Crime Mystery Detective Fiction

There's a new man in charge at Bow Street Magistrates' Court and all is not well. His ambition is to split up Lavender and Woods—and to add to Lavender's woes, someone is leaking exaggerated stories about his investigations to The Times. Lavender is tasked with solving the theft of an aristocrat's precious jewels, while Woods is instructed to track down a libeler. But after a series of vicious murders and surprising coincidences, they discover that these apparently unconnected crimes have more in common than they could ever have imagined.

>From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask.

The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” (Booklist).

When the body of a woman is found hanging from a tree in her front garden, rookie Detective Morgan Brookes is first on the scene. But Olivia Potter is past saving. And when her husband and daughters cannot be traced, Morgan knows there is more to this tragedy. And then she finds them. Lying huddled together in the dark basement, each of their faces covered with a small cotton cloth, their bodies cold to the touch. But as Morgan kneels beside the family, she realizes that one of the girls is still breathing.

Detective Kay Sharp vowed she’d never return to her childhood home. But now Kay’s back, and only she can solve the crime that has rocked the tight-knit community of Mount Chester to its core. A dead woman has been found by Silent Lake under the dew-covered fall leaves. Kay knows the missing-person investigation could turn into a murder case at any second. But as she hunts for the culprit, her own past closes in on her. Can she find the killer before it’s too late? And will the secret she thought she’d buried stay that way?

As Sheriff Jenna Alton and her deputy David Kane rush into the remote pine forest surrounding Black Rock Falls, Jenna’s pulse races when she sees the glint of metal behind a line of trees: a prison bus, the lifeless body of its driver slumped over the steering wheel, and its four prisoners escaped into the wilderness… Jenna’s heart pounds at the thought of the violent murders each of the fugitives committed, among them the The Ice Pick Killer who drove women to remote locations before taking their innocent young lives. And worse, female warden, Amy Clark, is missing from the bus.

Something sinister and eerie is afoot in Linnly County... When Chief Sidney Becker arrives at a crime scene on the lakeshore of her small town, she’s confronted with one of the most spine chilling murders she’s ever witnessed. The victim was drained of blood, yet the crime scene is immaculate. The man’s nude body is inscribed with mysterious symbols, and strange tokens are buried nearby in the sand. A highly skilled detective, Sidney won’t rest until the killer is in custody. The investigation takes her into the world of magical practices and beliefs; her suspects include witches, ...

The corpse of a beautiful woman, clad in only a bathing suit, is found strangled to death on a popular Sussex beach. When she is finally identified, it turns out she was a top profiler for the National Crime Faculty who was working on the case of a serial killer. And though she was a Bath resident, the authorities don't want Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond to investigate the murder. How strange. What could they be trying to hide?

Delia Williamson, a waitress and mother of two young girls, is reported missing. She is soon found in a public park, hanging from the crossbar of a children's swing set. The postmortem reveals that she has been murdered. Her current partner, her ex-husband, and a traveling salesman who frequented her restaurant are all suspects. Before Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond can solve the mystery, more will die. But even as he pursues a killer, he finds himself pursued by a secret admirer.

A young provincial journalist receives a telephone call from a man who won’t give his name. Anticipating the scoop of his career, Marcus Cunningham arranges to meet the informant at Liverpool Street station. Subsequent events quickly draw in Scotland Yard detectives Chief Inspector Philip Bryce and his colleague Sergeant Alex Haig, as they conduct a complex murder investigation.

When Detective Kim Stone is woken before dawn because local journalist Tracy Frost wants to show her a message, she’s not impressed. But her blood turns cold when she reads the note. She has 36 hours to follow a trail set by an anonymous challenger. If she fails, people will die. Kim’s gut tells her this is no hoax. She summons her team, desperate to prevent what lies ahead. With minutes to spare, they solve the first cryptic clue. It leads to a box hidden deep in the woods, containing a second clue and a tape.

📚World-famous author Cressida Vance is rich, rude, and really bad at finishing her series. When she crashes into the cozy town of Mariposas to open a Very Serious Bookstore™, tensions rise quickly. But when she bails on a local book club Q&A and turns up dead, the real mystery begins... featuring: 💸 An old-money inheritance 🖋️a scandalous lie 🔍and a whole town full of suspects Murder’s on the menu—and everyone’s reading between the lines. 🍰🔍 Perfect for fans of mysteries with bite, bookish chaos, and small-town snark. Praise for A.R. Winters: "The perfect balance...

