Humorous Noir

Ever wonder how law enforcement operates in small town Arkansas? Seek no further. From the Author: Don’t read this book if you can’t handle gritty drugs fiction with meth labs and addicts, a deputy who’s more redneck than refined, or a plot that punches harder than a 400-pound hillbilly. It’s raw, messy, and not your mama’s cozy mystery. BUT If you do, County was written by a retired small town cop (that’s me), inspired by real-life experiences (but everything, including people, places, or events, in the book is fictional, to be clear), and I only held back a little. Cops talk a...

VHS Killed the LITRPG Star As a fan of everything 1980, 26-year-old Doug Simpson never had the chance to experience the decade. Working at a small-town video rental store, he dreams of being able to enter the horror king Rd Halen's movies and become the hero he has always dreamed about. Then he learns that his two friends working in the basement might just able to make that possible. FBI Special Agent Jenny Winters is looking for a career advancement, and taking down the suspected terrorist working at Vorhees Video may be able to do just that. Working undercover, Jenny is told of Doug's ...

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.

Some people say that it’s a demon-haunted world. That certainly is true in Gus’s county around Halloween, mostly due to the digital demons plaguing Gus this year that live inside the new Pakiman game. There’s also a fancy Halloween party to deal with, to which everyone who is someone is invited—and that includes Gus. If getting a costume for a party he doesn’t want to go to was his worst problem, it would be a fun holiday season. Unfortunately, someone keels over dead in the free-cheese section of Fit Foods, and that opens the door to murder. That open door leads Gus right into ...

Charlie McGinley writes detective novels. At least he did, until writers block kicked in. He owes his publisher a book, multiple wives alimony and a loan shark is about to break his thumbs. Charlie hightails it out of L.A. two steps ahead of the police and his latest ex. On Route 66, he runs into Ben Fox, a mysterious Native American hitchhiker who just happened to know Ernest Hemingway Charlies favorite writer.

Brad Hunter is doing everything he can to keep his private investigation agency open, but the women of Honolulu keep distracting him from his work. His latest desire, a Chinatown barmaid, occupies too much of his time, and his money. At least until she is eliminated from his life the hard way--by murder. Within hours, his HPD detective brother puts Brad at the the top of the prime suspect list. Now that he is being scrutinized by the Honolulu Police Department, Brad heads to Chinatown to start his own investigation. What does Brad find first? A new woman, of course.

Benjamin Rose's demise began on the day his son's tortoise committed suicide. Ten days later he apprehensively walks into a city centre hotel, his emotions agonisingly teased by the cool evening breeze on the back of his thighs and the surreal sensation of a pleated mini skirt nuzzling into the top of his stockings. Approaching the gleaming doors of the hotel elevator, he hesitates, his hand fidgeting nervously with his blonde wig, frantically summoning the courage to manoeuvre his debilitating red stilettos inside. As the lift begins to ascend, Benjamin closes his eyes and thinks of his ...

Welcome to the rainy streets of Animopolis, where crime and chaos reign supreme. But fear not, for there are two unlikely heroes fighting to keep the city safe - Bruno Barkowitz, a gruff bulldog with a battered trench coat, and Tabby Whiskerton, a sharp-tongued cat with a knack for trouble. Together, they make up Paws & Claws Investigations, the only line of defense against the madness lurking in the shadows. From runaway canaries to stolen golden ferrets, ferryboat murders to mysterious sleep-plague crimes, Bruno and Tabby chase the city's strangest cases, armed only with sarcasm, bad ...

It’s been seven years since Gloomy Knob landed in the Ted Stevens High-Security Federal Penitentiary and five years since the end of the war, the one North Korea started when they sent a missile to Cold Storage, Alaska. Serving a life sentence for the murder of his sister, Gloomy spends his time trying to forget about the past. Then one day, Gloomy is snatched from his off-site work station. Instead of celebrating his newfound freedom, Gloomy comes unmoored - he feels he belongs in prison. But his kidnappers believe Gloomy knows where a second nuclear warhead is hidden.

Bryson Wilde, investigator for hire, lives in an edgy world where the dames are dangerous, cigarettes dangle from ruby-red lips, and the nights are hotter than whiskey-soaked jazz. In R. J. Jagger’s riveting noir thriller, A Way with Murder, Wilde finds himself entangled in two deadly assignments, one for a young, raven-haired attorney on the run after visiting an archeological site in Mexico, and the other for a pretty, little doll-face, who is too mysterious to trust and too hypnotic to resist.

