Comedy Crime Fiction

Written in reaction to what Bentley perceived as the sterility and artificiality of the detective fiction of his day, Trent's Last Case features Philip Trent, an all-too-human detective who not only falls in love with the chief suspect but reaches a brilliant conclusion that is totally wrong. Trent's Last Case begins when millionaire American financier Sigsbee Manderson is murdered while on holiday in England. A London newspaper sends Trent to investigate, and he is soon matching wits with Scotland Yard's Inspector Murth.

Critically acclaimed author David Schickler made a splash with Kissing in Manhattan, a best-selling story collection that Booklist said is "magical" and "never ceases to amaze and impress". Now this gifted writer's extraordinary imagination produces a brazen novel that reads like Bonnie and Clyde meets Robin Hood.

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.

George and Lou used to be thugs for hire. Now they're living in a shack in Costa Rica, hiding from the crime lord who wants them dead. Their last job, to deliver him a werewolf in a cage, went...badly. But they can't hide out forever, and when they're finally captured, it seems as if George and Lou's ultimate fate will involve being doused in gasoline and set aflame. Instead, they're given a second chance. There's another werewolf out there. This time, it's Ally, a 14-year-old girl.

Private Detective Kaiser Wrench is a dangerous tiger to have as a friend, but he will avenge your death. Follow Kaiser as he prowls the streets of New York in the first five volumes of this series: I, the Tribunal; My Claws Are Quick; Retribution Is Mine!; A Solitary Evening; and The Great Slay.

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.

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.

True believer Murray Whelan makes his debut in Shane Maloney's first thriller set among the ethnic feuds, union machinations, and sexual politics of his city's working-class heartland. The fiddle at the Pacific Pastoral meat-packing works was a nice little earner for all concerned until Herb Gardiner reported finding a body in number 3 chiller. Enter Murray Whelan, minder, fixer, and general dogsbody for the Minister of Industry. Between playing off party factions and pursuing the kohl-eyed Ayisha, it's all in a day's work for Murray to hose down the situation at Pacific Pastoral.

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 saving the city of Alyon from an outburst of rampaging mutagenic monsters and the gnomish terrorist organization that started the outbreak, Grak needs a vacation. Something grand. Something like attending the Macroversal Wizarding Championships. When the city’s Paratechnological leaders offer Grak the vacation of a lifetime, the chance to see the Wizarding championships in person, he jumps at the opportunity. The only problem is that Grak has to stop a ship-devouring demon along the way. Grak – Orc on Vacation is a supernatural detective fantasy novel of roughly 50,000 words.

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....

Bryan LeBlanc worked his way up into a plum position on Wall Street as the boy genius of the foreign exchange desk. Surrounded by "the few, the proud, the completely full of themselves", he decides to give Wall Street a taste of its own medicine and hatches an intricate plan to disappear permanently with just enough misappropriated money - and sailing classes - to spend his golden years cruising the Caribbean. Bryan quickly learns that being a criminal, even a really smart one, is more complicated than he thought. He finds himself on the run in the Cayman Islands, wanted for murder.

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.

It's corrupt to the bone and under the ever watchful surveillance system known as the Eye. Money has been abandoned in favor of the credit system. All citizens are required to carry hand held devises containing their credit score and personal information. Dylan is recovering from the government attitude adjustment program known as the Punch since his credits reached zero. His adopted son Jimmy is missing presumed dead and his basement office is infested with contrarian rats.

The town's psychic cat, Irene Peggledrip, is being visited by a band of malevolent spirits who all claim to be murderers. The stage is set for Hettie and Tilly to solve an old murder mystery, where all the cats involved appear to be dead. Will our feline sleuths finally lay the ghosts to rest? Can Molly Bloom’s new cafe survive the seance? And will the moving claw give up its secrets before the gravy congeals? Join Hettie and Tilly for another spirited adventure.

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....

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.

Whatever happens, don't tell anyone what you did to Bee Larkham.... Jasper is not ordinary. In fact he would say he is extraordinary.... Synaesthesia paints the sounds of his world in a kaleidoscope of colours that no one else can see. But on Friday, he discovered a new colour - the colour of murder. He's sure something has happened to his neighbour, Bee Larkham, but no-one else seems to be taking it as seriously as they should be.