Comedy Crime Fiction

For as long as they can remember, Claudia, Margo and Jackie have been told how lucky they are. Rescued from their own family tragedies, they were raised by a loving foster mother on an idyllic farming estate and given an elusive second chance for a happy family life. But the girls’ childhood wasn’t quite the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. And when a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the three foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses.

Veranix Calbert is the Thorn - the street vigilante who became a legend to the people of Maradaine, especially the gangs that run the neighborhood of Aventil. The Thorn continues to harass Willem Fenmere, the drug kingpin of the Dentonhill neighborhood. Veranix is still determined to stop Fenmere and the effitte drug trade, especially when he discovers that Fenmere is planning on using the Red Rabbits gang to bring the drug into Aventil. But it’s also Exam Week at the University of Maradaine, where Veranix is a magic student.

Existential noir meets absurd comedy when a young man reluctantly enlists as source material for an art project. Stanley had known it was a mistake to accept his uncle Lech's offer to apartment-sit in Prague - he'd known it was one of Lech's proposals, a thinly veiled setup for some invasive, potentially dangerous performance art project. But whatever Lech had planned for Stanley, it would get him to Prague and maybe offer a chance to make things right with T after his failed attempt to propose.

If stealing a half million dollars from the Mafia is a bad idea, then using the money to pay off a homicidal Russian loan shark is an insane idea. Elliot Becker realizes this a little too late as his well-intentioned South Florida real estate scam starts to fall to pieces. He needs a Plan B - and he needs it now - because when Ponzi schemes fail, they tend to fail fast. Complicating matters is Logan Treverrow, an aspiring sculptor and newly-returned veteran from Afghanistan trying to figure out who took out a $200,000 loan in his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s name.

Alvie Knightly flees Sicily for a suite at the Ritz after her not-so-playful sibling rivalry ends in murder. Beautiful, spoiled Beth may be gone, but Alvie's discovering what happens when you steal your twin's identity. Especially now that Beth's body has been found. The police aren't the only ones Alvie has to worry about. Her hot new boyfriend has vanished, along with all of their stolen riches. But Alvie has never shied away from a challenge. She pursues the traitor to Rome in a life-or-death game of cat and mouse. Can she get revenge before her own crimes catch up with her?

Chris Benson looks up to his older brother. In fact, everyone looks up to Chris’ older brother. Most have no choice when they're lying on their stomachs in the middle of Barclays bank. But when Gavin Benson gets sent down for 15 years, the somewhat unprofessional trio of Chris, Sid and Vince are left without a ringleader. As if Chris hasn't got enough problems, his adulterous partner Debbie is spending money faster than he can steal it, his sexually frustrated sister-in-law needs a man about the house and the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme want to sign him up for a tour of duty.

After a dramatic change in character, a rather usual middle-aged man begins carrying out a series of rather unusual murders. Meanwhile Brad Shape, a crime beat reporter for the Manchester Daily News, is looking for the big scoop to revive his flagging career—and his crumbling marriage. But when he finds one of England's most notorious serial killers, it will be Brad's biggest break...in more ways than one.

A madcap new novel from the one-of-a-kind author of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden. It's never too late to start again. And again. It's always awkward when five thousand kronor goes missing. When it happens at a certain grotty hotel in South Stockholm, it's particularly awkward because the money belongs to the hitman currently staying in room seven.

Recently dumped and stuck with the mortgage, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. The scrapbooks, a secret birthday gift for Naomi's husband Bryce, trace the Duncan's twenty-five-year marriage. As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-two hundred-boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family - until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously.

It's '86, the era of Pop Rocks, Jelly shoes, and big hair bands. Rachael O'Brien's freshman plan seems simple: Attend a southern college away from her hometown of Canton, Ohio, earn a degree, party, and meet cute guys-hopefully acing the latter two. But being threatened by a jealous She-Devil, avoiding the advances of a 30-something redneck, and discovering an art fraud scheme mess with her "to do" list.