Rhoda West is Silicon Valley’s favorite female CEO: the luminously charismatic founder of the fast-growing startup Radical, a wellness company whose core mission is the betterment of women’s lives. Rhoda’s Instagram page offers intimate glimpses of her personal life alongside promotions for the cult-status products developed in the Well, Radical’s secretive lab.

A successful entrepreneur in the mushroom industry, Jaakko Kaunismaa is a man in his prime. At just 37 years of age, he is shocked when his doctor tells him that he's dying. What is more, the cause is discovered to be prolonged exposure to toxins; in other words, someone has slowly but surely been poisoning him. Determined to find out who wants him dead, Jaakko embarks on a suspenseful roller-coaster journey full of unusual characters, bizarre situations and unexpected twists.

It’s just another morning on the fifth of July. The country is another year older; Gus is a touch hungover, the coffee in his office is stale, and all Gus wants to do is go home and start over again on July sixth. Unfortunately Father Xavier visits the sheriff’s office and he’s brought along a gift. He has a green jacket that should have been put in the church’s lost and found. The father suspects it belongs to a missing girl named Erica Torres which is odd given the jacket is marked as belonging to E. Rossi. Erica went to school one day and never came home. She was picked up by a ...

A man with dark thoughts on his mind is racing along the remote snowy roads of Hurmevaara in Finland when there is flash in the sky and something crashes into the car. That something turns about to be a highly valuable meteorite. With euro signs lighting up the eyes of the locals, the unexpected treasure is temporarily placed in a neighbourhood museum, under the watchful eye of a priest named Joel.

Coalville is on fire—from below. The old mines are burning, and everyone has poison gas in their brain. Maybe that’s why the town is so corrupt. Now that he’s a Benedictine monk, Tommy Martini never wants to see the place again—hell-raisers there hold a grudge till they die, and he’s on their wish list. But a girl he once loved has gone missing, and his best friend from childhood has been murdered. Among the living is a shy girl from Tommy’s past, who wants to help. Together, they learn the secret of the elephant’s graveyard, and it’s not in Africa.

In the second book in the Dead Jack series, the zombie detective hits rock bottom, bingeing on fairy dust and formaldehyde 24/7. Reluctantly, he sets out with a fellow zombie, the narcissistic Garry, to find his long-lost soul. But a new threat emerges: a neo-Nazi group that hunts down the depressed corpse, believing his sidekick Oswald has the power to capture all the souls in Pandemonium. Again, the wicked world needs saving, but this time can Jack also save himself?

Inspired by classic Film Noir and vintage TV works of Alfred Hitchcock, enjoy this eccentric collection of ordinary folks in bungling attempts at investigation or intrigue, often ending with a bit of comeuppance too. Forget: 'Who done it.' This is more like: 'They had it coming.' BTW: As always, resemblance of these characters to ANY colleagues (past or present) or colleagues of family or friends is PURELY coincidental! Why is everything about you? Stories include: THIS SHADY BUSINESS: Early 1950s, a nosy neighbor and complaints to skeptical cops lead to shady plots. CARETAKER'S GARDEN: ...

Spring is in the air. Gus is feeling pretty good about the change in seasons until an unknown man decides he would rather change from being alive to being dead. He clearly drank something toxic, and it didn’t agree with him. The question is, did he really decide to do that, or did someone make that decision for him. Only that question is buried under a lot of other layers of questions. Why did the man visit Gus a few days before his death proclaiming the end times were near? Why didn’t he take enough poison to kill him near instantly instead of lingering around for days slowly dying? ...

The landscape of contemporary Paris, replete with the best restaurants, the trendiest bars and clubs, is usually filled with the wealthy, the famous, and le rake or le rou, the charming, educated sophisticate with little or no conscience. Into this cushy world bursts Dr. Crandall Taylor - or rather the actor who plays him, the star of a dated American soap opera that is now one of the hottest prime-time shows in France. And this newfound fame, as enriching as it is unexpected, is not wasted on Crandall, eager to put his dark and often violent American past behind him and enjoy all the fruits and the women that Paris and fame have to offer him.

Private investigator Gary Maddox scratches out a living doing personal injuries surveillance. A mother asks him to find out who killed her drug-dealer son. The son deserved to die. But the mother deserves justice and offers Gary a lot of money. Soon he's battling drug dealers, corrupt cops, hit-men and murderers. They try to rub him out. But he's well-armed, and not dead yet.