Detective Thriller

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture.

The corpse of a beautiful woman, clad in only a bathing suit, is found strangled to death on a popular Sussex beach. When she is finally identified, it turns out she was a top profiler for the National Crime Faculty who was working on the case of a serial killer. And though she was a Bath resident, the authorities don't want Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond to investigate the murder. How strange. What could they be trying to hide?

Evil Waits For Her Under the Witch's Tree A troubled woman returns to her childhood home in Tempest Grove, West Virginia, determined to find the truth behind her twin sister’s disappearance decades earlier, and soon falls into a malicious killer’s deadly trap. When FBI profiler Bridget Bishop joins the investigation into the woman’s brutal murder, she discovers an unsettling connection to her own mother’s tragic past. Book Eight in the chilling FBI mystery thriller series by Melinda Woodhall, author of the Mercy Harbor Thriller Series, the Veronica Lee Thriller Series, and the ...

The death of Old Joe, a homeless man on Darlinghurst Road, seemed inevitable—until the autopsy revealed it was murder. Darlinghurst Road, once the beating heart of Sydney's red-light district, is where the past lingers in the shadows. However, the city's Eastern Suburbs are not known for bloodshed. When a second victim, an affluent woman from exclusive Point Piper, is found with her throat cut, the divide between Sydney's elite and its outcasts grows more sinister. Detective Gary Haddock has seen it all in Homicide, but even he is baffled by the lack of connection between the murders. ...

The Department of Sensitive Crimes takes on three extremely strange cases. First, the detectives investigate how and why a local business owner was stabbed...in the back of the knee. Next, a young woman's imaginary boyfriend goes missing. And, in the final investigation, Varg must determine whether nocturnal visitations at a local spa have a supernatural element.

When Isabel bumps into Minty Auchterlonie for the first time in years, she is skeptical (again) of Minty's integrity. But Minty mentions the bank where she works is having internal troubles, and Isabel must determine, once and for all, if Minty can be trusted.

For the men of Madison Avenue, the battle between soft-drink giants Cherr-o-key and AmeriCherry seems heaven-sent. For years now, the firm of Mills/Lake/Ryman has fought to help Cherr-o-key become the nation’s favorite fizzy cherry soda, but each time they come up with a new slogan, mascot, or jingle, AmeriCherry somehow beats them to it. There’s a mole inside the agency, and only Nero Wolfe can ferret him out.

A sinister secret lies buried—one that swallows two young teens into an abyss of mystery. When two young teens at a county fair are drawn to desperate cries emanating from the House of Horrors, their world spins into chaos. They never enter, but suddenly, they're gone—vanished into thin air. Thus begins a baffling mystery into which rookie detective Teresa Simmonds and veteran Allan Yeats are thrown headfirst into a maze of secrets and lies. As they unravel the web of secrets and cover-ups, the question haunts them: What happened to Yasmine and Jerry, and why does no one want the truth ...

★★★★★ "I couldn’t put it down!” - Reader Review ___ A tortured woman, a drowning man, a frightened child. When Detective Grace McKenna looks into a criminal’s eyes she can see haunting images of victims who have been wronged. In Buried Secrets, when Grace responds to a routine call, she meets Miriam Caverly, an older woman with a past that is less than mundane. Alongside her boyfriend and ex-cop, Mark Connolly, Grace is thrown into a tangle of town secrets that force her to step outside the town’s boundaries for answers that she is scared to face. A town drunk with a ...

A chilling murder. A manufactured monster. One detective’s fight to uncover the truth. In the forests of the Northeast, bodies are piling up—and the media has given the killer a name: The New England Serial Killer. As panic spreads across small towns and big cities alike, Detective Kendra Doyle suspects something far more calculated is at play. When one victim’s death doesn’t fit the pattern, Kendra follows a trail that leads beyond the crime scenes—into the corridors of power, wealth, and corruption. The deeper she digs, the more dangerous it becomes. Witnesses vanish. Evidence ...

Erin Coleridge's used bookstore in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England, is a meeting place for the villagers and, in particular, for the local Jane Austen Society. At the Society's monthly meeting, matters come to a head between the old guard and its young turks. After the meeting breaks for tea, persuasion gives way to murder with extreme prejudice when president Sylvia Pemberthy falls dead to the floor. Poisoned? Presumably, but by whom? And was Sylvia the only target?

The Adelphi Theatre is about to close its doors for the last time when Howard Greenwood’s lifeless form is found on the floor of his dressing room shrouded in long-stemmed red roses. Was this the act of a killer looking to ridicule the celebrated actor or did it reflect a darker connotation for his murder? DCI Fitzjohn questions the significance of the roses as layer upon layer of Howard’s life unfolds to reveal a man fixated on revenge for his wife’s death and a predator who will stop at nothing to hide the truth. Meanwhile, Constance Parsons, bookshop owner and ghost writer of ...

Recipient of the British Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger, Gold Dagger, and Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, Peter Lovesey has also won Anthony and Macavity Awards for his splendid mysteries. In The Headhunters, an innocent discussion about killing the boss leads friends Gemma and Jo into real-life murder.

Tori Hunter always worked solo, but in Samantha Kennedy, she found a partner, in more ways than one. Casey O'Connor isn't thrilled to learn that she has a new partner on the way. It's been hard enough to transition from working with live victims to dead ones. Now, Leslie Turner is going to slow down the process. Professional duty trumps personal issues as the detectives focus on their latest case, a killer whose choice of victim is solitary women. The investigation raises a lot of questions around the killer's means and opportunities.

An ordinary boy encounters the paranormal when a photo of the same girl starts inexplicably showing up in every book he opens. One day, the girl reaches out and pulls him into the photo to her location: a cell in a top-secret facility belonging to the SCP Foundation, an organization dedicated to the research and containment of people, objects and phenomena that defy reality!

In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator, Lady Lucy Gerald, head off for several days to a stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of architectural follies, they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple.

After a lifetime in service to the Soviet Union, police inspector Porfiry Rostnikov may have found a way out. A high-profile homicide leads him to a cache of documents packed full of incriminating Kremlin gossip, which he uses as a bargaining chip to secure exit visas for himself and his Jewish wife. But just before the deal is concluded, Brezhnev's death sends the nation into turmoil, and makes escape impossible. His career derailed, the veteran cop is reduced to investigating penny-ante murders - one of which may lead somewhere very big indeed.

As a colleague of deputy coroner Mattie Winston, social worker Clothilde "Hildy" Schneider is no stranger to unsolved murders at Sorenson General Hospital. Except this time, it's up to her to crack the case.... Motivated by her own difficult past, Hildy has an unparalleled commitment to supporting troubled clients through grief and addiction in Sorenson, Wisconsin. But when a distraught group therapy member reveals disturbing details about her late son's potential murder, Hildy goes from dedicated mental health professional to in-over-her-head amateur sleuth.

To save his favorite newspaper, Nero Wolfe steps into the crossfire of a tabloid war.

From # 1 bestselling author, Stewart Giles comes a new detective Harriet Taylor/Jason Smith thriller. The lives of the people in the charming Cornish village of Trotterdown are about to be shattered. When the body of a man is discovered on a beach near Trotterdown, detective Harriet Taylor gets to work. It soon becomes clear that this was no ordinary murder - the man was placed in a yoga position and his pockets were filled with seashells. As more bodies pile up, suspicion falls on the residents of the old Beekeeper's house. Who are these New-Age youngsters and is their 'peace and love' ...