Urban Crime Fiction

A routine case of industrial espionage pitches hardboiled PI Alexander Southerland headlong into a maelstrom of shadowy political intrigue and deadly supernatural mayhem - not to mention some malevolent owls and the mysterious "boy who talks backwards"! After his exposure of a white-collar thief has harrowing consequences, a guilt-ridden and disconsolate Southerland roams the mean streets and dark alleys of Yerba City seeking to uncover a secret so stunning - so staggering - that just knowing it could unravel the bonds that keep the social order from dissolving into chaos!

To catch the perfect killer, she must become the perfect victim. After discovering that her estranged sister is missing, Carolina McKay heads to Pittsburgh where she stumbles into an FBI investigation. The same time her sister, Scarlet, vanished, so did $300,000. And Scarlet is the prime suspect.

As a painter travels the world and creates his art, he also mourns the death of his queen, his wife. He is secluded from the world and finds an escape through the drawings in his work. Not until he gets an unexpected knock at his door does his life take a drastic turn. The guest presents a problem that traps them inside of a home for 72 hours and this quiet suburban estate becomes the devil’s playground. The painter is then thrown into a psychological game that has twists and turns, which leads to an unforeseeable ending.

DCI Matilda Darke has returned to work after a nine-month absence. A shadow of her former self, she is tasked with reopening a cold case: the terrifyingly brutal murders of Miranda and Stefan Harkness. The only witness was their 11-year-old son, Jonathan, who was too deeply traumatised to speak a word. Then a dead body is discovered, and the investigation leads back to Matilda's case. Suddenly the past and present converge, and it seems a killer may have come back for more....

In the glorious sunshine of Oxford, on a day when everyone should be celebrating, tragedy strikes when a university student is found floating in the river, dead. Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday finds herself paired with coroner Clement Ryder to investigate and it soon becomes clear that this case is not going to be easy. The witnesses all refuse to give a straight answer, each new lead sends them in a new direction and tales of other missing youngsters add further mystery to the investigation.

After a reunion with an old friend goes wrong in a Long Island nightclub, Kasheef Williams is forced to protect himself by any means necessary. The only problem is that prying eyes see everything. Those eyes belong to Alija Bell. She runs, but Kasheef sees her face, and he tells her that it's best for her to get temporary amnesia. Afraid for her life and the safety of her daughter, she keeps her mouth shut, but when a tape of the murder surfaces, the only face that is visible is Alija's. Now the police are looking for their eyewitness.

Judi Rifkin is one of the world’s most successful collectors of the weird and unnatural. In a London underworld filled with criminals with very special talents, Judi is a force to be reckoned with. And Gideon Sable—thief, rogue, and chancer—owes her a very large favor. Judi makes him an offer he can’t refuse: steal her the legendary Masque of Ra, kept safe in a Las Vegas casino, and she’ll wipe the slate clean. This isn’t Gideon’s first heist. But with old grudges, an unpredictable crew, and a formidable supernatural security team, this job might be a gamble too far.

The number one priority for Bradley Reynolds of Maryland's Organized Crime Taskforce is Andre Hector Federico. The mob boss is old school - a devoted family man, treacherous as hell, and paranoid enough to have escaped Reynolds's sting. Now Reynolds has a new plan: enlist prize-winning crime novelist Alan Seybold to concoct a foolproof chapter-by-chapter scenario on how to lure Federico out of his safe zone and collar him. There's just one condition: Seybold has to play by the rules of real life.

In the fifth Black Love novel, Black deals with ghosts from his past in his next case when Pepper Red steps back into his life, an old-school gangster with ghosts of her own that he feels obligated to help her sort out. On top of that, he is trying to balance his cases with his chaotic personal life. His long-term fling has dropped an unexpected bomb in his lap. He finds himself an incredible protector of children; the more he tries to get away from that title, the more they are drawn to him for help. First, with Johnny, the nephew of an Irish gangster that unexpectedly pops up on his ...

