Noir Mystery Thriller Suspense

In noir master Raymond Chandler's Playback, Philip Marlowe is hired by an influential lawyer he's never heard of to tail a gorgeous redhead but then decides he'd rather help out the redhead. She's been acquitted of her alcoholic husband's murder, but her father-in-law prefers not to take the court's word for it.

With three children under 10, Maddie is struggling. On the outside, she’s a happy young mother, running a charity as well as a household. But inside, she’s exhausted. She knows she’s lucky to have to have a support network around her. Not just her loving husband but her family and friends, too. But is Maddie putting her trust in the right people? Because when tragedy strikes, she is certain someone has hurt her child - and everyone is a suspect, including Maddie herself....

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.

Easy Rawlins, LA's most reluctant detective, comes home one day to find Easter, the daughter of his friend Christmas Black, left on his doorstep. Easy knows this could only mean the ex-Marine Black is probably dead or will be soon. Blonde Faith: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience!

It's 1965 in a tight-knit working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, and Ruth Malone - a single mother who works long hours as a cocktail waitress - wakes to discover her two small children, Frankie Jr. and Cindy, have gone missing. Later that day, Cindy's body is found in a derelict lot a half mile from her home, strangled. Ten days later, Frankie Jr.'s decomposing body is found. Immediately, all fingers point to Ruth. Pete Wonicke is a rookie tabloid reporter who finagles an assignment to cover the murders. He begins digging into the case.

In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina’s victory in the Falkland’s War thanks to their development of “psychopigments.” Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which delivers happiness).

The body of a homeless woman is found in the river, viciously beaten and with all her teeth removed. A young immigrant, the prime suspect in a recent spate of robberies in Umeå, was seen running in the vicinity around the time the body was dumped. Trouble is, he hasn’t been seen since. When he does appear, in the town square, he’s wearing an explosive vest and holding a detonator.

When Jenny St. John was eighteen, she moved to Los Angeles from her rural midwestern hometown and scored the lead role in an independent film called The Divide. Under the intimate direction of young auteur Serge Grumet, Jenny was on her way to becoming the next indie darling. But then the movie tanked, and Jenny never caught a second break. Now, two decades later, after floundering on the fringes of the entertainment industry, she’s barely keeping afloat running a low-level grift as a psychic life coach. But when news surfaces that Serge has been murdered, Jenny’s life is turned upside down.

While on special assignment to the bank fraud unit, Texas Ranger Faith McClellan accidentally stumbles upon a raging fire consuming the back of a nearby house. When partially cremated remains are pulled from the ruins, she finds herself back on homicide - and on the trail of a ruthless killer. As she races to identify the victims, the sadistic murderer strikes again - this time against state politicians with ties to Faith’s father, a former governor of Texas.

It should be the perfect opportunity: a manor house available rent free in exchange for a bit of housesitting. But when Cass and James dig deeper, they find the place has been abandoned since a robbery left almost all the inhabitants dead almost thirty years ago. But they’ve got to save for a deposit somehow, so they move in, and things quickly take a strange turn. Objects disappear and turn up in odd places, the clock always stops at the same time, and the house is oppressive yet strangely familiar. Could it just be bad memories, or are the house’s secrets a little closer to home?

When hired by a beautiful and enigmatic woman to find her missing younger sister, private investigator Roland Ford immediately senses that the case is not what it seems. He is soon swept up in a web of lies and secrets as he searches for the teenager, and even his new client cannot be trusted. His investigation leads him to a secretive charter school, skinhead thugs, a cadre of American Nazis hidden in a desert compound, an arch-conservative celebrity evangelist - and, finally, to the girl herself.

Cash and Sheriff Wheaton make for a strange partnership. He pulled her from her mother's wrecked car when she was three. He's kept an eye out for her ever since. It's a tough place to live - northern Minnesota along the Red River. Cash navigated through foster homes, and at 13 was working farms. She's tough as nails, five feet two inches, blue jeans, blue jean jacket, smokes Marlboros, drinks Bud Longnecks. Makes her living driving truck. Playing pool on the side.

Reid left the small town of Manson a decade ago, promising his former Chief of Police boss he'd never return. He made a new life in the city, became a PI and turned his back on his old life for good. Now an insurance firm has offered him good money to look into a suspicious car crash, and he finds himself back in the place he grew up—home to his complicated family history, a scarring relationship breakdown and a very public career-ending incident. As Reid's investigation unfolds, nothing is as it seems.

A suspicious death, a pregnant woman suddenly gone missing: Quirke's latest case leads him inexorably toward the dark machinations of an old foe. Perhaps Quirke has been down among the dead too long. Lately the Irish pathologist has suffered hallucinations and blackouts, and he fears the cause is a brain tumor. A specialist diagnoses an old head injury caused by a savage beating; all that's needed, the doctor declares, is an extended rest.

A lifetime ago, brutally efficient fixer Phil Kubiak coldly cleaned up the messes of shady clients from Miami to Las Vegas by any means necessary - short of murder. Now he's one eye and one working leg short of the man he used to be, scarred beyond recognition, and with the feds and criminal organizations in hot pursuit. Throwing back sour beer in a dingy bar, Phil recounts the long story of his bitter life to the only person left to listen.

Carrie's best friend has an accident and can no longer make the round-the-world trip they'd planned together, so Carrie decides to go it alone. Violet is also travelling alone, after splitting up with her boyfriend in Thailand. She is desperate for a ticket on the Trans-Siberian Express, but there is nothing available. When the two women meet in a Beijing Hotel, Carrie makes the impulsive decision to invite Violet to take her best friend's place. Thrown together in a strange country, and the cramped cabin of the train, the women soon form a bond

DI Alan Williams is faced with the most brutal murder scene he's witnessed: the ritual killing of an elderly widow. Evidence at the scene indicates that the murderer is close, and the investigation runs at breakneck speed in the hunt to stop them from striking again. Meanwhile, the busy port of Holyhead is being used by unscrupulous traffickers, who are embroiled in a violent turf war. With resources stretched, DI Williams is facing a case that could break him.

In July 1933, a gangster staged the kidnapping-for-ransom of an Oklahoma oilman. He would live to regret it. What started clean soon turns messy as two of “Machine Gun” Kelly’s partners cut themselves into the action, a determined former Texas Ranger makes tracking Kelly his mission, and his wife, ever alert to her own self-interest, starts playing both sides. Set in the first days of the modern FBI, Infamous is a blend of historical novel and crime story featuring an unexpected hero, some of the most colorful supporting characters in recent crime fiction, and femme fatale Kathryn Kelly.

There was only one reason Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan was prepared to let her boyfriend help out with an investigation into a car sales fraud - nothing bad could happen. But by now Kate should know that with Richard you have to expect the unexpected. With Richard behind bars, Kate must look after his eight-year-old son - who proves even more troublesome than his father. Kate finds herself dragged into a world of drug traffickers, child pornographers, fraudsters, and violent gangland enforcers in the most terrifying investigation of her career.

The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s. But not everyone is ready to let it go. Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to buck up American troops in the field. And not the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People’s Revolutionary Army, who’ve decided that kidnapping Koo Davis would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life....