home. Daniel swears he left her alive just thirty minutes earlier. When he returned, the condo was locked from the inside, the ...

Chicago, 1924. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper".

Pittsburgh's small but lucrative Cosa Nostra mafia family was on the rise in 1985 with a newly crowned Don . . . The men who came to dominate the rackets in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia opened the family to massive profits from drug trafficking and a street tax on other criminal activities. At the same time, the Youngstown, Ohio, faction of the family launched a brutal mob war against the weakening Cleveland mafia and the Altoona, Pennsylvania, crew violently clamped down on their city.

They're out there, under the salt - the bodies of German seamen who used to lie in wait at the mouth of the Mississippi for unescorted American tankers sailing from the oil refineries of Baton Rouge out into the Gulf of Mexico. As a child, Dave Robicheaux had been haunted by the sailors' images. Years later, Robicheaux, a detective with the New Iberia sheriff's office, finds himself and his family at serious risk, stalked for his knowledge of a watery burial ground by a mysterious man named Will Buchalter - a man who believes that the Holocaust was one big hoax.

Alec: Lumen is amazing. She brings out the playful, relaxed side of me, but fate doesn’t seem to agree we belong together. And now, my ex pops back into my life and wants to make a go of it again so our daughter can have a real family. I’m torn between what’s best for my daughter or following my feelings for Lumen. Lumen: Just when our relationship was going great, Alec basically blows me off the minute his ex is back in town. He texted that he needs a break while he figures out what’s going on with his family. And to add fuel to the fire, someone told my principal about the massage...

In Long Island, a farmer found a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discovered a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumbled upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime were turning up all over New York, but the police were baffled: There were no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era's most perplexing murder.

I'm employed by Lucas Esposito Jr., the infamous mafia boss of the Esposito Crime Family. His girlfriend Lexis disappeared while I was on duty. During my search, I've taken up residence in a three-star hotel on Chicago's North Side. While I should keep my focus on my task at hand, this vixen somehow managed to slip her way into my life. Will our connection prove to be a fleeting flame or an unbreakable bond?

From its inception, Atlantic City has always been a town dedicated to the fast buck, and this wide-reachinghistory offers a riveting account of its past 100 year, from the city's heyday as a Prohibition-era mecca of lawlessness to its rebirth as a legitimate casino resort in the modern era.

USA Today bestselling author Posey Parks brings another heart stopping dark mafia romance. Upon waking up, no one would disclose Tori's whereabouts, nor did they seem willing to do so. My injuries were so severe that I had to be sedated for a period of time to allow my body to heal. When the truth finally came out, I was overcome with emotions and desperate to find Tori. All the near-death experiences I went through for her made me realize that I was deeply in love with her. Tori appeared in my life when I was at my lowest point after losing my boss's girlfriend while on duty. Despite her ...

Running out of money, Diana Poole is forced to go back to the only work she knows: acting. Her much-loved husband and movie-star mother have died, and now Diana is over thirty-five. In Hollywood that means she might as well be dead. Still, a few key people remember her talent, and she lands a role in a new movie. But an actress should never get her hopes up, especially when she discovers the female lead’s murdered body.

While Eve examines a fresh body in Washington Square Park, her husband, Roarke, spots a man among the onlookers he’s known since his younger days on the streets of Dublin. A man who claims to be his half brother. A man who kills for a living - and who burns with hatred for him. Eve is quick to suspect that the victim’s spouse - resentful over his wife’s affair and poised to inherit her fortune - would have happily paid an assassin to do his dirty work. Roarke is just as quick to warn her that if Lorcan Cobbe is the hitman, she needs to be careful.

Bayou transplant Odessa Dean has a lot to learn about life in Brooklyn. So far she's scored a rent free apartment in one of the nicest neighborhoods around by cat-sitting, and has a new job working at Untapped Books & Café. Hand-selling books and craft beers is easy for Odessa, but making new friends and learning how to ride the subway? Well, that might take her a little extra time. But things turn more sour than an IPA when the death of a fellow waitress goes viral, caught on camera in the background of a couple's flash-mob proposal video.

Embark on a rollercoaster of emotions with The Killing Game Series – a thrilling saga of passion, control, deception, and danger. Join Special Agent Ives Andrich as he unravels a web of secrets surrounding his wife's mistreatment during the Luca case, exposing a chilling connection to a hunted bomber. Cryptic clues and a twisted conspiracy set the stage for The Chase, Book Two of The Killing Game Series, a heart-stopping romantic suspense thriller by The Black Rose. Get ready for an adrenaline-fueled ride as Ives engages in a high-stakes mental chase, leading to a face-to-face showdown ...

On a steaming night in 1977, New York City is plunged into darkness and two boys, Joe and Robbie, are abandoned by their mother, Lois. Forty years to the day after this unforgivable moment, Joe is a hard-drinking ADA and Lois has resurfaced: Joe wakes from another alcoholic fog to learn she’s been found murdered on a Coney Island beach.

Special Agent Hector Ramirez is a seasoned FBI agent who is stationed at the Las Vegas field office. He is currently working on a high-stakes case involving a carjacking ring that has been plaguing the city for weeks. The perpetrators are cunning and selective, targeting only one type of car, which has made it difficult for law enforcement to track them down. Hector's mission is clear: save the child and apprehend the suspects. But as he delves deeper into the investigation, he begins to question whether the child was merely a victim of circumstance or if the carjackers had targeted the ...