Hard Crime

On a visit to Northern Ireland, newspaper reporter Sam Briscoe meets with a mysterious IRA leader and agrees to deliver an envelope to his supporters in New York City. It's a decision with grave consequences - not just for Briscoe, but for his 11-year-old daughter as well. Because the bloody Irish conflict is about to come to the streets of New York, and Briscoe is the only man standing in its way...

Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surprised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest. The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't finish his assignment soon, he could end up dead.

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

Vincent LaRue is all wrong — too polished, too pretty, and too full of secrets. But when his brother turns up dead in a motel room dressed to scandalize, he walks into detective Nash Vega’s office with blood on his hands and a plea for help. Nash should’ve walked away. He’s been burned before. But Vincent’s kiss is as dangerous as the case — and someone out there is filming their victims like it’s high art. Lies. Lust. Murder on reel. Hollywood’s dirty secrets are about to light the screen on fire.

Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three LAPD detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers.

Rookie Det. Kenda investigates a 1975 case that begins with the murder of a beloved Colorado philanthropist and society figure whose husband, a gambler and womanizer, appears to have an air-tight alibi. Mentored by his veteran partner Det. Lee Wilson, a former Nashville singer turned skilled investigator, Kenda’s case quickly attracts attention from the FBI, CIA, and Interpol, for its similarity to a string of killings involving wealthy married women. All the murders appear to have been committed by a hired professional.

When a young woman’s body is found at a cave entrance by the pretty fishing village of Robin Hood’s Bay, DCI Tom Raven is called to investigate. A trail of footprints leads from the body on the shore to the nearby youth hostel. But the killer’s identity is far from clear as the picturesque façade of Robin Hood’s Bay conceals more than it reveals.

With the closing of the Harlan County, Kentucky coalmines, marijuana has become the biggest cash crop in the state. A hundred pounds of it can gross three-hundred thousand dollars, but that’s chump change compared to the quarter million a human body can get you - especially when it’s sold off piece-by-piece. So when Dickie and Coover Crowe, dope-dealing brothers known for sampling their own supply, decide to branch out into the body business, it’s up to U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens to stop them.

New York Times best-selling author Nevada Barr continues her award-winning Anna Pigeon series with this riveting mystery that features the puzzling plot twists, deft characterizations, and sparkling dialogue that have become Barr's trademarks, and which her ever-growing fan base can't get enough of.

Someone is lying. Finally getting on his feet after a devastating loss, Blake Rockford’s first big case turns deadly in a most unusual way. Now he must investigate the bizarre death ... or risk losing everything he’s worked for. But the presence of an enemy from his past complicates things and some unusual clues make him realize there’s something going on under the surface that goes far beyond the murder. Blake and crew have to sift through a web of lies to uncover the motive and killer in this case that ends in a final surprise twist. If you love suspenseful mysteries combined with ...

A string of high-level jewel heists up and down the Pacific Coast Highway has gone unsolved for years, mostly because the perpetrator has lived by a strict code he calls “Crime 101”. Police attribute the thefts to the Colombian cartels. But Detective Lou Lubesnick’s gut says it’s the work of just one man. Now the lone-wolf jewel thief is looking for that fabled final last score, and Lou breaks all the rules of "Crime 101".

This drive through the dark streets of the Motor City “is one of the best in Akashic Books’ noir series. You cannot go wrong with this anthology.”—Reviewing the Evidence From cri….

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. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by the magazine.

Having trouble with starting his own business, and with some nudging from Charlotte, Hall gets roped into investigating the death of a college student. While Hall and Charlotte uncover the clues, there is still the question of a mysterious mastermind who’s behind it all. What seems like an open-and-shut case quickly turns into something more involving hit men, an illegal prescription racket, and dead bodies piling up at an alarming rate.

Big secrets run deep. Former FBI agent Jack McBride took the job as chief of police for Stillwater, Texas, to start a new life with his teenage son, Ethan, away from the suspicions that surrounded his wife's disappearance a year earlier. With a low crime rate and a five-man police force, he expected it to be a nice, easy gig; hot checks, traffic violations, some drugs, occasional domestic disturbances, and petty theft. Instead, within a week he is investigating a staged murder-suicide.

Six months ago, Lucas Davenport tackled his first case as a statewide troubleshooter, and he thought that one was plenty strange enough. But that was before the Russian got killed. On the shore of Lake Superior, a man named Vladimir Oleshev is found shot dead, three holes in his head and heart, and though nobody knows why he was killed, everybody - the local cops, the FBI, and the Russians themselves - has a theory. And when it turns out he had very high government connections, that's when it hits the fan.

>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. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” (Booklist).

A Magician conference serves as the perfect cover for members of a secret magician society in this case steeped in illusion and sleight of hand. When Rockford Security is hired to play bodyguard to high-profile magician Xavier Ballentine’s props and secrets, Blake sees it as an easy job for the youngest Rockford sibling, Garrett, to get some experience in the field. But a series of mysterious thefts and prop malfunctions prove there may be more to this job that he first thought. Soon Garrett finds himself thrust into a world of underground intrigue and illusion where things can change in ...

After tracking down a crazed sniper last year, homicide detective Mike Houston opted to leave Boston for the isolated mountains of Maine. He adjusted nicely to chopping his own firewood, relaxing in his log cabin, and simply enjoying the solitude of the mountains. But then his former partner, Lt. Anne Bouchard, pays him a visit and dangles the words serial killer in front of him. And suddenly he finds himself back in the game beside her - though not "officially".

We are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK's presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination - in the underworld that connects Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, DC....