Southern Crime

The way most white-collar crime works is by manipulating institutional psychology. That means creating something that looks as much as possible like a normal set of transactions. The drama comes later, when it all unwinds. Financial crime seems horribly complicated, but there are only so many ways you can con someone out of what’s theirs.

Family meant everything to Ayden Stratton. It always had even when he didn’t always allow it to show. Because of that, he understood the fury in Tobias Blaise’s eyes when they learned that his sister had been dragged out the backdoor of her restaurant despite every effort to stop her from being kidnapped. Fury didn’t begin to describe what he saw in his brother’s face. Cassidy Blaise might be Tobias’s sister, but she was Benjamin’s entire world. This women's romance fiction book will have you wondering what could possibly happen next. Keep some tissues on hand and tag along on a...

As a graduation present for her daughter, Tammy, Samantha Moon and the gang head down to South America for the vacation of all vacations. Of course, no vacation involving the vampire detective would be complete without a little mystery and mayhem. Or in this case, a lot of mystery mayhem! Enjoy the complete 6-story Latin Moon series in one easy-to-read volume. What's inside: 1. Incan Moon: First stop: Machu Picchu! For Samantha Moon, the breathtaking ruins hold more than meets the eye—let the adventure, mystery, and magic begin! 2. Xibalba Moon: Next stop: Xibalba—the Mayan Underworld! ...

A boating accident has left one teenager dead and three others traumatized. Charleston attorney Leland Munroe is determined to prove his client wasn’t responsible, but prosecutor Patrick Ludlow will stop at nothing to keep his own son out of trouble. Even if it means sending an innocent person to jail….

Vivienne Lane thought she left the drama behind when she traded big-city chaos for the quiet charm of Foxwick Harbor. Now, she spends her days running Lane & Co. Antiques, sipping lattes at Bean & Bloom, and avoiding her nosy neighbor’s unsolicited opinions. But when she stumbles upon the town’s most scandalous socialite dead in a wedding dress—and in a very inconvenient place—Vivi suddenly finds herself at the center of a mystery far messier than her shop’s storage room. Gwendolyn Fairchild wasn’t just any bride-to-be; she was a journalist with a reputation for unearthing ...

Cheyenne Ashby knows the dark and disturbing history of her hometown of Blue Cliff, Virginia, all too well. It’s why she left. Growing up deep within the woods with her eccentric mother, Constance, she was raised on the unusual customs and generational superstitions linked to the local legend of an evil entity that haunts the forest. Five years ago, the bodies of three children were found in the woods. It was a man—not a mythical beast—named Jasper Clinton who was convicted of these heinous crimes.

Back in the days before Vegas was big, when the Mob was at its peak and neon lights were but a glimmer on the horizon, a little Southern town styled itself as a premier destination for the American leisure class. Hot Springs, Arkansas was home to healing waters, Art Deco splendor, and America's original national park - as well as horse racing, nearly a dozen illegal casinos, countless backrooms and brothels, and some of the country’s most bald-faced criminals.

After a decade of exile precipitated by the tragic death of his mother, Will Seems returns home from Richmond to rural Southside Virginia, taking a job as deputy sheriff in a landscape given way to crime and defeat. Impoverished and abandoned, this remote land of tobacco plantations, razed forests, and boarded up homes seems stuck in the past in a state that is trying to forget its complex history and move on.

When a young woman dies in a late-night restaurant fire, the owner, Bobby Carter, is charged with arson and murder. The evidence is stacked against him, but something doesn’t add up. And his only chance for justice rests on the shoulders of small-town lawyer Leland Munroe… Leland is convinced someone’s out to frame his client. But as the trial heats up, he realizes that he's facing more than just a legal battle.

At 33, Virginia Vallejo was part of the media elite. A renowned anchorwoman and socialite, and a model who appeared on magazine covers worldwide, Vallejo was the darling of Colombia's most powerful politicians and billionaires. Meeting Pablo Escobar in 1983, then becoming his mistress for many years, she witnessed the rise of a drug empire that was characterized by Escobar's far-reaching political corruption, his extraordinary wealth, and a network of violent crime that lasted until his death in 1993.

