Hard Crime

Lamar Pye has escaped from Oklahoma State Penitentiary, accompanied by his idiot cousin and a vicious but cowardly artist. To have stayed in prison was certain death, but his chances on the outside are not much greater: his excesses know no bounds - one killing follows another. But one murder brings his nemesis upon him: Bud Pewtie of the Highway Patrol loses his partner in a blood-soaked shoot-out with Lamar, and from that moment on, nothing will stop him from getting even.

Driven by a compulsion that challenges his self-control, the man calling himself Charles Milton prowls the rodeo circuit, hunting young women. He chooses those he believes are the most vulnerable, wandering alone and distracted, before he strikes. For years, he has been meticulous in his methods, abducting, murdering, and disposing his victims while leaving no evidence of his crimes—or their identities—behind. Indigenous women have become his target of choice, knowing law enforcement’s history of ignoring their disappearances.

The historical city of Chester has been rocked by the brutal murders of several young men close to the canal. DI Ruth Hunter is called in to track down the murderer – who the papers have dubbed the Towpath Ripper – before they strike again. Ruth identifies a suspect but just as she is about to pounce, they slip through her fingers.

In The Lady in the Lake, hard-boiled crime-fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wives - one a rich man's and one a poor man's - who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo, and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

The Broadway Murder is a murder mystery book set in New York City during the Prohibition era. Angela Rhodes, a dazzling Broadway star, is found brutally murdered in her luxurious apartment. The city's nightlife is shaken by the crime, and the case quickly becomes a high-profile investigation. District Attorney John Spillner, along with his enigmatic confidant John Smith, delves into the dark underbelly of New York's elite to uncover the truth. The story is a masterful blend of suspense, intrigue, and psychological depth. As Spillner and Smith navigate a web of deceit, passion, and high ...

An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one, grisly solution; a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.

From NY Times bestselling author who brought you the Justice Series, M.A. Comley now brings you To Die For, the first book in this brand-new police procedural series, a tour-de-force not to be missed. A Lake District thriller. Some secrets are worth dying for… When a farmer is found murdered in his home, DI Sam Cobbs assumes she's dealing with a routine burglary gone wrong. But as more bodies surface in the idyllic rural community, Sam is forced to enter a deadly game of cat and mouse. Someone is digging up the past. Can Sam drag them into the light in time, or will she be buried with the...

When you’re in trouble, you call 911. When cops are in trouble, they call Nick Ryan. Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. In fact, they don’t talk about him at all. He doesn’t wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York. Nick Ryan can find a criminal who’s vanished. Or he can make a key witness disappear. He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city.

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

When Spenser accepts a job as a "bodyguard" for a beautiful young woman, he gets in way over his head.

When a young woman’s body is found at a cave entrance by the pretty fishing village of Robin Hood’s Bay, DCI Tom Raven is called to investigate. A trail of footprints leads from the body on the shore to the nearby youth hostel. But the killer’s identity is far from clear as the picturesque façade of Robin Hood’s Bay conceals more than it reveals.

Drew Maclane was a star agent - until the day the killing had to stop. He withdrew, and for six years lived the life of a hermit in a monastery. But someone has tracked him down, leaving a trail of corpses...someone who knows all about him, who knows how to draw him back into that electrifying world where no one is as he seems, and where life's most horrifying and harrowing game is played.

Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood 12 years ago. Kenzie and Gennaro risked everything to find the young girl - only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home. Now Amanda is sixteen - and gone again. Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, and more....

Laying low in Mexico, Tom meets Carmen who is searching for her little sister Rosa, recently abducted and trafficked by a vicious gang. Tom sees that Carmen is likely to get herself killed and decides he is duty-bound to help her. The hunt for Rosa pits them against a terrifying Mexican cartel and ultimately leads them back to the US and a criminal conspiracy to open a vast stretch of the border for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and women.

Lorna Kepler was beautiful and willful, a loner who couldn't resist flirting with danger. Maybe that's what killed her.

Vietnam vet Dave Robicheaux has turned in his detective's badge, is winning his battle against booze, and has left New Orleans with his wife for the tranquil beauty of the Louisiana bayou. But a plane crash on the Gulf brings a young girl into his life - and with her comes a netherworld of murder, deception and homegrown crime.

Commissario Guido Brunetti's career is under threat when his professional and personal lives unexpectedly intersect. In the chill of the Venetian dawn, a sudden act of vandalism shatters the quiet of the deserted city, and Brunetti is shocked to find that the culprit waiting to be apprehended at the scene is a member of his own family. Meanwhile, he is also under pressure from his superiors to solve a daring robbery with connections to a suspicious accidental death. Could the two crimes be connected? And will Brunetti be able to prove his family's innocence before it's too late?

A young man resurfaces from Spenser's past to seek out the likeable P.I.'s guidance and help to solve the mysterious and sudden disappearance of the boy's mother. The most personal and revealing Spenser thriller of all, the hardboiled yet caring detective faces danger and a reckoning with his own past. Pastime is Robert B. Parker's electrifying masterpiece of crime fiction, both personal and revealing.

Charlie's novel is being filmed as a movie ... Then the star is kidnapped. Charlie McGinley's latest novel is being filmed on location in New Mexico. Everything is going great, until Scott Lassiter, the hard-drinking star of the film, disappears. Vanessa Tanner, the female lead in the movie, is married to Scott. She quickly becomes the primary suspect in the case. Charlie, who was once engaged to Vanessa, reluctantly agrees to help her. Then, it gets really strange... Can Charlie find Scott, save the movie, and not get knocked off, while trying to convince his wife that he's not having an ...

Philip Marlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard.