Dark Humor Mystery

Summer 1989: Gunther Fahnstiel, once a tough cop who wasn't averse to taking a little side money from a certain madam, has just escaped the dementia ward of his Wichita nursing home. He's not exactly sure where he wants to go, but wherever it is, it has to do with the bag full of cash belonging to the man he accidentally backed over with his RV in 1979. During his search, Gunther begins to relive the violent fallout of that madam's sex lottery 40 years ago. As Gunther's memories unravel, his past and present will collide in a devastating reckoning.

With an FBI sting on his misfit secessionist group closing in, Nat Cinder blasts from Flagstaff to Phoenix on his Triumph Rocket motorcycle. Soon he stumbles onto a packet of photos showing Governor Virginia Rentier lustily paired with three high-ranking women in state government. Though Cinder and the governor clashed 16 years before when his wife died in a car accident, Cinder prefers to keep his dislike of Rentier focused on her politics. But when the bullets fly, Nat asks questions, and learns his sudden war with the governor traces back 16 years.

Kody Rawlee Green is stuck in juvie. Tella “Teal Cartwheels” Carticelli is packing her bags for Rome—on the orders of her parents, who want her as far from Kody as possible. But teenage love is too strong a force for the obstacles of reality. And the highway beckons.

Failed lawyer Robert Green has such a good plan: Crack three hundred safe-deposit boxes and sail off to South America with his brilliant, morally flexible sister, Penny. If it weren’t for the damned freezing rain. In the dying resort town of Granite Shores, cop Jack Biddle is self-appointed king—mostly of bad decisions. Between his family’s crumbling legacy, a wife who just joined the city council, and life-threatening gambling debts, Jack’s looking for a way out. Then he spots a van spinning off a mountain road into the valley below.

ROMANCE QUICKIES Discounted Boxed Set, Encounters 7-12 WHO WILL WIN? Seven friends living in New York City. One unusual competition. Who can have the most intimate encounters in a month? Ten thousand dollars is on the line... Quickies are bite-sized steamy stories that follow a group of women living in New York City who compete to see who can have the most casual hookups in a month. Which woman will sleep with the most men to win the bet? Will any of them fall in love with their conquests along the way? These sizzling-hot books can be read as stand-alones or as part of the Quickies series. ...

On November 9, 1989, Bernd Zeiger, a Stasi officer in the twilight of his career, is deteriorating from a mysterious illness. Alarmed by the disappearance of Lara, a young waitress at his regular café with whom he is obsessed, he chases a series of clues throughout Berlin. The details of Lara’s vanishing trigger flashbacks to his entanglement with Johannes Held, a physicist who, 25 years earlier, infiltrated an American research institute dedicated to weaponizing the paranormal.

Missing shoes, stolen paperclips, and stalkers. Oh, what an afterlife! Bridget finally gets her first assignment as an Independent Authority agent: The not-so-glamorous case of The Paperclip Theft. Regardless, she is determined to close the matter quickly and move on to something more challenging. And then, the dead body of the Afterlife Arrivals commander topples out of the stationery cupboard.

On Friday, May 1st, 2015 a bomb detonates in the infamous Positano Luxury Resort and Casino, a mammoth hotel (and exact replica of the Amalfi coast) on the Las Vegas Strip. Six months prior, a crop of strivers converge on the desert city, attempting to make a home amidst the dizzying lights. By chance and by design, they find themselves caught up in backroom schemes for personal and political power, and are thrown into the deep end of an even bigger fight for the soul of the paradoxical town.

Gus has the unfortunate task of judging the local art show at the Tannehill Ranch. The only thing Gus knows about art is you shouldn’t eat the macaroni after your child has glued to their artwork. Given the art show is displaying art from the daughters of most of the wealthier members of society in his state, Gus could hardly have said no to the request to be a judge. Things heat up at the art show when one of the teenage contestants ends up missing. It is the sort of news that isn’t exactly easy to tell parents with large bank accounts. Worse, it turns out she’s likely run away with ...

With foxes and wolves at each other’s throats, the only solution is to listen to the witch! Homecoming fever is gripping Ardensville and it’s all Thea Beal can do to keep up in her shop. Life has been going great, recently. She and Blaine have been dating and thoughts of a future together fill her mind. But then...another murder rocks the festivities. The victim? A local bad boy wolf shifter. He was also a lady killer. Maybe it was his wolfish good looks that women were drawn to. And perhaps the reason husbands abhorred him. He lived with his kind on the edge of town in beaten up ...

