Comedy Crime Fiction

After hitting rock bottom mentally via a road sign in Bedford, Danny Murdo bounces back and straight into the Serbian mafia, the Hungarian aristocracy, and an American film producer, amongst others, as he flounders through an Eastern Europe lurching worryingly to its right. He somehow solves crimes, aided by his heroic homosexual brother and hindered by his devoutly pious brother-in-law.

Time is up in Old Town. As the pace of gentrification reaches frenzy in Portland, Oregon, Darby Holland’s beloved tattoo parlor, Lucky Supreme, is destroyed by a bomb that ripped through an entire city block. Only a warning call from his favorite prostitute saved his life. Developers have been like wolves at the door of Dmitri (the drunken landlord) for the past few years, but this is different.

Book 1: Pairs: This Dating Site Will Be the Death of You A woman searching for love. A string of online suitors. A deadly end. When a young woman’s body is discovered, Detective Ned is drawn into the murky world of online dating. The suspects? Every man in her dating history on the app Pairs. Each profile photo hides a secret: the suave charmer with a shady past, the awkward loner with an unhealthy obsession, or the too-perfect match with everything to lose.. In this sharp and satirical mystery, you hold the power to uncover the truth. Will the killer be caught in the web of lies?

Aspiring actress Elizabeth Smart lands her centre-stage role: her mutilated body is found dumped in North London's red light district. Clasped in her hand is a piece of human hair belonging to an unidentified body of a woman murdered two weeks ago. PC Donal lands himself a place on the murder squad just as his unconventional brother, journalist Finton, unearths the secret double life of Elizabeth. The bodies mount, each clinging to the strands of hair belonging to the previous victim.

Bumping Off Fat Vinny is a lighthearted look at the attempts of authors Margaret Stanton, Danny Garrett, and Maria Mancuso make to do away with a scoundrel who seemingly has more lives than a cat. It confirms the old adage that the best laid plans of mice and men sometimes do, in fact, go astray.

When Trevor Hawkins hits the open road in his beat-up old camper van with his incorrigible dog, Milly, his quest for adventure soon spirals dangerously out of control. The simple act of flushing a hotel toilet transforms his life from redundant sales assistant to fugitive from a gang of psychopathic villains, the police, and MI5. Then there's private detective Sandra Gray, who could cheerfully throttle him for turning a well-paid, piece-of-cake job into a total nightmare. Or could she?

A delicious burger. A horrific murder. What can the waiters of the Midnight Owl do to solve the mystery? On a foggy Friday night in Los Angeles, a diverse group of young and sexy waiters discover a gruesome and horrific murder in the kitchen of L.A.’s hottest new restaurant, The Midnight Owl. Stunned by what they witnessed, the attractive gang embark on a pulse-pounding, high-octane, thrill-ride, tracking down other members of the Midnight Owl’s staff to uncover the evil truth.

When his third in command gets brutally murdered, mob boss Enzo Clowneone immediately suspects his arch-nemeses, the Juggler and Mime families. In order to stand a chance against their combined might, he must rally allied Carnival families to his cause - but who are his true allies? This book is a dark comedy set in an insulated world of crime. It touches upon the impotence of power, and the struggle for the Don to be both good and feared at the same time.

Paranoia-fuelled Zack Walker has trouble convincing his loved ones to obey his rules for keeping them out of harm's way. He's even uprooted his family and headed for the tranquillity of the suburbs. But then Zack stumbles upon a body, and a trail of deceit and murder leads right back to his own front door. Suddenly the 'burbs is not looking nearly so safe.... With a killer roaming around their neighbourhood and Zack's overactive imagination in overdrive, he's sure things can't get any worse.

A selection from the John Updike audio collection. These extraordinarily evocative stories depict the generation born in a small-town America during the Depression and growing up in a world where the old sexual morality was turned around and material comforts were easily had. Yet, as these stories reflect so accurately, life was still unsettling, and Updike chronicles telling moments both joyful and painful.

