Noir Fiction

In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his unstable mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension. Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoffs bid good-bye.

When single-mother Devon Connor hires Elvis Cole, it’s because her troubled teenage son Tyson is flashing cash and she’s afraid he’s dealing drugs. But the truth is devastatingly different. With two others, he’s been responsible for a string of high-end burglaries, a crime spree that takes a deadly turn when one of them is murdered and Tyson and his girlfriend disappear. They stole the wrong thing from the wrong man, and, determined to get it back, he has hired two men who are smart and brutal and the best at what they do.

THE CHILDREN HAVE LITTLE CHOICE: KILL OR BE KILLED In this new pulse-pounding thriller, Eva will risk everything to free the most vulnerable from a life of violence and tyranny. The gun-toting children are lethal and highly trained instruments of death. The cartel has given them little choice: kill or be killed. Eva is the only one who can possibly save them from a dark future they have little chance of escaping on their own.

You can die and you can lose your soul. They aren't the same. The pandemic is over, Jazz Fest pending in New Orleans, and French Quarter private detective Wyatt Thomas has a new client. Dita Lika, the headliner of this year's Jazz Fest is having a recurrent nightmare related to New Orleans. Will Wyatt solve the mystery of her Satan-related nightmare, or will the Prince of Darkness prevail, claim their souls and drag them both to hell? Take an intoxicating ride with Wyatt Thomas, the French Quarter's favorite private investigator, and voodoo mambo Mama Mulate as they chase the answers on an ...

Tra le torbide acque del Tevere, ai piedi della basilica di San Paolo, viene ritrovato il cadavere di una donna, in posa come se fosse vittima di un misterioso rito. Quando posa lo sguardo sulla scena del crimine, Nemo Sperati sprofonda nella Stanza delle Ombre, il teatro mentale dove è in grado di vedere l'invisibile, riconoscere la firma dell'autore e attribuire l'opera. Per scagarsi, Nemo dovrà scendere negli abissi del proprio passato, separare il vero dal falso e far luce sul mistero che ammanta la vita e la morte di Rufo Speranza.

Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett’s tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness. A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Hammett invented the noir crime novel.

Jane Waverly hires Drew Diamond to stop a hit she put out on her husband. She thought he was cheating on her, so she hired a hitman to kill him and his girlfriend. Then discovers maybe she was wrong about him. Stopping a hit is much harder than hiring one.

I wasn’t supposed to fall for a werewolf. He wasn’t supposed to break my heart. But he did—and I’m done letting ancient fairy tales decide my future. Sure, I’m named after the original Red Riding Hood (the real one, not the sanitized bedtime version), and yes, I was supposed to follow in her footsteps: master silver magic, protect the veil between humans and the supernatural, and become the next “wolf watcher” of the House of Red. But honestly? I’d rather eat dumplings and avoid werewolves altogether. That plan works… until Tobias Somfield shows up. He’s English. He’s brooding.

This collection by crime fiction master Raymond Chandler features four long stories in which private eye Philip Marlowe is hired to protect a rich old guy from a gold digger, runs afoul of crooked politicos, gets a line on some stolen jewels with a reward attached, and stumbles across a murder victim who may have been an extortionist.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Brilliant! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I love this series! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Three books in one! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Hooked from the first chapter. The past never truly leaves us. We can turn our backs, bury it deep, but eventually, it will find its way to the surface. D.S. John Anderson is tasked with exposing a major organised crime syndicate when he stumbles upon a miner’s lamp, engraved with mysterious initials. This unexpected find pulls him back to the Midlothian pit village he once called home. The case takes a sinister turn with the discovery of a group of trafficked children, ...

Gates Foster lost his daughter, Lucy, 17 years ago. He's never stopped searching. Suddenly, a shocking new development provides Foster with his first major lead in over a decade, and he may finally be on the verge of discovering the awful truth. Meanwhile, Mitzi Ives has carved out a space among the Foley artists creating the immersive sounds giving Hollywood films their authenticity. Using the same secret techniques as her father before her, she's become an industry-leading expert in the sound of violence and horror, creating screams so bone-chilling, they may as well be real.

When two men meet in the gym - the ex-boxer Billy Tully and the novice Ernie Munger - their brief sparring session sets into motion their hidden fates, initiating young Munger into the "company of men" and luring Tully back into training. Fat City tells of their anxieties and hopes, their loves and losses, and the stubborn determination of their manager, Ruben Luna, who knows that even the most promising kid is likely to fall prey to some weakness.

"Get ready to be transported into the gritty world of crime short fiction, as some of the top crime and dark fiction writers come together to bring you an anthology like no other. In this collection, you'll find stories that will chill you to the core, with a touch of noir and dirty realism that will leave you wanting more. From the minds of Alpheus Williams, Andrew Davie, Anthony Neil Smith, and more, these tales will take you on a journey through the seedy underbelly of Bristol, where danger lurks around every corner and the line between good and evil is blurred. Meet a cast of complex ...

Caught in a snowstorm of drugs, passion, and hate, Spenser investigates a cocaine-related murder.

The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help - even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: His wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect. As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed - and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Brooklyn Country Day school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own.

A fresh-faced newcomer arrives in an isolated, gang-run town and soon finds herself taking a job nobody else wants: bodyguard to a ghoul. Not just your average mindless, half-rotted shuffler, though. Lucille is a dancer who can still put on her own lipstick and whose shows are half burlesque, half gladiator match. But the stranger is no stranger to this particular ghoul. Both women are undercover in their own way. And both have something to lose if their connection comes to light.

Former Hanover County Sheriff Buck Lawson leaves the mountains of North Carolina to take a job as the police chief of the small South Georgia town of Mercy, and soon finds himself in over his head. For one thing, his predecessor has been murdered...Buck has inherited an unsolved homicide, a house that may well be haunted, and a police department that is almost certainly corrupt. It falls to Buck to free an innocent man and bring the former police chief’s killer to justice while wading through the quagmire of incompetence and dishonesty that permeates his office.

Hard-boiled detective Sam Spade is hired to locate a client's sister by tailing the sister's companion. Spade's partner Miles Archer takes on the assignment, and quickly both Archer and the man he was shadowing are murdered. As Spade pursues the mystery of his partner's death, he is drawn into a circle of colorful characters, and they are all after a legendary statuette of a falcon that had long ago been made for King Charles of Spain. Encrusted with jewels, it is worth a fortune.

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 ...

Rick Barron, a former Beverly Hills cop, has risen to head of production of Centurion Pictures, and he's at the top of his game. But tensions are high in Hollywood, and when Rick's friend Sidney Brooks, a successful screenwriter, receives a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee, Rick isn't surprised. The witch hunt is spreading, and those under investigation are Rick's closest friends - even his wife, the glamorous starlet Glenna Gleason.