Noir Fiction

Billy Edgewater is a harbinger of doom. Estranged from his family, discharged from the navy and touched by a rising desperation, he sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying. On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D. L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are.

In The Lady in the Lake, hard-boiled crime-fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wives - one a rich man's and one a poor man's - who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo, and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

When mystery novelist turned private detective, Marius Quin, is invited to speak at a gala dinner by the mysterious Mrs Thistlethwaite he jumps at the chance of a weekend away on the English Riviera. With his sleuthing partner, Lady Bella Montague, in tow, Marius arrives at Torquay’s Grand Hotel. But they soon realise that, behind the shiny exteriors, all is not what it seems. After Thistlethwaite turns Marius’s big night into a character assassination at his expense, he wonders why he was invited in the first place.

When Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives in deeper herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined.

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." ~ John Milton, Paradise Lost. Seattle, mid-1990s: She was meant to walk the earth unseen. Some call it covert, and most people weren't supposed to notice her. But Emi Rye came to Seattle to solve a murder that didn't actually happen. At least, according to Seattle PD. They claim her best friend came here to marry a man she met on the Internet. But instead of jumping into wedded bliss, Julia took a dive off the bridge. The cops put it down as the lovesick suicide of a delusional stalker. Emi doesn't...

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".

Le indagini del tenente Roversi Febbraio 1963. Un giornalista torinese, Francesco Gallo, viene trovato privo di vita alle pendici di Monte Forte, nella Nurra. Le indagini condotte dal tenente Roversi sembrano indicare che il movente sia legato a un reportage che il giornalista stava ascoltando nella zona e abbia a che fare con le tensioni per la crisi mineraria in atto in tutta l'isola. A capo dell'inchiesta subentra il Nucleo Investigativo Regionale di Cagliari, mentre il tenente, estromesso dal caso, chiede e ottiene di occuparsi di un'indagine in apparenza secondaria.

Los Angeles is burning. During one of the hottest summers the city has ever seen, someone is murdering mages with fires that burn when they shouldn't, that don't stop when they should. Necromancer Eric Carter is being framed for the killings and hunted by his own people. To Carter, everything points to the god Quetzalcoatl coming after him, after he defied the mad wind god in the Aztec land of the dead. But too many things aren't adding up, and Carter knows there's more going on.

Boy Genius is a powerful identity satire, the picaresque odyssey of a child seeking to avenge the wrongs perpetrated on his parents. Park's genius, born into the turmoil of post-war Korea, is used as a puppet by the South Korean government - before being banished to America. From a remote New York city ghetto, the boy wages a clandestine guerilla war against all symbols of authority.

Dashiell Hammett's Best Stories of the Continental Op is a gripping collection of classic hard-boiled detective fiction, featuring the iconic Continental Op. These tales, including Who Killed Bob Teal?, Crooked Souls, Bodies Piled Up, It, and others, showcase Hammett's mastery of sharp dialogue, intricate plotting, and atmospheric storytelling. Set in a gritty world of crime and deception, the stories follow the unflinching, unnamed detective as he unravels mysteries and confronts dangerous adversaries.

Мелкий бизнесмен Юрий Колокольцев, попавший в криминальную историю, соглашается обменяться документами с приятелем-милиционером, и под его именем пойти работать клерком в МВД. Самого же приятеля не прельщает подобного рода стезя, он разочаровался в профессии и мечтает уехать в Америку, хотя протекцию в аппарат министерства ему составил дядя – вице-премьер правительства. Юрию же некуда деваться: он разбил чужую машину, ранил человека, и теперь ему грозит тюремный срок.

John Shannon is on the run, facing life in prison or death by lethal injection. Then, a bizarre text message draws him to a meeting in the dark of night. A foreigner who calls himself the Identity Man offers Shannon an incredible chance to start again: a new face, a new home, a new beginning. Soon Shannon is living a life he never dreamed possible. In a ruined city that is trying to rebuild, he finds work as a carpenter and a wood carver. He falls in love. But then all hell breaks loose....

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.

Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kalfshamarvik. Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop? With winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari Thor Arason discovers that the victim's mother and young sister also lost their lives in this same spot, 25 years earlier....

It’s a slow, steamy summer in New Orleans’ French Quarter, but Franki Amato is busy planning her bridal shower—that is, until a hit-and-run outside a coffee shop gets her PI senses percolating. The victim is linked to crimes at a fancy society wedding in a haunted hotel where Franki’s fiancé’s family is staying. As for the java joint, it’s straight out of a hardboiled detective movie, and there’s something hinky about its walnut liqueur coffee.

Ten years ago, I adopted Blue after I broke up with my boyfriend one hot, early summer night with the windows open and the neighborhood listening. The next morning, I went straight to the pound in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Articles on buying your first dog tell you to never buy a dog on impulse. Going to the pound because you need something in your life that's worth holding onto is rarely, if ever, mentioned. I asked the man at the pound to show me the biggest dogs they had. He showed me some Rottweiler-German Shepherd puppies that he said would grow to be quite large.

Cybernetic, genetic engineering, body shaping and more.... In this noirish-cyberpunk tale, set in a dystopian and not too unlikely future, Panda and her hacker friend Hardwired try to track down a murderer when the police won't help. But what happens if he finds them first?

Ten years have passed since Joe Coughlin's enemies killed his wife and destroyed his empire, and much has changed. Prohibition is dead, the world is at war again, and Joe's son, Tomas, is growing up. Now the former crime kingpin works as a consigliore to the Bartolo crime family, traveling between Tampa and Cuba, his wife's homeland.

FIRST DIG A HOLE… When hired killer, Knucks, returns to his burial site with a fresh kill, he finds a mysterious body occupying the hole he left empty. Packing several guns and a lot of bullets, he goes looking for answers. The search, through sleazy strip clubs and criminal-owned bars, takes him into a set-up involving the St. Louis mob and the police. The mafia is moving into new territory and puts a samurai-sword-wielding assassin on Knucks, along with their most brutal mob soldiers. Before the night’s over, a lot more holes will be dug. BULLET BOOKS ON A PLANE… ON A TRAIN…FASTER...

ORIGINAL STORY, WRITTEN BY A HUMAN Something evil is going on out there... Detective Ange Watson always knew policing was a hard job. A dangerous job. But she never expected to take a bullet in the line of duty… And now it seems her superiors are willing to throw Ange under the bus to cover up their own mistakes. While she isn’t easily intimidated, everyone has their limits. But when a scared young Vietnamese woman seeks refuge in a country church, it sets in motion a chain of events that will push Ange’s ingenuity and determination to its limits. No human being deserves to be sold to...