Crime Noir

San Francisco Noir lashes out with hard-biting tales exploring the shadowy nether regions of scenic "Baghdad by the Bay". In this superb collection, virtuosos of the genre meet up with the best of SF’s literary fiction community to chart a unique psycho-geography for a dark landscape. From inner city boroughs to the outlands, each contributor offers an original story based in a distinct neighborhood.

When a grisly double homicide takes place in an old apartment building, no one doubts the guilt of the victims' next-door neighbor. Not only does the man have a history of mental illness, he confessed to the murder within hours. True, he had no apparent motive, but who needs motive when the supposed murderer is crazy? The NYPD's lead detective would be happy to close the case, but he's facing his own demons, and letting the investigation drag on allows him to protect his own dark secret. Imagine his surprise when he begins uncovering facts that cast the murder in an all-new light.

A short story introduces listeners to Brian Panowich's brutal, mesmerizing North Georgia landscape, in preparation for Like Lions. Enter the world of Brian Panowich, where Gareth Burroughs runs McFalls County, in North Georgia, and all the criminal enterprises therein. Two of his three sons, Halford and Buckley, are aiming to follow in his footsteps. The third, Clayton, has turned his back on the family and became a lawman, a sheriff in town.

While on special assignment to the bank fraud unit, Texas Ranger Faith McClellan accidentally stumbles upon a raging fire consuming the back of a nearby house. When partially cremated remains are pulled from the ruins, she finds herself back on homicide - and on the trail of a ruthless killer. As she races to identify the victims, the sadistic murderer strikes again - this time against state politicians with ties to Faith’s father, a former governor of Texas.

Bob Engels is the last person anyone would accuse of being father material. With a monkey on his back the size of a Texas fifth, his days are spent jobless and on the hunt for a quick buck to fuel his next bender. That need had now driven him here, to this moment, pondering his life choices and staring at an ad from a bulletin board at the local Walmart... Blue-eyed men between the ages of 18-35 to begat a child for a good, god-loving family. Full discretion. Complete anonymity. $1000 The only problem is, the "god-loving family" in question are the Knutson's, a tight-knit clan of criminals ...

A murder mystery. The seventh book in the Detective Riley Scott series. When Homicide Detective Riley Scott is called to investigate a murder at the same exact apartment, with the same exact M.O. as a homicide he not only investigated 3 years earlier, but solved, he is catapulted along a course that will take him from Tampa to New Orleans where he nearly loses his own life trying to get answers. At the same time, the trial for the killer he arrested 3 years earlier for the original murder is floundering in the courts as the judge and the defense team are demanding answers—answers Scott is...

When reports come in that the Kingpin and a police officer have been killed and that Frank Castle (aka the Punisher) has turned himself in for it, Matt Murdock senses holes in the narratives the media and the streets are quick to run with. Both criminals have been Matt’s nemeses when he dons the cowl of the Daredevil, and there’s no denying that New York is better off without its Kingpin and with the Punisher behind bars. And yet ... while the Punisher is a murderous vigilante, he doesn’t kill cops. And he doesn’t turn himself in.

A detective ensnared. A deadly trap. A race against time. When DC Simmons' father asks him to help a newly bereaved widow, the young cop senses trouble and turns to DI Joe Hogarth for assistance. Hogarth can't decline, but he'll soon wish he had, as they find themselves caught in a trap they must escape before the weekend ends—or be implicated in the gravest of crimes. Social media entrepreneur Grant Dawn goes missing on a Friday night. His classic car spins out of control into a cold marshland river. He's almost certainly dead, his alcoholic wife is in despair, and their business is on ...

When a serial arsonist terrorizes Los Angeles county, FBI profiler Violet Darger heads over to California to investigate. The fires keep coming faster. The body count rises, and the threat hangs over the city as thick as the smog. The case file is brutal - stuffed with photographs of charred bodies, human faces melted beyond recognition. And when Darger gets up close to the crimes - the real thing - that sense of savagery only intensifies.

