Noir Fiction

Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn't, they wouldn't be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash - no credit check, no lease. It's the kind of place you end up when you you've run out of other options.The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don't know is that one of them is a killer. He's already chosen his next victim, and he'll do anything to protect his secret.

When a skeleton is discovered half-buried in a construction site outside of ReykjavIk, Inspector Erlendur finds himself knee-deep in both a crime scene and an archeological dig. Bone by bone, the body is unearthed, and the brutalizing history of a family who lived near the building site comes to light along with it. Was the skeleton a man or a woman, a victim or a killer, and is this a simple case of murder or a long-concealed act of justice?

The Lost Country centers on Edgewater, who's recently been discharged from the navy, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish who takes him under his wing as they both search desperately for a forgotten past and a future that may never come. The Lost Country cements Gay as one of the strongest voices in Southern literature, alongside Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner.

Laurence Shames’ funny, elegantly written, and hip thrillers have topped best-seller lists across the country, and earned him a leading role as a writer of “Florida noir” with Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen. When Island Frigate advertising rep Suki Sperakis decides to write an exposé on the Key West black market, she is strangled and left for dead in the trunk of a car sinking slowly into the Gulf of Mexico.

It is 1969 and Glasgow is in the grip of the worst winter in decades, yet it is something else that has Glaswegians on edge: a serial killer whose name alone is enough to make them tremble with fear. The Quaker has killed another victim, snatching a young woman from a nightclub and dumping her body like trash in the back of a cold-water tenement. He leaves no clues, and the investigation has led police down one blind alley after another.

Gus Murphy thought he had the world all figured out. A retired Suffolk County cop, he had everything a man could want: a great marriage, two kids, a nice house, and the rest of his life ahead of him. But when tragedy strikes, his life is thrown into complete disarray. In the course of a single deadly moment, his family is blown apart, and Gus is transformed from a man who believes he understands everything into a man who understands nothing.

The only author to win the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel two years in a row, Arnaldur Indridason has sold more than five million copies of his novels in more than 25 countries. A detective whose inner turmoil threatens to consume him, Erlendur Sveinsson is charged with investigating the death of an Asian boy—and confronting forces colder than Iceland’s frigid clime.

The loner, Erlendur, has recently joined the police force as a young officer. The beat on the streets in ReykjavIk is busy: traffic accidents, theft, domestic violence, contraband.... And an unexplained death. When a tramp he met regularly on the night shift is found drowned in a ditch, no one seems to care. But his fate haunts Erlendur and drags him inexorably into the strange and dark underworld of the city.

Hoping to put behind him tragedy in his professional life and to resolve the turmoil in his personal life, Reykjavik police officer Guðgeir Fransson has moved as far away from home as he can, marking time in a dead-end job in a small town in eastern Iceland.

Juniper Song knows secrets - how to keep them and how to search them out. As a girl, noir fiction was her favorite escape, and Philip Marlowe has always been her literary idol. So when her friend, Luke, asks her to investigate a possible affair between his father and a young employee, Juniper (or "Song" as her friends call her) finds an opportunity to play detective.

They call him el Carnicero—the Butcher. He is the most powerful drug lord on the planet, and when the city of New York incurs his wrath, he utters a single word: “¡Venganza!” With military precision, he strafes Central Park with 4,000 pounds of cocaine, killing hundreds of innocent people enjoying a summer afternoon.

Sammy Dee is a mid-level Long Island mafioso in witness protection. Didier Onyekachukwu was the corrupt minister of finance of the former Upper Volta. Both men find themselves in middle age, living in the Southern California version of genteel poverty in a down-market condo complex called Paradise Gardens. Enter Marcy Gray, a "mature" actress barely getting by on a meager SAG pension.

1946. Fresh from the War in Europe, hack writer Jacob Heppleman discovers a changed world back home. The pulp magazines he used to write for are dying, replaced by a revolutionary new publishing racket: paperback novels, offering cheap excitement for the common man and woman. Although scorned by the critics, the tawdry drugstore novels sell like hotcakes—or so Jacob is assured by the enterprising head of Blue Devil Books, a pioneer in paperback publishing, known for its two-fisted heroes and underclad cover girls.

Sara Keane's husband, Damien, has uprooted them from England and moved them to his native Northern Ireland for a "fresh start" in the wake of her nervous breakdown. But three sleepless nights into their new life, Sara understands it's not an entirely fresh start after all: Damien's new boss is his ex-con father, whose contracting business is run with violence and tinged by paramilitary association. Sara, who knows no one in Northern Ireland, is jobless, carless, friendless - all but a prisoner in her own house.

Cleveland Noir joins Columbus Noir as the Akashic Noir series continues its tour of Ohio and navigates the dregs of the North Shore.

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.

On the lost colony planet of Croatoan, the job of the police force is to keep the peace, even if it means turning a blind eye to all varieties of crimes. DCI Lutero Cade knows how to play the game – but when it comes to murder, he is more than willing to rock the boat. Now, with a serial killer on the loose, Cade knows he’s about to do a whole lot of boat rocking.

The Akashic Noir series’ forensic study of Southern California sharpens its focus on one of Los Angeles’ most recognized neighborhoods.

Lou Rosen and Molly Hatch are unlicensed private detectives, scraping by on whatever cases they can get from their little office on the fringes of LA County. Reeling from a devastating betrayal and a major earthquake, this season finds Lou and Molly trying to rebuild their lives and evaluate their futures. But those futures might not be as long as they hope.

There is not much left of the irascible Albert Evan Jasper, "dean of American forensic anthropologists," after his demise in a fiery car crash. But in accord with his wishes, his remains are installed in an Oregon museum to create a fascinating if macabre exhibit. All agree that it is a fitting end for a great forensic scientist - until what is left of him disappears in the midst of the biannual meeting of the august WAFA - the Western Association of Forensic Anthropologists - in nearby Bend, Oregon. Like his fellow attendees, Gideon Oliver - the Skeleton Detective - is baffled.