After her world is brutally destroyed, Anari becomes the epitome of a good-girl-turned-bad. Consumed with a desire for revenge, she and her best friend, Monica, enter a life of drugs, fast money, and betrayal - adopting the very lifestyle that pushed them into the game in the first place. Hiding their true identities, they quickly rise to the top of New Jersey's dope game. Using everyone who crosses their paths, nothing - not betrayal or addiction - will stop them from dispensing their street justice.

Aberdeen's growing Polish community is under attack from a serial offender who leaves mutilated victims to be discovered on building sites - eyes gouged out and the sockets burned. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae is assigned to the investigation, codenamed Operation Oedipus, but with the victims too scared to talk, it's going nowhere fast.

He lost the love of his life as a casualty of the war between the drug cartels. Now KING must face his demons with the loss of Selena, the guilt of killing his parents, and the fact that the two women that were always in his corner have married and moved on with their lives. When his Colombian connect states he needs to move more product and meet an improbable deadline, KING reaches out to the two people he trusts most, the mothers of his two sons. He not only needs to move more weight; he needs to teach the heir apparent to the Colombian Empire how the game works. KING wants to go ...

Now that the war between Royal Mafia and the Hooliganz Crime Gang has popped off, the streets of Quincy and all its surrounding areas have become a battlefield, where survival of the filthiest is warranted. In the process, a very unexpected presence reveals itself, and Heaven is forced to stand firm or bow down. Meanwhile, Delani plots his vengeance and his great escape, while Dejah suddenly finds herself the target of death, leaning on her own influence to save her. Trust is meant to be earned but sometimes it comes with the price of bloodshed. Determined to survive against the odds ...

Having come of age on the mob-controlled streets of 1960s South Philly, Detective Pete Coletti learned early to walk the fine line between cops and criminals - a skill that served him well during his eighteen years in homicide. Now nearing the end of his illustrious career, the highly decorated Coletti seems to be on the top of his world. But Coletti is harboring a terrible secret.

No stranger to fear since meeting the unhuman Inspector Hobbes, Andy Caplet fears getting fired from his reporting job (again). His main concern, though, is a shady property developer who has designs on Sorenchester Common, and more annoyingly on his wife. Perhaps a trip to the mountains will help him relax, but this proves even more perilous with foul weather, inedible food, brigands, and a terrifying cruise. Fortunately, mountain leopards, Yetis and Flossy, the yak, take a shine to Andy.

A troll in a pinstriped suit walks into a bar. He's looking for Alex Southerland, private investigator and summoner of elementals. A gorgeous dame is going to come to Southerland with a case, and the troll tells him that he is going to turn the case down - or else! But Southerland doesn't respond well to threats. Besides, he needs the dough! Framed for a murder he didn't commit, Southerland weaves his way from seedy neighborhoods to the dazzling lights of downtown - and from one savage beating to the next - to clear his name and uncover a shocking secret.

The two parts of being a paranormal private investigator I could really do without are being forced to eat bananas by an animated statue with a potassium fixation, and being put on trial for murder by a self-appointed council of vampire oligarchs. To be fair, I did kind of do it (the murder, not the bananas). But I was kind of saving my girlfriend, who is kind of one of them. On top of this, I've also wound up with a primordial queen of the damned trying to strangle me in my dreams.

In Rusty Santoro's neighborhood, the kids carry knives, chains, bricks, and broken glass. And when they fight, they fight dirty, leaving the streets littered with the bodies of the injured and the dead. Rusty wants out - but you can't just walk away from a New York street gang. And his decision may leave his family to pay a terrible price.

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffee house is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified, but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one's mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman?

Scranton, the strangest city on earth has an uneasy “live and let unlive” relationship with the supernatural. But when a vamp puts the bite on an unwilling victim, or some witch casts the wrong kind of spell, that’s when they call me. “My name’s Markowski, a Detective Sergeant on the Scranton PD’s Supernatural Crimes Investigation Unit. I carry a badge. Also, a crucifix, some wooden stakes, a big vial of holy water, and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets.”