In a chilling turn of events, the unexpected death of a purported psychic leaves the community baffled and questioning how he failed to foresee his own end. Could it be that his abilities were nothing more than a ruse? Ivy, alongside the astute biddie committee, have a knack for unmasking frauds from afar. But as they delve deeper into the case, they begin to suspect that something far more sinister may be lurking beneath the surface. In a tale that blurs the line between the supernatural and deception, Ivy and the biddie committee find themselves entangled in a web of intrigue where ...

A Dead Body with Horns...What the What? Thea and Blaine were supposed to be on a date to the Harvest Festival. Instead they got a handful of murder! The victim? A smooth talking new restaurateur who just opened up shop in Ardensville. There’s something shady about him (maybe it's the horns). Thea couldn’t tell. All she knew is that she felt flustered when he met her eyes before he died. And it seems everyone the police talk to had a reason to kill him. There’s Eleanor DeWitt, the competing restaurant owner. Sandra, whose relationship with the victim visibly soured her. Not to mention ...

A festival of music, mushrooms, and murder. Two detectives who couldn’t be more out of place—or out of sync. The last thing Detectives Flynt and Steele expected when they were sent to a sun-soaked California music festival was to investigate a brutal murder. But when a vendor is found stabbed in the back amidst the swirling crowd of festival-goers, it’s clear that something far darker is happening beneath the haze of peace, love, and rock ‘n’ roll. The vendor wasn’t just any festival regular—he had deep ties to a local polygamist community, where multiple wives may hold ...

Derald Grake's pursuit of the American Dream takes a hilariously dark turn when he puts his family home on the market. But what starts as a simple real estate transaction quickly turns into a nightmare when a body is discovered under the bed. Is it a prank, or something more sinister? As Derald and his family are drawn into a web of wild accusations, bizarre mishaps, and laugh-out-loud absurdity, they find themselves at the center of an outrageous conspiracy that threatens to unravel their lives. In this twisted world, nothing is as it seems, and no one can be trusted.

A ruthless gang. A corrupt government. A detective in search of the truth. A vigilante with a few screws loose…okay, maybe more than a few. Alex Wagner didn’t come to Hampton looking for trouble—but it sure as hell found him the day he crossed paths with Randy. Randy isn’t your ordinary vigilante. He’s a lethally trained ex-intelligence operative on a mission from God—that is, according to him, anyway. By day, he goes undercover as a drifter in threadbare disguise. By night, he lurks in Hampton’s shadows, pursuing his own warped version of justice.

Between her regular job in Afterlife Arrivals, training for her second job with IA, her community service on The Bus of Death, GA meetings, taking care of her housemates, and every other ghostly commitment in between, Bridget Sway is already stretched pretty thin. Then, her best friend, Sabrina, drops a bombshell. Sabrina thinks she was murdered. And, in the afterlife, murdered dead people usually turn into homicidal maniac dead people. Despite that, Sabrina thinks if they can work out who killed her, then she might be able to get the closure she needs.

It’s the hottest heat wave of the summer and Gus’s air conditioner has decided to give up the ghost. It’s not the heat keeping Gus awake at night, though, but a nighttime visit from Father Xavier. He couldn’t sleep either due to the heat and decided it would be best that they didn’t sleep together. While the father was bothering Gus by telling him all about his recent visit to Italy, a welcome phone call came. Someone is going to be murdered at Deimos Technology. It doesn’t matter that the someone that is about to die is only an AI computer infected with a fatal computer virus. ...

Sixteen-year-old Bianca Torre is an avid birder undergoing a gender identity crisis and grappling with an ever-growing list of fears. Some, like Fear #6: Initiating Conversation, keep them constrained, forcing them to watch birds from the telescope in their bedroom.

Detective Valentine investigates the murder of a scathing judge of a singing competition. An unknown assailant strikes and kills the popular judge with her own Emmy. As Valentine investigates the homicide, she discovers the victim had earned the nickname "The Dream Crusher" and gathered numerous enemies. After she digs deeper, she finds a rival judge, an arrogant producer, an estranged brother, and a host of others with more than enough motive to deliver the deadly blow. When bodies start to pile up and her suspect list grows, Valentine must uncover the murderer before her own voice is ...

Dark Reading Matter is the 8th and final novel in the New York Times bestselling Thursday Next series, following 2012’s The Woman Who Died a Lot.