It's finally my time... I am an outlaw. They say that I am unkillable. That is my sole claim to fame in my world and one that I proudly honor. I am the president of the Arkansas Chapter of the merciless Unacceptables MC.I am a single father.I am a leader. I am a killer. I will stop at nothing to protect my family, but will my reputation precede me or will fate ultimately catch up with me? I am Maccon Allred, and this is my story. Unkillable was originally released in the WSJ & USAT Bestselling Anthology: Love, Loyalty, & Mayhem as a shorter story. Unkillable is now being released with more ...

The Heat of Havana finds Detective Jussi Alonen settled down in Rauma once again. However, little does he know that a thrilling new adventure awaits him, one which will not only reconnect him with an old flame but also result in his involvement with international crime once again. Smuggling high-quality Cuban cigars to wealthy Eastern Europeans is a lucrative business. However, when a problem arises, Jussi’s old friend Heli finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time and he unexpectedly finds himself in Havana. Can he save her and return to his life as a detective in Finland? This ...

Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965 - 30 years after its original publication - Despair is the wickedly inventive and richly derisive story of Hermann, a man who undertakes the perfect crime: his own murder. One of the 20th century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator.

Set against the luscious Miami sunsets, E. E. Williams' Tears in the Rain delivers to mystery fans a cast of unforgettable characters entwined around a fast-paced and intriguing story of sex, power, drugs and deceit-narrated by its lead character, an unfortunate would-be detective, who must choose to risk his life to prove himself.

In the autumn of 1971, Cleveland Police Lieutenant Alex Wesner is given a case that may be no case at all, or it may be several cases tied together. Did a workman perish in a vat of molten steel, or is his disappearance part of an elaborate ruse? To find the answers the lieutenant and his team must navigate the Byzantine procedures and furnaces of the Rubicon Steel Corporation while relying on mostly unhelpful witnesses: an enigmatic young man who might be talking in riddles, or a left-for-dead comatose security guard, knifed like so many other victims. The lieutenant's investigative team ...

Summer has come to Atlantic City but the boardwalk is empty of tourists, the casino lights have dimmed, and two Jane Does are laid out in the marshland behind the Sunset Motel, just west of town. Only one person even knows they’re there. Meanwhile, Clara, a young boardwalk psychic, struggles to attract clients for the tarot readings that pay her rent. When she begins to experience very real and disturbing visions, she suspects they could be related to the recent cases of women gone missing in town.

When the body of a man is found dead in his remote, isolated home, DI Tom Janssen and his team struggle to understand what motive there could be to murder such an inoffensive, seemingly placid local character. The man lived alone and was well known in the community, but kept his distance from others, leading a haphazard way of life almost entirely off the grid. What secrets did he hide in his private life that might be worth killing for? As the team are about to understand, even the most nondescript of people can exist in a world darker than most of us will ever see....

Eddie Ankin is back! On the shores of paradise, danger lurks beneath the surface, but Eddie isn’t afraid to dive in. Former Marine Raider turned Hollywood stuntman Eddie Ankin was supposed to be enjoying some downtime on the sun-soaked beaches of Oahu. But when a fiery surf instructor named Mia ropes him into a scheme involving a powerful hotel tycoon and a stolen parcel, Eddie’s vacation turns into a high-stakes race for survival. With a gang of Hawaiian bikers on their tail and a ruthless tycoon pulling strings from the shadows, Eddie finds himself navigating an underworld as ...

For some, Barcelona is a European enchantress of nouveau architecture, fusion tapas, and fine cava. To others, it’s a Gothic labyrinth of tiny streets to lose oneself in; hashish-clouded after-hours bars to forget the time; dimly lit plazas with global bohemians squatting, prostitutes tempting. But come morning, its cold cobblestones and misty beachfronts have even darker stories to tell.

It’s 1975, and the comic book industry is struggling, but Carmen Valdez doesn’t care. She’s an assistant at Triumph Comics, which doesn’t have the creative zeal of Marvel nor the buttoned-up efficiency of DC, but it doesn’t matter. Carmen is tantalizingly close to fulfilling her dream of writing a superhero book. That dream is nearly a reality when one of the Triumph writers enlists her help to create a new character, which they call “The Lethal Lynx”, Triumph's first female hero.

In A Suspension of Mercy, a masterpiece of noir fantasy, Highsmith revels in eliciting the unsettling psychological forces that lurk beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life.