Humor Crime

The chill of a San Francisco summer can be deadly. No one knows this better than Capri Sanzio, who makes her living giving serial killer tours of the city. Capri has been interested in the topic since she was a kid, when she discovered she’s the granddaughter of serial killer William "Overkill Bill" Sanzio. She’s always believed in his innocence. But now an Overkill Bill copycat has struck in San Francisco. And Capri’s former mother-in-law, Sylvia, just cut off Capri’s daughter’s tuition payments. Needing cash, Capri wonders if this is the time to exonerate her grandfather.

In his day, Tom was a hard man. He came up with Dillinger in the 1930s, and pulled a lot of high-profile jobs before the state put him away. They meant it to be for good, but after twenty-three years the prisons are too crowded for seventy-year-old bank robbers, and so they let the old man go. Finally free, he heads straight for John Dortmunder's house. Long ago, Tom buried $700,000, and now he needs help digging it up. While he was inside, the government dammed a nearby river, creating a reservoir and putting fifty feet of water on top of his money.

Desperate to complete the last chapter of his law thesis on workplace dynamics for women to secure his tenure, Professor Stanley Hopkins stumbles on an old close college friend, Donald Johansson, who has plenty of female employees. The problem is that Donald is a porn video king. Taking his wife to California’s seedy city of Burbank to help with taping interviews, Stanley realizes he is in way over his head the moment a leading porn star is brutally killed in Donald’s office during a party.

Typical cop stories or blood and guts? … No way! Bryan Gregory takes the reader much further than that in Ole Man on the Porch: The Trooper. Feelings are seldom expressed or addressed publicly by the law enforcement community, but with a refreshing and easy-to-read prose, he takes his audience on an emotional roller coaster of his career encounters that is seldom seen. Although he includes a gracious plenty of comical episodes enhanced by cartoonist Levi Powell (also a retired North Carolina State Highway Patrol member), Gregory pulls no punches with himself or with others. Without ...

Champion Cyclist Falls to Death It's spring in Dolphin Bay and a big cycle race is passing through town. Anna's Cafe sets up a stall with snacks and drinks for the participants. When a well known cyclist crashes to his death in the woods, the police blame the lemonade. Suddenly, Anna's granddaughter is the top suspect because she was seen handing out drinks to the dead guy. Anna and company are stumped because the victim was a total stranger who didn't know any of them. The new detective in town wants to close the case soon and time is running out. Meanwhile, the mayor and her minions ...

Philip Chambers is a normal man with a normal job, living a normal life in a normal house. He has a normal wife, two normal children and three normal grandchildren. His life is perfect - Or so it appears. Philip however, is not as normal as everyone thinks he is and the book title ‘HOW TO KILL YOUR WIFE’ says it all - Or does it? This is a most unusual murder thriller, full of dark humour that will have the reader turning pages, wondering how much worse things could get, what could possibly happen next and how will it all end.

Bobby Gold is a lovable criminal. After nearly 10 years in prison, he's no sooner out than he's back to work breaking bones for tough guys. His turf: the club scene and restaurant business. It's not that he enjoys the job - Bobby has real heart - but he's good at it, and a guy has to make a living. Things change when he meets Nikki, the cook at a club most definitely not in his territory. Smitten, he can't stay away. Bobby Gold has known trouble before, but with Nikki the sauté bitch in his life, things take a turn for life or death.

WHEN WIZARDS WAR Deep in the woods lives a wizard called the Professor. In the depths of the Depression, the residents of Fester, Pennsylvania call on “powwowers” such as the Professor to heal ailments, tell fortunes . . . and exact revenge. When an upstart powwower threatens to horn in on the Professor’s business, he starts making plans for his own revenge. The sinister forces he sets in motion spiral out of control, and soon threaten to consume the leading citizens of the town.

Christmas in Paris… What could possibly go wrong? Ava Sext, an amateur sleuth and transplanted Londoner who sells books from an outdoor stand that overlooks the Seine, has vowed that this Christmas will be the best Christmas ever. It has to be! It's her first Christmas in Paris as a Parisian. But when someone pushes a book dealer in the Seine at a Christmas Fair leaving him between life and death, Ava, with the help of her fellow bookseller, Henri DeAth, a former notary in a country where notaries are a powerful caste, sets out to solve the crime before someone else dies. A little Paris ...

Edward is living in a world he can't afford and to which he doesn't belong. To camouflage himself, he has catered to his friends' needs – fetching drycleaning, sorting flowers for premieres. It's a noble effort, really – anything to keep his best pals Robert and Stanza happy. In return, his proximity to them might sponge the shame of his birth and violent past cleanly away. But the chink in his armour is his painfully unrequited love for Stanza. When he realises Stanza and Robert are an item, Edward is pushed too far.

