Hard Crime

When Sam Spade gets drawn into the Maltese Falcon case, we know what to expect: straight talk, hard questions, no favors, and no way for anyone to get underneath the protective shell he wears like a second skin. We know that his late partner, Miles Archer, was a son of a bitch; that Spade is sleeping with Archer's wife, Iva; that his tomboyish secretary, Effie Perine, is the only innocent in his life. What we don't know is how Spade became who he is. Spade & Archer completes the picture.

Nick Corey is a terrible sheriff on purpose. He doesn't solve problems, enforce rules or arrest criminals. He knows that nobody in tiny Potts County actually wants to follow the law and he is perfectly content lazing about, eating five meals a day, and sleeping with all the eligible women. Still, Nick has some very complex problems to deal with. Two local pimps have been sassing him, ruining his already tattered reputation.

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are best friends, yet they couldn't be more different. Hap is an east Texas white boy with a weakness for Texas women. Leonard is a black, gay Vietnam vet. Together, they stir up more commotion than a fire storm. But that's just the way they like it. So when as ex-flame of Hap's returns promising a huge score, Hap lets Leonard in on the scam, and that's when things get interesting.

When the bonds of brotherhood are strained, who do you turn to? The celebration of the Viking Festival of Scira ensures that thousands descend annually on the small coastal town of Sheringham, but when one man dies amidst the grand finale, it falls to DI Tom Janssen and his team to identify who the victim was and how he met such a grisly end. The victim was a local man, successful, hard working, and well respected. A motive proves to be elusive. As the case progresses it becomes evident that not all is at it seems.

A family is gunned down in the snow, but one of the children survives. Three years on, that child takes revenge, and the Snow Killer is born. But then, nothing - no further crimes are committed, and the case goes cold. 50 years later, has the urge to kill been reawakened? As murder follows murder, the detective team tasked with solving the crimes struggle with the lack of leads. It’s a race against time and the weather - each time it snows, another person dies.

A Philadelphia narcotics cop is shot dead in his home. A bar owner's wife and partner are gunned down during an attempted robbery. And in a beautiful mansion, a young woman dies of a heroin overdose. At first the crimes seem unconnected. But these four deaths are about to trigger a massive convergence of corruption, cops, and the mob that could tear the Philadelphia Police Department apart from the inside out. All the way to the top...

"The gritty, first-person narrative drives the reader back into their seats and is compelled to read more about Patrick Moses and his partner, Krause." –A Reader's Heaven After a shocking kidnapping case in New York City, Patrick Moses is summoned back to Chicago to help on an equally disturbing matter. Someone is murdering older women, using their own bed sheets to tie and bind them while suffocating them with their pillow stuffings. Other than similarities in the cases, there are no hard clues. What Patrick does find is that his old nemesis Christian Hanson is back in Chicago, operating...

When David Barney was acquitted in the shooting death of his wealthy wife, Isabelle, a good many thought that justice had not been served, including Kenneth Voight, Isabelle's former husband. Now, five years later, Voight is the plaintiff in a civil suit in which Barney stands accused of Isabelle's wrongful death. The stakes are high, but time is running short. Enter sexy, savvy ex-cop-turned-P.I. Kinsey Millhone, brought in by Voight to gather the necessary damning evidence.

You can die and you can lose your soul. They aren't the same. The pandemic is over, Jazz Fest pending in New Orleans, and French Quarter private detective Wyatt Thomas has a new client. Dita Lika, the headliner of this year's Jazz Fest is having a recurrent nightmare related to New Orleans. Will Wyatt solve the mystery of her Satan-related nightmare, or will the Prince of Darkness prevail, claim their souls and drag them both to hell? Take an intoxicating ride with Wyatt Thomas, the French Quarter's favorite private investigator, and voodoo mambo Mama Mulate as they chase the answers on an ...

Jonas kills people...with his mind. He reaches out, focuses for a moment, and feels a snap of pain between his eyes. Then his target falls over dead: a hole in the center of their brains. The cause of death is unknown to all aside from Jonas, and his lone companion, Bubbles, a sarcastic AI with aspirations to be more human, or a serial killer. One of the two. Maybe both. Jonas calls his ability...mind bullet.

Henry Cimoli and Spenser have been friends for years, yet the old boxing trainer has never asked the private eye for a favor. Until now. A developer is trying to buy up Henry's condo on Revere Beach - with a push from local thugs. Soon, Spenser and his apprentice, Zebulon Sixkill, are on the trail of a mysterious woman, a megalomaniacal Las Vegas kingpin, and a shady plan to turn a chunk of land north of Boston into a sprawling casino. As alliances shift and twisted dreams surface, the Boston political machine looks to end Spenser's investigation one way or another.

In the wake of a huge storm, three bodies are discovered in the rubble of an abandoned factory building in an industrial part of Paradise known as The Swap. One body, a man's, wrapped in a blue tarp, is only hours old. But found within feet of that body are the skeletal remains of two teenage girls who had gone missing during a Fourth of July celebration 25 years earlier.

Ezekiel "Easy" Porterhouse Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of Los Angeles. But when Easy is approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran - a young White man who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a White woman from a Black man - he knows he shouldn't take the case.

On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man’s presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city’s far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim.

In the seedy underbelly of the city, where danger lurks around every corner, a forbidden love blossoms amidst a backdrop of crime and betrayal. Detective Lauren Diess, dedicated to upholding justice, finds herself entangled with Maddox Moreno, a charismatic but enigmatic figure with ties to a dangerous trafficking gang. Lauren has her own agenda for becoming a detective: finding her missing sister, and Maddox may just know something about that…If only he could convince Lauren to trust him.

Guido Brunetti faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction. He is drawn in innocently enough: two young American women have been badly injured in a boating accident, joyriding in the Laguna with two young Italians. However, Brunetti's curiosity is aroused by the behavior of the young men, who abandoned the victims after taking them to the hospital. If the injuries were the result of an accident, why did they want to avoid association with it?

The legendary Lone Star Cafe, a little corner of Texas right in the heart of New York City. At one time or another, everyone from the Rolling Stones to Willie Nelson has jammed there. But this night, Thanksgiving eve, there's a different type of jam at the Lone Star. Larry Barkin, half of the headlining Barkin Brothers, is found dead in his dressing room, his head bashed in with his own guitar and a two dollar bill stuffed in his shirt pocket. It's Kinky they call for help, but the fast-talking, cigar-smoking country singer turned amateur detective has other plans.

In this final installment of the widely popular “Animal” series, we find our anti-hero on a hunt for the woman who forced him to pick his guns back up when she burned his entire world down. The traitorous Red Sonja. She alone holds the key to saving his children and avenging his murdered wife, Gucci, but first he has to find her.

Deadly. Ruthless. Eighteen. Bent on murder. Despite not being old enough to drive, Rose was easily the most skilled assassin in Eva Santella’s Italian boot camp. But then Rose decided to leave that life behind and spent her teen years playing soccer and chess and lying on the beach in Barcelona. The Sultan took all that away. When he killed her boyfriend on the night she turned 18, Rose made a vow that either she would kill The Sultan or die trying. At that moment, she knew despite her best efforts to live a normal life, she was destined to be a killer. Now, after years of hunting The ...

Detective Easy Rawlins returns in a mystery set in 1961 Los Angeles as Easy accepts a job searching for a beautiful woman nicknamed Black Betty who works as a housekeeper in Beverly Hills.