American Mysteries

Since childhood, Yolanda Vance has forged her desire to escape poverty into a laser-like focus that took her through prep school and Harvard Law. So when her prestigious New York law firm is raided by the FBI, Yolanda turns in her corrupt bosses to save her career - and goes to work for the Bureau. Soon she’s sent undercover at Red, Black, and Green - an African-American “extremist” activist group back in her California college town. They claim a biotech corporation fueled by Pentagon funding is exploiting the neighborhood.

C. J. Box, #1 New York Times best-selling author of the hugely popular Joe Pickett series, selects the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year in this annual “treat for crime-fiction fans” (Library Journal).

𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓'𝒔 𝒇𝒖𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍, 𝑴𝒂𝒓 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝑺𝒂𝒓𝒂, 𝒘𝒉𝒐𝒎 𝒔𝒉𝒆’𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒆𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏. 𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝑺𝒂𝒓𝒂 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒕 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆, 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒃𝒚 𝒂 ...

"Anasazi Strip" is set in the isolated area north of the Grand Canyon known as the Arizona Strip, a spectacular land of redrock and long-forgotten civilizations. This is the first book in the Jenny Hatch mystery series, featuring Forest Service archaeologist Jenny Hatch, a tough red-haired lady who has dedicated her life to unraveling the mysteries of the ancient Anasazi who called the Arizona Strip home from the time of Christ until their vanishing act around 1200AD. This is a story about industrial strength pothunting, the illegal raiding of Indian ruins, by a retired federal judge and a ...

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes.

For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.

Max Reddick, a novelist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter, has spent his career struggling against the riptide of race in America. Now terminally ill, he has nothing left to lose. An expat for many years, Max returns to Europe one last time to settle an old debt with his estranged Dutch wife, Margrit, and to attend the Paris funeral of his friend, rival, and mentor Harry Ames, a character loosely modelled on Richard Wright.

How was Serena persuaded to be her ex-husband’s wedding planner? Because his soon-to-be wife gets everything she wants…or almost everything. When Serena Tate’s ex-husband and his new fiancée insist on holding their wedding at the exclusive Pearl Hotel, they turn to Serena for her connections to make it happen. But when the bride is found dead hours before the ceremony, the guest list turns into a suspect list—with everyone from the groom to the wedding planner harboring secrets. To make matters worse, Serena’s old nemesis, Detective Bill Mitchell, sets his sights on her as the ...

Miss this book at your own expense! When a mysterious broken down van shows up in front of the Hartwell’s apartment building in Washington DC, they have no idea that a vicious crime inside would steer them on an emotional, violent, heart wrenching journey that would damage their family forever. And then there’s Amina Hartwell, a selfish, sneaky and irresponsible teenager who when forced away from her friends, and carted off to another city, acts out in ways that rock her world. Her antics cause more problems than a little for Pam, her emotionally overworked mother who is struggling to ...

In this explosive fourth installment of The Thugtress of Harlem, Lady reigns supreme over the DuPont crime family after the death of Drac. Firm in her newfound position, she controls the family with an iron fist. Confined to federal lockup, fighting unbeatable charges, Big Bear’s infuriated when learning that mostly everyone has flipped on him. Tension rises behind bars, and he strikes a powerful Harlem figure. This move brings forth chaos in the streets, causing many to flip on the DuPont’s for his actions. With Harlem turning on the DuPont’s, and even their own soldiers flipping, ...

A bag of chips. That's all 16-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered.

One of the 20th-century's most darkly beautiful works of crime fiction - a story of carny life, spiritualism, and a con man of merciless resolve.

In 1998 Spade established the United Gangster Crips in his neighborhood to combat the nefarious Bloods gang holding the city siege. His brainchild blossomed into an iron rose; UGC had become a force to be reckoned with. He’d played a major role in changing the urban status quo in Brooklyn. When Spade is arrested for a firearm, Sue Blue takes control of UGC. She builds a tight bond with a subordinate, Royal, who opens her eyes to many things about being a real Crip, given her an entire new outlook on gang banging. Implementing new rules among UGC members, Sue Blue’s actions creates a ...

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

Stacy has always been the good girl from her Brooklyn neighborhood, balancing her studies and dreams of a better life while navigating the gritty reality of project living. But everything changes when a traumatic event shatters her innocence, pushing her into the depths of a world she wanted no parts of. In the wake of her violation, Stacy’s perspective on life flips upside down; the streets that once seemed dangerous now feel like her only escape. Desperate for connection and understanding, she finds herself drawn to Ace, a charismatic yet hardened boy from her projects who knows the ins...

Armand Blackstone wants very little in life, and needs even less--he's a millionaire in his own right, and scion of the Blackstone Empire. He has everything at his fingertips, everything a man could want--except Jo Dawson. His borderline obsession has lasted for over a decade, and he manages it the same way he controls everything else around him: with icy perfection. Simultaneously distancing himself and yet staying constantly aware of her, he's managed to keep his dignity intact and stay away from the one woman that drives him past the point of control. But now she's at risk, his younger ...

Yoshi Lomax loves playing dirty. She'll do whatever it takes to win a case - including bribing cops, sleeping with her superiors, and convincing her DEA pals to make evidence disappear. But when Yoshi runs out of tricks while defending a Haitian mob boss, the gangster makes one thing clear: Yoshi either wins the case or loses her life.

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.

It’s the 1950s. Thousands of people every day pass through Smoke Tree, California, on Route 66. The Mother Road. The two-lane blacktop that stretches from Chicago to LA. A few make a quick stop in the isolated, Mojave Desert town. Some stay. Some are dangerous. And a few are downright deadly. Burke Henry is deadly. He drives into Smoke Tree on a motorcycle on a cold, windy, winter day. His panniers are stuffed with cash. Lots of cash. Who is he? What does he want? Why a tiny town like Smoke Tree? Nobody knows, but they’re all dying to find out. And so are some men from Oklahoma. Members...

A mail-order bride schemes to make her new husband fall deeply and desperately in love with her in this sweetly suspenseful historical romance! Jameson Ford’s dream is to turn the remote mountain community of El Vaquero into the biggest cattle town in Texas. When he submits an application for a mail-order bride, he’s not looking for love. To him, acquiring a wife is simply one of his duties for pioneering a town. An impoverished debutante and former life of the party, Penelope Copeland carves out a new life as a working-class girl in post-war Atlanta — that is, until a gang of ...