A missing manuscript. A dead author. And a mystery that’s anything but fiction. When reclusive novelist Ashton Blackwood is found dead in the aisles of Shelf Indulgence, chaos erupts in the quiet town of Bloomsville. With a missing manuscript and a long list of literary enemies, the case reads like one of Blackwood’s own thrillers. Florist-turned-sleuth Grace Thompson teams up with forensic specialist Chloe Sutton and her ever-observant Westie, Rosie, to dig through a plot tangled in ambition, betrayal, and buried secrets. From rival writers to bitter editors, the suspects are as ...

Still relishing the notoriety from her spectacular resolution of the Candela case, Poldi is alive to the faintest whiff of criminality. What to others might seem a series of misfortunes - the water supply cut off, a poisoned dog - is clearly, to Poldi, an escalation: the Mafia have had her in their sights ever since she solved Valentino's murder. Poldi has tasted blood. No one is above suspicion. And trouble will surely follow....

When Inspector Peter Glebsky arrives at a remote ski chalet on vacation, the last thing he intends to do is get involved in any police work. He's there to ski, drink brandy, and loaf around in blissful solitude. But he hadn't counted on the other vacationers, an eccentric bunch, including a famous hypnotist, a physicist with a penchant for gymnastic feats, a sulky teenager of indeterminate gender, and the mysterious Mr. and Mrs. Moses.

A reporter with a nose for trouble. A suspicious death in suburbia. Can Zoe Wilder solve the mystery before she becomes the next victim? Zoe Wilder, reporter for The Spencer’s Ridge Gazette and aspiring cozy mystery author, is used to seeing crime where others see coincidence. When she discovers her friend Margo Kingsley dead in what police call an accident, Zoe is certain it’s murder—and she’s not the only one. Margo’s housekeeper agrees, but the sheriff’s department dismisses their suspicions. Enter Chief Deputy Caleb McBride, a former homicide detective with his own reasons ...

Kasey Nottingham needs a splashy idea at her company where they find and develop the next big thing for investors—her job depends on it. Impulsively, she pitches Mags’ Desserts, a beloved small-town business run by her grandma Mags and live-in “best friend” Celia, two women who overcame deadbeat husbands and financial ruin to build a word-of-mouth clientele. Kasey expects her boss to say no. Instead, he sends her home to North Carolina to land the deal…and now she has a problem.

Herb Snabble became a Private Eye eighteen years ago, after seeing an ad for the Legs Chiveola Private Detective and Locksmith School on a matchbook. Today, when brewery tycoon Helmut Plutz walks into his office and hires Herb, he thinks it will be an easy case, and he might even get some free beer out of it. The danger-filled case is anything but easy. Will Herb solve the mystery of a stolen watch, or will he end up as another crime statistic from the mean streets of Milwaukee.

He’s trying to forget all about crime. But now targeted as a suspect, can he keep from going down for murder? England, 1964. Retired inspector Tom Ramsay wants to leave the past behind. Hoping to get on with his plans to hike the beauty spots of his homeland, a vacation to North Yorkshire strikes him as just the ticket. Yet while exploring the beach with his young border collie, he’s shocked to discover a decomposing body hidden in a cave. Happy to put the case in the hands of local police, he’s relieved not to be involved in the ugly matter. But as the small-town rumor mill churns ...

In the heart of Aleppo, under the cloak of a sweltering summer night, Um Hussam and her family face an unexpected twist. Their tranquil boredom is interrupted by a break-in which triggers a series of suspenseful events and unexpected twists. Another witty tale by Anna Halabi, author of Syrian Brides, about life in Syria. Dead Man Running tells the gripping tale of their unexpected encounter with a desperate thief, whose intrusion unravels a tapestry of secrets and lies.

Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby is a teenage grim reaper with the bizarre ability to Damn souls. That makes her pretty scary, even to fellow Grims. But after inadvertently transferring her ability to Zara, a murderous outlaw, Lex is a pariah in Croak, the little town she calls home. To escape the townspeople’s wrath, she and her friends embark on a wild road trip to DeMyse. Though this sparkling desert oasis is full of luxuries and amusements, it feels like a prison to Lex.

When Carl Coulton is finally released from prison his kindly probation officer suggests cycling as a form of therapy. Carl needs to let off steam, and how better to do it than by pounding the pedals on the leafy Lancashire lanes close to his home? Therapy it proves to be, but of a kind that no-one but Carl could have imagined. In a story which will cause motorists to give those dratted bikes a wider berth and allow harassed cyclists to live out their wildest fantasies, we follow Carl’s progress from rehabilitated ex-con to the most perilous man on two wheels in living memory. With ...