As dusk falls, a young man staggers through a park, far from home, bleeding from a stab wound. He dies where he falls, cradled by a stranger, a woman's name on his lips in his last seconds of life. DI Manon Bradshaw can't help taking an interest - these days she handles only cold cases, but the man died just yards from the police station where she works. She's horrified to discover that both victim and prime suspect are more closely linked to her than she could have imagined.

A darkly comic noir about a chicken living in a world of anthropomorphic eggs who's wanted for a murder he didn't commit. Life is tough for an embry. Considered a vestigial organ at best and a parasite at worst, chicken embryos are usually aborted by the egg folk early in life. Once in a while, one survives and slips through, hatching into an embry, an ostracized, lower caste anthropomorphic chicken. They have their own ghettos, and are barely tolerated by polite society.

After 30 years at St Oswald's Grammar in North Yorkshire, Latin master Roy Straitley has seen all kinds of boys come and go. Each class has its clowns, its rebels, its underdogs, its 'Brodie' boys who, whilst of course he doesn't have favourites, hold a special place in an old teacher's heart. But every so often there's a boy who doesn't fit the mould. A troublemaker. A boy with hidden shadows inside.

Desde que David Valenzuela, un joven ingenuo y poco lumbrera, mató en defensa propia a uno de los hermanos Castro, conocidos narcotraficantes del Triángulo Dorado en la región de Sinaloa, su vida se convierte en una huida llena de oportunos golpes de suerte y en la que se cruzará con los más variopintos personajes que, sin él pretenderlo, le involucrarán en situaciones tanto trágicas como cómicas.

Twenty-two-year-old pop star Cherry Pye is attempting a comeback from her latest drug-fuelled disaster. Her 'stunt double', Ann, travels everywhere with her, throwing paparazzi off the scent when they get too close. But one night, Ann's resemblance to Cherry Pye proves too convincing - she is kidnapped by an obsessed paparazzo who only realises his mistake once it is too late to go back....

Given the choice, Martial would not have moved to Les Conviviales. But Odette loved the idea of a brand-new retirement village in the south of France. So that was that. At first it feels like a terrible mistake: they're the only residents and it's raining non-stop. Then three neighbours arrive, the sun comes out, and life becomes far more interesting and agreeable. Until, that is, some gypsies set up camp just outside their gated community....

Rachael O'Brien's summer starts with a promising trip to England with her eccentric grandmother, her dad's long-time assistant, and her very good-looking, very gay friend, Travis. She thinks that distancing herself from the southern men she's developed an appetite for is the emotional breather she needs. But for Rachael O'Brien, nothing is ever simple. An amethyst oyster brooch with a scandalous past leads her into trouble far from home. Discovering that she has been followed across the Atlantic, surviving British culinary challenges becomes the least of Rachael's worries.

In a former life, Nick Lutz, sold cars in the Golden State. He had a wife and a young son, and they struggled along until Nick was shot in the head when a potential customer hijacked the car he was demonstrating. The incident sets off a bad-luck domino fall, and he loses an eye, his job, his family, and, eventually, his self-respect. With nothing left, Nick heads for Mexico, where he sheds his former self among an eclectic group of expats and locals, who fondly name him “Pirata” on account of his eye patch.

Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham are turning 60. They live in a small Dorset town and have been friends since school. On the surface Susan has it all - a lovely house and a long marriage to accountant Barry. Life has not been so kind to Julie, but now, with several failed businesses and bad relationships behind her, she has found stability: living in a council flat and working in an old people's home.

All Mason Dixon wants is to mix classy drinks for classy people... Mason owns a bar, and he's not getting any younger. He wants nothing more than to retire in peace, fishing and drinking with the locals. But his past as an assassin is catching up with him. Mason moonlights as an assassin, taking jobs to remove "marks" from the playing field. It pays well, and he's good at it. So when he makes a mistake, things quickly get out of hand and he finds himself racing against the clock to save a life he inadvertently put into danger.