Hard Crime

New York Times best-selling author Sara Paretsky is the master of twisting suspense and propulsive plot. She has been hailed by the crime community as "a legend" (Harlan Coben) and "one of the all-time greats" (Karin Slaughter). Her acclaimed novels featuring detective V.I. Warshawski rank among the most celebrated crime series in modern fiction. Now in this spellbinding collection, Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents with 14 short stories, eight of which feature the indomitable detective - and a new V.I. story.

Robert Finlay is looking forward to returning to uniform policing and a less stressful life. But fate has other plans. Finlay's traumatic past is about to return to haunt him. A policeman is killed by a bomb blast, and a second is gunned down; both were former army colleagues from Finlay's own SAS regiment. And so begins a game of cat and mouse, a wicked game in which Finlay is in embroiled in a fight against a determined and unidentified enemy.

Intrepid Mountie Jack Taggart is hurled into a world where morality, justice, and the legal system are pitted against one another. Taggart investigates the murder of someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wiretap information identifies a shadowy gang member known only as Cocktail as being responsible. Taggart and his partner go undercover to join one of a coalition of gangs who are at war in British Columbia. Their mission is to identify Cocktail and gain evidence to convict him of murder.

The vision has haunted him for four years: a young woman lying crumpled in death, her hand outstretched in silent supplication. Harry Bosch was taken off the Angella Benton murder case when the production assistant's death was linked with the violent theft of two million dollars from a movie set. Both files were never closed. Now retired from the LAPD, Bosch is determined to find justice for Angella. Without a badge to open doors and strike fear into the guilty, he's on his own.

Private investigator Kinsey Millhone is back, sassy and self-reliant as ever. Visiting a small town in the Sierras, Kinsey aids a recent widow, Selma Newquist, who believes that her detective husband did not die of a heart attack, as reported, but from foul play. Kinsey sifts through the paper trail Tom Newquist left behind, trying to discover what he was investigating before he died.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough - who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974. Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one 40 years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on.

The adoring wife of a senatorial candidate has a smile as sweet as candy and dots her "i's" with little hearts. A blond beauty, she is the perfect mate for an ambitious politician, but she has a little problem with sex and drugs--a problem someone has managed to put on videotape. The big boys figure a little blackmail will put her husband out of the race. Until Spenser hops on the candidate's bandwagon.

Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns - it's standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He's a slumlord, a bagman, an enforcer, a power in his own small corner of hell. Then the Feds announce a full-out investigation into local police corruption, and everything goes haywire. Klein's been hung out as bait, "a bad cop to draw the heat", and the heat's coming from all sides.

Happy Doll is a charming, if occasionally inexpert, private detective living just one sheer cliff drop beneath the Hollywood sign with his beloved half-Chihuahua half-Terrier, George. A veteran of both the Navy and LAPD, Doll supplements his meager income as a P.I. by working through the night at a local Thai spa that offers its clients a number of special services. Armed with his 16-inch steel telescopic baton, biting dry humor, and just a bit of a hero complex, the ex-cop sets out to protect the women who work there from clients who have trouble understanding the word "no".

It's Christmas Day in the sleepy town of Sorenson, Wisconsin, but instead of unwrapping presents, deputy coroner Mattie Winston is at the burnt remains of a house, where a charred body has been found. The victim is none other than Jack Allen - a paraplegic who recently won a huge casino jackpot. Upon closer inspection, Mattie and Detective Steve Hurley are convinced Jack was murdered to steal his winnings, giving the phrase Black Jack a whole new meaning....

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.

A rainy night in east Texas leads to murder When private detective Buck McDivit inherits his murdered aunt’s fishing camp on Caddo Lake, he quickly learns all isn’t right in this primordial paradise dripping with antebellum mystique. To retain his inheritance, he must take on a white supremacy group in the nearby racially-torn east Texas town of Deception. Will Buck prevail or become gator bait beneath the coffee-colored surface of the mysterious lake? Ghost of a Chance is Book 1 of Eric Wilder's gripping Paranormal Cowboy Series. See what Amazon readers are saying about Ghost: "...

Buddy Mack has been caught in the middle of two worlds at war. As an English teacher at a South Side, Chicago, high school lauded for its football team, but at risk in every other way, he tries to instill a love of literature. While all of his students face challenges, he’s especially concerned with a trio of boys who test him to no end but are full of promise and heart: Zeke, the football star; Truth, the sweet-talking charmer; and Dontell, Buddy’s most promising student.

After thirty years, fourteen books, and countless thrills, award-winning author Gerry Boyle writes the exciting and bittersweet final chapter for his signature character Jack McMorrow in the gritty novel, Hard Line. In the dynamic, whipsaw finale, Boyle takes listeners on a wild ride with everyone’s favorite investigative reporter—a ride that leaves no one unscathed. Filled with action ripped from current events and nods to old characters and past stories, Hard Line builds with breathtaking pace to a dramatic stand-off between the forces of violent chaos and law and order.

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.

Detective Michael Bennett and his family are about to be haunted by a father's worst nightmare - the signs he should have seen and a son's desperate cry for help. Reeling from a crisis that would destroy lesser families, the Bennetts escape New York for a much-needed vacation. An idyllic country town in the Maine woods is haunted by an epidemic emptying its streets and preying on its youth. Turns out the vacation brochures don't tell the full story - the seemingly perfect community has a deadly vice.

Murder is never pretty In the vibrant chaos of French Quarter Fest in Orleans, P.I. Wyatt Thomas faces a daunting task—recovering a stolen treasure that transcends the boundaries of mere literature. The missing item is no ordinary book; it’s the priceless first edition of Mosquitos, William Faulkner’s legendary tale of New Orleans dynasties. As Wyatt delves into the underbelly of the city’s secrets, he discovers that a powerful patriarch from the Garden District is willing to pay a staggering million dollars for its return. The question looms: What dark revelations lie within the ...

The 40-year-old crucifixion of a prominent labor leader named Jack Flynn remains an unsolved atrocity that has never been forgotten in New Iberia, Louisiana. When Flynn's daughter, Megan, returns to the site of her father's murder, it quickly becomes clear that her family's blood-stained past will not stay buried. Megan gives her old friend Dave Robicheaux a tip about a small-time criminal named Cool Breeze Broussard, scarcely suspecting that the seemingly innocuous case will lead Robicheaux and his partner into the midst of a deadly conspiracy.

The body lies amid the garbage behind a Seattle grocery store. He was a high-school basketball coach - and J. P. Beaumont discovers he was lynched.

Caught in a snowstorm of drugs, passion, and hate, Spenser investigates a cocaine-related murder.