Hard Crime

Frank Machianno is a late-middle-aged ex-surf bum who runs a bait shack on the San Diego waterfront. An affable Italian with a love of people and life, he's a stand-up businessman, devoted father, and a beloved fixture in the community. He's also a hit man - specifically, a retired hit man. Back in the day when he was one of the most feared members of the West Coast Mafia, he was known as Frankie Machine.

"Beneath a Buried House is a wonderful book, full of twists and turns and surprises." –Crime-Spree Magazine Things aren't always what they seem. Tulsa Police Detective, Kenny Elliot's quest to uncover the truth behind the death of a transient, makes him a target—from whom or what, he isn't sure. When he brushes the dirt from the surface of an apparent John Doe overdose case, he finds a labyrinth of misdirection and deception, and a trail, which leads him to an encounter with an aberration in human nature, the likes of which he's not prepared to deal with. Drawing on his strength of ...

Down on your luck doesn't always mean down and out When an Oklahoma cattle rancher hires P.I. Buck McDivit to investigate a gory murder committed by something not quite human and a rural community populated by pagan women, he has to think fast or end up dead. Though no choir boy, Buck is unprepared for his role as the lone male participant in a spring equinox fertility ceremony. The only thing worse for the paranormal cowboy than having no woman is too many women - or maybe being eaten alive by a supernatural black panther.

Once again, Kinsey Millhone, America's favorite female P.I., embroils herself in a complex and entertaining Alphabet Murder Mystery. When Wendell Jaffe, mastermind of a real-estate scam, disappeared at sea, no body was found. Now, five years later, he's declared legally dead, and California Fidelity has to pay up on his life insurance policy to the tune of half-a-million dollars. Soon after, the tune slides off-key when Jaffe is spotted in Mexico and Fidelity hires Kinsey Millhone to sort things out.

In 2021, the Panama Papers exposed a web of corruption, revealing how the global elite dodged taxes and hoarded wealth. Among the lush and secretive havens of the Cayman Islands, Eloise Deen emerges, on a relentless hunt for stolen fortunes. Known for her unyielding resolve and a knack for persuasion that borders on the lethal, Eloise is a force to be reckoned with. She's well aware that stealing the money is the easy part... getting away with it is a killer. Dive into this short tale where the stakes are as dangerous as the secrets uncovered, and where getting what you want might just cost...

What could be more innocent than watching old movies? For Neil Catalin, a wealthy man with a happy home, old-fashioned pictures were a hobby that became an obsession. But he wasn’t watching The Wizard of Oz. Crime movies were his passion, the sort where life is cheap and death is free, and Catalin sank himself into them as an escape from the stresses of suburbia. Now he has disappeared, and his wife believes the clue may be in his collection of gruesome classics.

When fates intertwine amid the madness of Mardi Gras, chaos reigns supreme A sinking crew boat carrying a dangerous mob assassin chained up for transport sets off a string of events that will affect the lives of many. Jacque Leguerre, a sociopath and hired killer, is consumed by revenge and blames Catholic priest Father Alphonso for his problems. When Jacque unexpectedly arrives in New Orleans, he’s determined to make the priest pay for his transgressions. Meanwhile, N.O.P.D. homicide detective Tony Nicosia finds himself facing off against a ruthless killer while dealing with a new ...

What drives someone to murder? Logan McRae's personal history is hardly squeaky clean, but now that he works for Professional Standards he's policing his fellow officers. When Detective Inspector Bell turns up dead in the drivers seat of a crashed car, it's a shock to everyone. Because Bell died two years ago. They buried him. Or they thought they did. As an investigation is launched into Bell's stabbing, Logan digs into his past. Where has he been all this time? Why did he disappear? And what's so important that he felt the need to come back from the dead?

Detective Sebastian Clifford and his partner Lucinda "Birdie" Bird are about to embark on their most challenging case yet when Lady Angelica Charing tasks them with finding the son she secretly gave away when she was only sixteen. Time's running out. This long-lost son isn't just a missing puzzle piece; he's the last hope for a life-saving kidney transplant for his dying half-brother. The stakes couldn't be higher.

Tracking down a runaway wife is run of the mill. That's yesterday's blues. But finding the trombonist father of black, beautiful, reformed hooker Iris threatens to blow up into the case of a lifetime. The trail Amos Walker follows through Detroit's smoky music clubs leads him to dens of hard crime and harder drugs - where Iris and Amos will be lucky to escape with their lives, much less the truth about a past packed with menacing secrets. And that's no jazz.

A serial killer is on the loose in Beantown and the cops can't catch him. But when the killer leaves his red rose calling card for Spenser's own Susan Silverman, he gets all the attention that Spenser and Hawk can give. Spenser plays against time while he tracks the Red Rose killer from Boston's Combat Zone to the suburbs. His trap is both daring and brave, and gives the story a satisfying climax.

Detective Easy Rawlins returns in a mystery set in 1961 Los Angeles as Easy accepts a job searching for a beautiful woman nicknamed Black Betty who works as a housekeeper in Beverly Hills.

Sydney private investigator Gary Maddox is asked to find a missing accountant. He doesn't expect any trouble. After all, the guy is just an bean counter. But he's dead wrong. Powerful men have dispatched a posse of thugs to kill the ledger lurker. Gary is soon counting bodies and trying not to become a ugly statistic.

The Broadway Murder is a murder mystery book set in New York City during the Prohibition era. Angela Rhodes, a dazzling Broadway star, is found brutally murdered in her luxurious apartment. The city's nightlife is shaken by the crime, and the case quickly becomes a high-profile investigation. District Attorney John Spillner, along with his enigmatic confidant John Smith, delves into the dark underbelly of New York's elite to uncover the truth. The story is a masterful blend of suspense, intrigue, and psychological depth. As Spillner and Smith navigate a web of deceit, passion, and high ...

On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.

Nina - a career girl living alone in Manhattan - offers Travis McGee companionship and the first loose thread in the elaborate fabric of a gigantic swindle. Now, she's leading McGee on a wild and tortuous chase into the decadent world of high society, the ruthless world of big money, and the weird world of hallucinatory drugs.

Stark Justice follows the adventures of a retired police detective who travels around the country in an RV - looking for trouble that often finds him first. Like a lot of men in his profession, he had a well-developed plan for his retirement. The RV was always part of it, his wife was the one who suggested it and she helped pick out the model down to the upholstery. But she died before he put his papers in; his only consolation was they had taken a weekend trip in the camper before she passed. She knew him, and made him swear he would not sell it, that he would go and live the life he ...

Jake Longfellow is a small-time private eye. Infidelity is his bread and butter kind of a case. Looking into other people’s failed romances isn’t a glamorous line of work, but it pays his bills and that fact his landlord appreciates. Right now, he’s working a boring little case involving a banker called Seymour Butts who isn’t all too faithful to his wife Anastasia. Naturally, this banker assumes what goes for the gander also goes for the goose. The only problem with that is all Jake has in hints of Anastasia’s knocking around town, while Jake discovers Seymour’s mistress, ...

Philip Marlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard.

You are cordially invited to a killer reunion. School is back in session and evil is doling out the lessons. The past never truly dies until you kill it yourself. In the hunt for justice, FBI Agent Fallon Baxter unravels the deadliest mysteries. Clean language and heart-stopping twists that keep you glued to the edge of your seat until the very last page. FBI Agent Fallon Baxter is thrust into a deadly game when a high school reunion becomes the backdrop for a chilling series of murders. This time the connection is personal—Jack, her stalwart partner, finds his old schoolmates are the ...