A proposed highway through a forest near Kingsmarkham has caused loud cries of protest. One group has taken more drastic measures. It will risk everything—including the lives of five hostages—to halt construction. When Inspector Wexford learns that one of the hostages is his wife, Dora, he is caught in a spiral of frustration and fear. The gripping drama of his search takes on added intensity through Davina Porter’s crisp narration.

When Penny Matthews, a seven-year-old girl with blonde curls and a gap-toothed smile, goes missing in the Appalachian mountains, Detective Ellie Reeves is called straight to the scene. According to Penny’s parents, their daughter vanished after a picnic by the creek. All that’s left behind is a pink friendship bracelet etched with “Penny”.

If the Dark doesn’t kill you, what’s in it will. One year ago, anything with a computer chip; the electric grid; communication; every modern convenience stopped working. Ridgecrest, perched on top of the Highland Plateau, went dark — cut off from the rest of the world. Anyone who leaves never returns, and no one comes into town — until today. Grab your copy and start reading Book 1 of this electrifying new serial today! Praise for The Dark: It was bound to happen. You can’t shackle talent like Christopher Greyson’s. He finally stepped out of his comfort zone and wrote one of the...

Dr. James Macintosh, the bishop of Greyle, was a mysterious man. For a long time, nobody even knew his last name...until his body is found emaciated and battered having been pushed face-first off the edge of a cliff. Inspector Littlejohn faces an incredibly peculiar case. How to explain the savage murder of a gentle bishop? Did he know too much about the secretive citizens of Cape Marvin? Above all, why was the bishop's body so undernourished that death by violence won out by only a few days over death by starvation?

When Claire sees a car full of children careen into a river, she rushes to the rescue. But the driver, a mother named Leah Holloway, prefers to drown. For Claire and her ex, Detective Connor Parks, it doesn't add up. What would motivate a woman with a beautiful family and a successful career to resort to such unspeakable extremes? What Connor finds out confirms Claire's suspicions of something dreadful behind Holloway's picture-perfect facade: a link between the terrified mother and a serial strangler targeting Sacramento soccer moms.

In the rolling hills just outside Gaborone, surrounded by a grove of acacia trees, lies the Great Hippopotamus Hotel. With spacious rooms overlooking the Botswanan countryside and a fine and loyal staff, the hotel has served as a refuge to weary travelers for many years. But a sudden string of misfortunes threatens to ruin the hotel’s reputation. Food poisoning befalls an unlucky diner, laundry mysteriously disappears from the drying line, and a scorpion stings one of the guests. Mishap after mishap occurs, until it becomes apparent that these incidents are more than simple coincidences.

When a call comes in about a young girl found dead at a high school prom—her life drained away from a fatal stab wound—Detective Josie Quinn drops everything to attend the scene. Taking in the girl’s neatly braided hair, Josie feels a flicker of recognition. But no one comes forward to identify this innocent child, murdered on what should have been the happiest night of her life. Trawling missing-persons files, Josie realizes where she has seen the girl before. Gemma Farmer disappeared a few months ago. But why would her body appear now, on her 16th birthday?

In a Sussex town on the south coast of England, a widely disliked art teacher at a posh private girls' school disappears without explanation. None of her students miss her boring lessons, especially since her replacement is a devilishly hunky male teacher with a fancy car. But then her name shows up on a police missing persons list. What happened to Miss Gibbon, and why does no one seem to care?

A Diabolical Madman Leaves a Grisly Trail of Fresh Blood and Old Bones When FBI Special Agent Bailey Flynn investigates a brutal stabbing in the coastal Florida town of Belle Harbor, she soon discovers that the vicious crime is linked to the murder of an unidentified woman with a disturbing connection to a notorious criminal cartel. After a search of the crime scene unearths the hidden remains of a local woman who vanished three decades earlier, Bailey begins to piece together the twisted motive of a madman whose deadly obsession has driven him to kill again, and again, and again… Book ...