Dark Crime Thrillers

"A rocket ride of action, political intrigue, and suspense."—San Diego Magazine "A sharp thriller. Russell has us in the palm of his hand."—Chicago Tribune "Ingeniously imagined and skillfully told, Political Suicide must be included in any list of this year's best thrillers."—San Diego Union-Tribune Will Travis is an undercover corporate investigator whose job involves low-key assignments like checking out the service at Washington, DC, hotel bars and reporting back to management. But his evening takes an unexpected turn when he interrupts an attempted murder. Soon, Will is on the ...

Two years ago Joseph King was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to life in prison. He was a "fallen" Amish man and, according to local law enforcement, a known drug user with a violent temper. Now King has escaped, and he’s headed for Painters Mill. News of a murderer on the loose travels like wildfire and putting Chief of Police Kate Burkholder and her team of officers on edge. A nightmare scenario becomes reality when King shows up with a gun and kidnaps his five children from their Amish uncle’s house. He’s armed and desperate with nothing left to lose.

She was my everything…until she betrayed me with my own flesh and blood. I'm the most ruthless Mafia Don in Sin City. No one crosses me, especially not the woman I loved—the one who shattered my heart and fled with another man's baby. Years of bitterness hardened me. I built an empire on vengeance, fueled by the memory of her betrayal. Fate intervened, thrusting us back into each other's lives. Now, my daughter—the child I never knew existed—is dying. And the only way to save her is a liver transplant—from a donor found in my own twisted family. My half brother, a snake who trades...

Ex-crime reporter Leonard Blaylock spends his days on an unusual hobby, developing strangers’ forgotten and discarded rolls of film. He loves the small mysteries the photographs reveal to him. Then Leonard finds something no one would ever expect, or want, to see captured on film—the murder of a young woman. But that’s impossible, because the woman is already dead. Leonard was there when it happened five years earlier.

A winding case unfolds when a young woman is found shot with an arrow in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Brayden Tucker and Mike Lenard, Eagle River’s most unlikely duo of detectives, make an astonishing discovery: could this be the work of a serial killer? Tension rises between the young progressive detective and the grizzled old veteran as they try to solve each case… before the next Bow Season.

When life keeps throwing you grenades. You don’t stop running. From having a criminal mastermind as a father, to losing his mother when he was young. PI Dean Steele has had to overcome many tragedies in life. After leaving the military, he was determined to continue living a life of service. Since then, he has solved many brutal and shocking cases as a private investigator. Called in to investigate a strange case with missing EMTs dispatched to 871 Ridge Port, he never expected to find the many gruesome twists in the case. What happened to the EMTs or the people who lived in 871? Nothing ...

DCI Harry Grimm smells trouble brewing. As the chief inspector and his team prepare for a harsh winter storm, a call comes in from an old pal that a remote PI training session in the Dales he is attending has abruptly ended in a suspicious death. And while the gruff detective struggles through a blizzard to reach the crime scene, the residents of a nearby house come to a fatal end.

There’s no mercy for the wicked. And the heart of a killer will not be spared. PI Dean Steele has put many evil masked men behind bars. While attending a wrestling match with Xavier, Dean witnesses one of the masked wrestlers drops unconscious on stage. The unmasking reveals a shocking twist, and the death causes a ripple throughout the entire Wrestling Federation. Dean goes undercover and stumbles upon clues that may change everything. When another wrestler’s body is found, brutally murdered, it appears that these Goliath-like men are being strategically taken out. Dean has wrestled ...

When Chaz Perron's wife discovers that he is running a scam (posing as a marine biologist to doctor water samples so that an agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the Everglades), he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner. Unlucky for Chaz, Joey survives clutching a bale of Jamaican pot. Rescued from the Atlantic by a former police officer, Mick Stranahan, she decides not to report him but instead haunt and taunt him, with Mick's help, by playing dead.

New sheriff Bree Taggert is called to a shooting in a campground shuttered for the winter. But she arrives to find a perplexing crime. There is no shooter, no victim, and no blood. No one but Bree believes the sole witness, Alyssa, a homeless teenager who insists she saw her friend shot. Bree calls in former deputy Matt Flynn and his K-9 to track the killer and search for Alyssa’s friend. They discover the battered corpse of a missing university student under the ice in Grey Lake - but it’s not the victim they were looking for.