Mob princess Lucie Rizzo can’t catch a break. Or take one. Building a business empire is hard work, even without her family’s notoriety. Staying out of trouble isn’t exactly her forte. Still, Lucie could use a vacation from Chicago winters and the town where everybody knows her father’s name. So when a certain Irish cop promises warmer days - and hotter nights - Lucie sees an offer she can’t refuse. Detective O’Hottie sweeps her away to the land of sun, sand, and...retirees? Before the real romantic getaway begins, Tim wants to visit his Uncle Henry.

Alors qu’un typhon menace la baie de Hong Kong, la brigade policière de Jackie Thran encercle la cave à vin la plus sécurisée du monde, installée dans d’anciens bunkers de l’armée britannique. Un trio de braqueuses, aux agissements excentriques, s’y est infiltré et retient en otage l’impressionnant stock de M. Coetzer, estimé à trois cent cinquante millions de dollars…Revisitant avec brio les codes du film de braquage, Céline Minard signe un roman drôle et explosif, où la subversion se mêle à l’ivresse.

Mob princess turned entrepreneur Lucie Rizzo knows that when you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up. Despite her family’s unshakable criminal reputation, Lucie’s new business is booming. And for once her love life isn’t far behind. Lucie devotes her days to building the Coco Barknell brand, but her nights are all about roguishly sexy Tim O’Brien. At least they will be if she and Detective O’Hottie finally take their relationship to the next level. But bring an Irish cop home to her mobster father?

Midnight Rider Productions is a dark-web nightmare machine, headed by the one man who years ago drove Darby to hide in the seamy environs of Old Town and make his life there. But Darby left his own mark back in the day, and the shadowy head of production has a grudge to settle. Rider has found him at long last and plans to make an example of him.

China Doll, another comical and exciting adventure, ripped straight from the files of Honolulu’s most incorrigible and languid, soft-boiled private eye, Richard Bishop.People come to Richard Bishop’s shabby Hotel Street office for professional help when trouble raises its ugly head because trouble is his business. But when the private investigator accepts an assignment from Nikki Kwan, a stunning and curvaceous China doll, to protect her and to deliver a sealed envelope to her ex-boyfriend, Rick soon has plenty of trouble all his own. He finds himself squarely in the crosshairs of rival...

An FBI team arrives March 6, 2020, in a small Florida surfing village to investigate a series of terrorist attacks. The Bureau has a hot lead on a woman with a violent past and instructions to work with the local deputy, JP Barnett. Barnett's overly relaxed and incompetent techniques are instantly at odds with the federal agents. While the team awaits the terrorist specialty group from FBI headquarters, the local deputy seems to be doing his best to divert the investigation. The federal investigators are bewildered by the quirky locals and everyone's party-at-the-beach attitude.

This thrilling, unpredictable, yet sometimes hilarious quest takes you from the fashionable London restaurant scene to the wild untamed jungles of the Cardamom Mountains, where an English baker and a Cambodian refugee search for a missing family and try to find a mythical plant, source of an incredible and unique spice.

IRS agent turned PI Mortimer Angel is relaxing in a hole-in-the-wall bar in a Reno casino when an attractive young girl hires him to find out who left her a cryptic message demanding a million dollars. At the girl’s house, Mort finds the body of missing rapper Jonnie Xenon - Jo-X to his legions of fans - hanging from the rafters with two bullet holes in him. Mort is shocked when he learns the identity of the girl’s father - and even more shocked when the father hires him to investigate the murder.

Caleb Rush, aka Crush, is the toughest, coolest bodyguard/bouncer in Los Angeles, a man who lives strictly by his own moral code, which doesn't exactly hew to the standards of US law. When Amelia Trask, the wild daughter of a scruples-free billionaire tycoon, comes to Crush for help, his quiet life roars into overdrive, and he has to use his wits, brawn, martial-arts training, and knowledge of the Russian Mafia to stay alive and clean up the mess that young Amelia has created.

Two crims. One schoolgirl. Someone's in trouble. Two dumb, wannabe criminals bite off more than they can chew when they abduct a schoolgirl from a particularly modern, angular suburban house. In the mould of Elmore Leonard or early Tarantino Blockhouse Blues and the Elmore Beast is a distinctly Australian story about kidnapping, obsession, and architecture.