Noir Mystery Thriller Suspense

Specialist in the scam, the con, and the rip-off, Jerry Manelli is running around New York hot on the trail of a priest: a thousand-year-old, two-foot-tall, ugly, misshapen, dancing Aztec priest made of solid gold, with eyes of pure emeralds, worth a million dollars. Somebody stole it from its museum home in South America and smuggled it through U.S. Customs in a shipment of plastic imitations. But the wrong one got delivered, and the million dollar statue, mixed with the fifteen copies, is somewhere in New York.

Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man to know in '50s LA. He was a rogue cop, a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp - and, most notably, the head strong-arm goon for Confidential magazine. Confidential presaged the idiot internet - and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink, and the scurrilous skank.

When Sam Spade gets drawn into the Maltese Falcon case, we know what to expect: straight talk, hard questions, no favors, and no way for anyone to get underneath the protective shell he wears like a second skin. We know that his late partner, Miles Archer, was a son of a bitch; that Spade is sleeping with Archer's wife, Iva; that his tomboyish secretary, Effie Perine, is the only innocent in his life. What we don't know is how Spade became who he is. Spade & Archer completes the picture.

LOS ANGELES, 1932: Lulu Wong, star of the silver screen and the pride of Chinatown, has a face known to practically everyone, especially the Chow sisters—May, Gemma, and Peony—Lulu’s former classmates and neighbors. So the girls instantly know it’s Lulu when they discover a body one morning in an out-of-the-way stable, far from the Beverly Hills home where she lived after her fame skyrocketed. The sisters suspect Lulu’s death is the result of foul play, but the police don’t seem motivated to investigate.

Still haunted by his suspected involvement in a plot against Castro, Ford ventures to Cuba - where he finds himself entangled in a web of murder, revenge, and assassination.

Molly Chatwell has a beautiful house, a handsome husband, two children, and a job she likes. It all seems so perfect, but when her two children leave for university, she realizes her life has become dull and empty. When her husband refuses to go away on a trip with her, Molly decides to go alone. But what should have been a relaxing break turns into a nightmare. Back at home in London, Molly tries to put it all behind her, but when the police arrive at her door and tell her a body has been found with connections to her, she realizes her perfect life is under threat.

This second volume of a must-listen collection contains 15 bibliomysteries by best-selling and award-winning authors.

The Continental Op is a short, squat, and utterly unsentimental tank of a private detective. Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett is young, wealthy, and a devotee of morphine and religious cults. She has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they have a habit of dying violently. Is Gabrielle the victim of a family curse? Or is the truth about her weirder and infinitely more dangerous? The Dain Curse is one of the Continental Op's most bizarre cases, and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense.

Patrick Bird, police academy burnout turned PI, works divorce cases, using his camera to catch the unfaithful and the lonely looking for love in rented rooms. But his easy routine is shattered by a new case involving a missing girl.

After the tragic and bloody end to The Cartel's reign, Carter is forced into isolation to evade the law. With his wife, Miamor, facing federal charges and his dear brother six feet under, Carter has never been more alone. His empire is at his feet, and he has no idea how to rebuild his kingdom. The only thing that is certain is that he has to stay out of the way and off the radar of the feds until he can figure out how to get his lady out of prison.

Intrepid Mountie Jack Taggart is hurled into a world where morality, justice, and the legal system are pitted against one another. Taggart investigates the murder of someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wiretap information identifies a shadowy gang member known only as Cocktail as being responsible. Taggart and his partner go undercover to join one of a coalition of gangs who are at war in British Columbia. Their mission is to identify Cocktail and gain evidence to convict him of murder.

Written years before Jordan Harper’s breakout success, Everybody Knows, this stirring and brutal bildungsroman tells the story of young Luke Crosswhite, who after years apart from his criminal family returns to their flock deep in the California desert. Luke’s father is serving time for a brutal murder that Luke himself witnessed; now, his uncle vies for power and rival biker gangs encroach on the family’s various criminal enterprises.

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?

Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti has taken a few days' holiday in Broken Bay at precisely the wrong time. The small fishing town on South Australia's Limestone Coast is now the scene of a terrible tragedy. Renowned cave-diver Mya Rennik has drowned while exploring a sinkhole on the land of wealthy farmer Frank Doyle. As the press descends, Mark's boss orders him to stay put and assist the police operation. But when they retrieve Mya's body, a whole new mystery is opened up, around the disappearance of a young local woman twenty years before.

When a small bone at the centre of a famous sculpture is revealed to be human, three people become intimately connected by the secrets and lies that put it there. Set on a Scottish tidal island connected to the mainland for just a few hours each day, and home to only one inhabitant, The Blue Hour asks questions of ambition, power, art and perception.

In a sleepy Devon village, a woman is taken from the streets. Local vet Jenny is horrified. This kind of thing doesn’t happen here. But it’s not the first time she’s been so close to a crime scene. The daughter of a prolific serial killer, she’s spent her whole life running from who she really is. And the crime is harrowingly similar to those her father committed all those years ago.

San Francisco, September 1921: Silent-screen comedy star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel-girls, jazz, bootleg hooch...and a dead actress named Virginia Rappe. The D.A. says it was Arbuckle who killed her—crushed her under his weight—and brings him up on manslaughter charges. William Randolph Hearst's newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict.

Spenser has gone to London -- and not to see the Queen. He's gone to track down a bunch of bombers who've blown away his client's wife and kids. His job is to catch them. Or kill them. His client isn't choosy. But there are nine killers to one Spenser -- long odds. Hawk helps balance the equation. The rest depends on a wild plan. Spenser will get one of the terrorists to play Judas Goat -- to lead him to others.

Knox Thompson thinks he's working a hustle, but it's a hustle that's working him. Trying to keep his pizza shop and parents afloat, he cleans out a backroom Kentucky poker game only to be roped into dealing marijuana by the proprietor—an arrangement Knox only halfheartedly resists. Knox's shop makes the perfect front for a marijuana operation, but his supplier turns out to be violent and calculating, and Knox ends up under his thumb. It's not long before more than just the pizza shop is at risk.

The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula. Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose social-media presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark. But is the real danger inside...within the family itself?