Twenty-one-year-old Hardy “Hardly” Reed—good-natured, easygoing, usually stoned—is drifting through life. A minimum-wage scare actor at an amusement park, he avoids unnecessary effort and unrealistic ambitions. Then one day he notices two children, around six or seven, sitting all alone on a bench. Hardly checks if they’re okay and sees injuries on both children. Someone is hurting these kids. He reports the incident to Child Protective Service. That should be the end of it. After all, Hardly's not good at looking out for himself so the last thing he wants to do is look out for anyone else.

It’s the year 2000, and while Bunny McGarry is theoretically on sabbatical from the police, he just can’t help sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. Rosie Flint is an old acquaintance of Bunny’s whose boyfriend mysteriously disappears off the face of the Earth. What starts out as a simple missing person’s case soon gets a whole lot more complicated when it emerges that the boyfriend is not who he claimed to be, and there are some rather sinister people showing an unhealthy interest in Rosie.

She says I’m a beast. She's right. But I’m the man she needs if she wants to survive. I’m no family man. Big, bearded, tatted – I’m no teddy bear either. As a member of the Twisted Devils MC, I fix bikes and break heads. At night, it’s all about easy riding and fast women. No commitments, except to my club. Until Trixie. That night, everything changes. The curvy bar singer takes the stage and my world shifts. She’s gorgeous. And her sinful voice stirs an animal inside me. All I want is one night. Nothing more. She tells me I'm full of it. She wants nothing from a man like me. ...

On her way home after an overnight shift, DI Jan Talantire hears the control room relaying an emergency. Someone has fallen to their death from one of the highest cliffs in Devon. Jan is nearby so she agrees to hold the fort until uniformed cops arrive.

Zaara thought she had the perfect marriage—until she discovered her husband’s darkest secrets. What began as a series of late nights and unanswered calls spirals into a web of deception and betrayal when Zaara receives a set of chilling photos: her husband, Nathan, entwined with a striking young woman in a quiet hotel lobby. Her mind races, but nothing prepares her for what lies ahead. Determined to uncover the truth, Zaara steps into a world of manipulation, lies, and shadows that she never knew existed. But when she meets Alivia, the so-called “other woman,” everything changes. ...

We are the promises we make, the vows we keep, and the oaths we dare not break. When PI Dean Steele received a call from his high school sweetheart Brielle, he never imagined it would lead him to the discovery of her lifeless body. His hunt for her killer takes him on the road to the biggest mystery of his life. Could Brielle have been hiding his child? What secrets was she hiding from Dean and even her own family? While searching for the killer of the woman he once loved. He uncovered more secrets that will change everything he thought he knew. This is the promise that defines us. The last...

There are places in this world where you can enter, but never leave... After witnessing and helping to solve many cases with FBI agent Emma Griffin, PI Dean Steele should get an honorary FBI badge as a reward. With Fall and its festivities rapidly approaching, Dean gets an urgent call. Four years ago, in the quiet town of Harper, three teens were murdered against the backdrop of Halloween. Their body parts were found in the most bewildering way. The body count has now risen and there are still no answers. When the family of the first victim hires Dean to get to the bottom of it, he is ...

When property developer Connor Clive Blaydon is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his Yorkshire team dive into the investigation. As luck would have it, someone had installed a cache of spy-cams all around his luxurious home. The team hope that they’ll find answers - and the culprit - among the video recordings. Instead of discovering Connor's murderer, however, the grainy and blurred footage reveals another crime: a brutal rape

Sacrificing one night with a ruthless Mafia Don was meant to save my family. Until his brother, Vito, captured my heart and ignited a war. Vito Vitali is Sin City's ultimate catch. Rich, dangerously handsome, and a god among men. He's the forbidden temptation I can't resist, Dominating both the Vegas Strip and my every thought. One night with his devilish brother was not only to clear my family's debt, It was my chance to uncover the truth behind my father's murder. Instead, it threw me into the arms of Vito, Sparking a fierce battle for loyalty and love. As Vito and I drew closer, his ...

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjörður, the northernmost town in Iceland. Ari Thór Arason is now a police inspector, but he’s separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air. Three days before Easter, a 19-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident.