Noir Fiction

When Jackie is released from prison, his boss Pino sends a limo to pick him up. Even fresh out of the joint, ruthless Jackie is ready to work, collecting money for the mob and using his special training to take care of bad accounts—permanently.

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.

Inspector Ralph McGinniss, Lord of the Realm, returns to his ancestral seat at Daroonga Castle in Oxfordshire for his annual holidays, only be called upon to investigate the housekeepers’ death from his cousin’s estate. Agnes Tonbridge is found dead on the front lawn. Was this an accident, or a chance to cover up other dealings by the inhabitants? Bedwin Hall is full of surprises. Lady Petunia, the daughter of the house is under suspicion. Ralph’s brother Stephen McGinniss is making a nuisance of himself with the Inspector’s fiancé, Lady Annabelle Frampton. Claire Lane, noted ...

TERROR AND FORBIDDEN DESIRE STALK THE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK A school excursion turns into teacher Kayla Petrovic's worst nightmare. Abducted. Held for ransom. For years, she's believed she's nothing more than the whore of her alcoholic mother's taunts, trading her body for a roof, food, money, and stealing men's hearts to heal her emptiness. But when the kidnappers threaten her students she'll sacrifice everything, including the last vestige of her self-respect, to save them. Hardened combat veteran Captain Nick West bears his own scars - not all of them visible. He knows how to handle a world...

The past has a way of catching up to you... Following the explosive events of End Game, American private investigator Thomas Blume is battling to come to terms with a changed British city he helped to create. But when a young woman is brutally murdered, he finds himself dragged into a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a serial killer targeting victims that are all too familiar. Taken across the dark, treacherous streets of modern London, Blume searches through a decades-old conspiracy, digging up secrets that make him question if even the police can be trusted. But with time running out ...

As Sheriff Clayton Burroughs tries to juggle fatherhood, his job, and his recovery from being shot in the confrontation that killed his two criminally inclined brothers last year, he’s doing all he can just to survive. Yet after years of carefully toeing the line between his life in law enforcement and his family, he finally has to make a choice. When a rival organization makes a first foray into Burroughs' territory, leaving a trail of bodies and a whiff of fear in its wake, Clayton is pulled back into the life he so desperately wants to leave behind.

ABOUT THE BOOK After Arizona police detective Daniel Saviano confronts and kills his mobster father, Jack, he is plunged into decades of family memories and secrets that he had managed to bury deep in his subconscious. At the same time, despite Jack’s apparent death, a string of local murders carrying his modus operandi continues with increasing brutality. Is it possible that Jack survived and is continuing his murderous ways? Or is someone he knew taking on after him? Facing a plethora of twists and turns, Daniel must sort through dark memories and a tangled web of mystery to find the ...

Claire thought she knew who she was—until a stranger began to take her life piece by piece. What started as a series of subtle disturbances—a missing scarf, a misplaced photograph—soon spirals into a nightmare Claire can’t escape. Lisette, a woman with an uncanny resemblance to Claire, isn’t just trying to manipulate her life—she’s trying to replace her entirely. As Lisette’s presence grows more invasive, Claire finds herself unraveling, questioning her own sanity as the lines between reality and paranoia blur. But Lisette isn’t just any intruder. She knows things no ...

TOUGHER THAN THE DEVIL BY A DAMN SIGHT His mother was a remnant of the Southern Creole Quadroon in the French Quarter. His father was heir to the Avondaire fortunes in northern Idaho. Can Randulet Thibodeaux split his time and loyalties between the sultry, strumming South, and the pious, pristine north? He discovers that he has been born under the same mysterious prophecy that richly blessed the lives of previous Avondaire generations, but he’s as improper in one place as the other. He was born in brackish water for a purpose! Balancing the peculiarities of the past, and the experiences ...

Even spies need a vacation. Paris. Amsterdam. Vienna. But what happens when the president's top asset, the warriors of the Jefferson Group, get taken by surprise as they enjoy their well-earned time off in Europe? Not only does the enemy want to wipe out the Jefferson Group, they're also plotting to harpoon the president before the November election. Will Cal Stokes and his team escape the enemy's net, and will the president survive the election?

When McGee picks up the phone and hears a voice from the past, he can't help it. He has to meddle. Especially when he has the chance to reunite Sam Taggart, a reckless, restless man like himself, with the woman who's still waiting for him. But what begins as a simple matchmaking scheme soon becomes a bloody chase that takes McGee to Mexico, a beautiful country - and one from which he hopes to return alive.

New York Rainby Harper Stanwick, Sr. is a mystery novel set in 1920s New York City. The story follows Dennis Lament, a young man who seeks solitude and freedom but finds himself drawn into a web of intrigue and danger. Dennis Lament boards the S.S. Faraway with a firm resolve to avoid all human connections. His journey to New York, however, takes an unexpected turn when he receives a mysterious note from a supposed cousin, Amy Lament Riley. Desperate and in serious trouble, Amy begs for his help. Driven by curiosity and a sense of duty, Dennis decides to investigate. Upon arriving in New ...

For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can't refuse.The 200-year-old godfather of the Budayeen's underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.

Atlantica - the forgotten isle, the glittering gem in the cesspool of humanity's future. Anything you do inside your own home is allowed. It is a dog-eat-dog world of millionaires and billionaires. The rest of society beneath them live in ignorance. Those at the top have money, tools, people, assassins, and murderers. One such assassin was a rumor, a myth, a ghost in the night. The Red Countess, the lady Valentina Winters. A player among the elite has something Valentina wants, and she is willing to do most anything to get it.

Happy Doll is a charming, if occasionally inexpert, private detective living just one sheer cliff drop beneath the Hollywood sign with his beloved half-Chihuahua half-Terrier, George. A veteran of both the Navy and LAPD, Doll supplements his meager income as a P.I. by working through the night at a local Thai spa that offers its clients a number of special services. Armed with his 16-inch steel telescopic baton, biting dry humor, and just a bit of a hero complex, the ex-cop sets out to protect the women who work there from clients who have trouble understanding the word "no".

An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one, grisly solution; a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.

When Andrew - a second-hand-book dealer - comes across a pile of photographs from police archives, he decides to exhibit them. But then the gallery is raided the day before the opening, and the photos seized with surprising violence. It soon becomes clear that someone, somewhere, wants to keep the images hidden. Who? Why? And who - in a world where kidnap, subterfuge and even murder are the norm, and where no one is safe or above suspicion - can Andrew turn to for help?

Launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books has published over 60 volumes in its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Featuring Noir Series stories from: Dennis Lehane, Don Winslow, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Susan Straight, Jonathan Safran Foer, Laura Lippman, Pete Hamill, Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Child, T. Jefferson Parker, Lawrence Block, Terrance Hayes, and more.

When old bones are discovered buried beside an A road, it becomes clear that Leon Martin—dubbed "The Ken Doll Killer" by the tabloid press—may not have taken his life 21 years ago. As Boyd investigates the old case file, it becomes clear that there may be new bodies buried at lay-bys around the country—more than that, something incredible was overlooked by the original investigating team.

In a Stockholm city park, police discover the hideously abused body of a young boy. Detective Superintendent Jeanette Kihlberg heads the investigation, battling an apathetic prosecutor and a bureaucratic police force unwilling to devote resources to solving the murder of a nameless immigrant child. But with the discovery of two more mutilated children's corpses, it becomes clear that a serial killer is at large.