Comedy Crime Fiction

When hordes of people descend on the picturesque village of Nasely for the annual celebration of its most famous resident, murder mystery writer Agnes Crabbe, events take a dark turn as the festival opens with a shocking death. Each year the residents are outnumbered by crowds dressed as Crabbe’s lady detective, Millicent Cutter. The weekend is never a mild-mannered affair as fan club rivalries bubble below the surface, but tensions reach new heights when a second Crabbe devotee is found murdered. Though the police are quick to arrive on the scene, the facts are tricky to ascertain as the witnesses, suspects and victim are all dressed as Miss Cutter.

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.

After being reformed for five years in the Wyoming pen, the celebrated criminal Mugs Birdsong decides to found a crime academy that will instruct lawmen on the ways of means of lawlessness. He sets up shop in an abandoned orphanage in Rock Springs, and soon is instructing classes in bank robbery, train robbery, and various other sterling occupations. He sells autographed wanted posters, and persuades a banker to let him stage a mock robbery at the bank, for the benefit of his students - and that's when the fun begins.

Wilt Fusarium, a clueless American ad executive, unwittingly finds himself in the middle of political intrigue and revolution on the tiny island of Costa San Rica, while trying to save the ad agency's Choad Banana account. Complications and misunderstandings abound, as the island's despot leader thinks Wilt is a revolutionary, the revolutionaries think he's a government agent, the banana company thinks he's CIA, and the CIA, well, they don't know what to think.

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.

Edward was a respectable architect when a disagreement over the wrong shade of Georgian red with Aubyn, a mean-spirited conservation officer, saw the full force of the law applied. Ian had been a successful accountant until he was shafted by dodgy PPI pusher Kevin. Their lives tumble and they end up in prison, where they meet Nelson, banged up after stealing a sapphire and a Bentley from a contessa in Monaco. An early release prompts Edward, Ian, and Nelson to take a road trip in search of a new life, revenge, and adventure. Will the vintage Bentley manage the trip?

David Spandau is a P.I. and sometime rodeo cowboy. At the tail end of some much-needed vacation time, he takes a meeting with a talent agent whose client, Bobby Dye, is being blackmailed and threatened. Dye is young, brash, and on the verge of becoming a major star...if he lasts that long. It turns out that Dye faked a threatening note to hide a far more incriminating secret. When Spandau agrees to investigate, the game gets deadly.

Une série de meurtres brutaux secoue la petite ville de Money, Mississippi : des hommes blancs sont retrouvés atrocement mutilés. Mais ces meurtres recèlent un mystère, car sur chaque scène de crime on retrouve un second cadavre qui ressemble comme deux gouttes d’eau à Emmett Till, un garçon noir lynché dans la même ville en 1955. Lorsqu’un duo d’enquêteurs tout en second degré est dépêché sur les lieux, il se heurte à la résistance attendue du shérif, de ses adjoints, du légiste et d’une cohorte de Blancs tous plus racistes les uns que les autres. Les deux agents spéciaux pensent avoir affaire à des crimes punitif.

It’s the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season: for every disease or cause, there’s a reason for the local luminaries to eat (minimally), drink (maximally) and be seen. But when a prominent high-society dowager suddenly vanishes during a swanky gala and is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. Kiki Pew was notable not just for her wealth and her jewels - she was an ardent fan of the winter White House resident just down the road and a founding member of the Potussies, a group of women dedicated to supporting their president.

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.

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...

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.

Dundalk—The Town, to locals—took Aoife in when she left home at eighteen. Now she’s gone from a small-time slinger of hash to a bona fide player in Dundalk’s criminal underworld. Aoife’s smart, savvy, and cool under pressure. Except, that is, when it comes to Annie. Annie is mysterious and compelling, and Aoife is desperate to impress her and keep her close. Unfortunately, not everyone in The Town shares Aoife’s opinion of Annie.

Ben, wandering hungry through the foggy back alleys of Limehouse, is spooked by news of an old man murdered in Hammersmith - and runs! He crosses a plank, slips through an iron door, and goes to sea with the coal. But so does the man who did the murder...and a very pretty lady who did not. On the way the Atlanta loses a stowaway, a pickpocket, a murderer, a supercrook, a wealthy passenger, the third officer and a lifeboat. And that is how Ben gets to Spain....

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.