Running his own law firm is harder than Leland Munroe ever imagined, but he’s determined to make it work. Judy Reed, accused of killing her wealthy father, is just the kind of high-profile and high-paying client he needs to keep his firm afloat. Yet the deeper he digs, the more complex her case becomes. Nurse LaDonna Winters’s financial situation isn’t as ideal. Struggling to make ends meet, she can barely afford legal representation. But her case is compelling—accused of a crime at her hospital she insists she didn't commit, LaDonna is desperate to clear her name.

Jack Parker knows all too well how treacherous turn-of-the-century East Texas can be. His parents did not survive a smallpox epidemic. His grandfather was murdered. Now his sister Lula has been kidnapped by a criminal who may believe wearing a dead man's clothes protects them both from death. With bounty hunter Shorty, a charismatic and cunning dwarf, and Eustace, a gravedigging son of an ex-slave, the heartbroken young Jack sets off on an epic quest to rescue his sister from the corrupt men who control much of the new territory.

In The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington write a true story of Southern Gothic horror - of two innocent men wrongly convicted of vicious crimes and the legally condoned failures that allowed it to happen. Balko and Carrington will shine a light on the institutional and professional failures that allowed this tragic, astonishing story to happen, identify where it may have happened elsewhere, and show how to prevent it from happening again.

The residents of Wilmington, North Carolina are facing an unseen menace. A predator is walking in their midst. As he secretly divines whispers from another realm, this killer picks his victims and their mode of death. Detective Bob Standish is the city's only hope. His supernatural gift of hearing the voices of the dead has helped him solve crimes in the past. But will it help him this time? As Bob chases this criminal, his inner voice begins to overwhelm him. He begins to wonder if his gift is helping him to close in on the killer, or is it consuming him and turning him into the killer? ...

In May 1971, Pam Jackson and Sherri Miller were two seventeen-year-olds driving to an end-of-the-school-year party in a rundown Studebaker Lark, when they seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. Police back then didn't do enough to try and find them. Investigators thirty years later did too much. Two families endure decades of pain as they await answers of what happened to their girls. When a third family is pulled into the mystery, they quickly learn their nightmare is just beginning.

"Seasoned Hearts" presents an intimate prequel that reveals the passionate romance behind the most unexpected engagement in the Miklos Crime Family series. Dr. Sanaa Kimani never imagined she'd open her door to find Charleston's most feared patriarch on her doorstep. But when Márkus Miklos arrives seeking cooking lessons—an excuse so flimsy it would be comical if his intense gaze didn't suggest an entirely different hunger—she finds herself drawn into a world where danger and desire dance hand in hand. At sixty, Márkus has spent decades building an empire from necessity and ...

The Case of The Dead Dowager A fancy ladies luncheon at a posh Richmond restaurant goes south when one of the ladies collapses on the table. Can Mic and K9 Angel solve the case? When Countess Dottie Borghase's friend, Camilla Rothrock, collapses at a lunch gathering of old friends, the Countess's only concern is to dial 911 for help. But Camilla's subsequent death has authorities buzzing about international safety, national security, and terrorism, because her son is decorated U.S. Army four-star General, Stuart Rothrock. As other restaurant patrons in Richmond meet similar fates, Michaela,...

The close knit community in San Miguel de Allende Mexico was plagued by a string of sophisticated kidnappings for nearly a decade. When the police finally made an arrest the townspeople were shocked by who was accused of masterminding the criminal enterprise. It's everyone's favorite neighbor and a pillar of the community, Ramon Guerra. Except Ramon isn't who he says he is.

Returning to his days as a reporter for El Espectador, Gabriel García Márquez chronicles, with consummate skill, the period in late 1990 when Colombian security forces mounted a nationwide manhunt for Pablo Escobar, the ruthless and elusive head of the Medellin cartel. Ten men and women were abducted by Escobar’s henchmen and used as bargaining chips against extradition to the United States. From the testimonies and diaries of the survivors, García Márquez reconstructs their bizarre ordeal with cinematic intensity, breathtaking language, and rigor.

Marine biologist Doc Ford has been known to help his friends out of jams occasionally, but he's never faced a situation like this. His old pal Carl Fitzpatrick has been chasing sunken wrecks most of his life, but now he's run afoul of the Florida Division of Historical Resources. Its director, Leonard Nickelby, despises amateur archaeologists, which is bad enough, but now he and his young "assistant" have disappeared - along with Fitzpatrick's impounded cache of rare Spanish coins and the list of uncharted wreck sites Fitz spent decades putting together.