Noir Mystery Thriller

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.

When a body is found buried near the desolate forest road of Kellers Way, Detective Melanie Carter must identify the victim if she is to have any chance of finding the killer. That's no easy task with fragmentary evidence from a crime committed years earlier and a conspiracy of silence from anyone who might have information. The one person who may be able to help is Julie West.

A bitter divorce is only the beginning. First the father hires thugs to kidnap his son. Then the mother hires Spenser to get the boy back. But as soon as Spenser senses the lay of the land, he decides to do some kidnapping of his own.

Her name is Renee Blackbear, but what most people call the 19-year-old Ojibwe woman is Cash. She lived all her life in Fargo, sister city to Minnesota’s Moorhead, just downriver from the Cities. She has one friend, the Sheriff Wheaton. He pulled her from her mother’s wrecked car when she was three. Since then, Cash navigated through foster homes and at 13 was working farms, driving trucks.

Nick Corey is a terrible sheriff on purpose. He doesn't solve problems, enforce rules or arrest criminals. He knows that nobody in tiny Potts County actually wants to follow the law and he is perfectly content lazing about, eating five meals a day, and sleeping with all the eligible women. Still, Nick has some very complex problems to deal with. Two local pimps have been sassing him, ruining his already tattered reputation.

When crime-fighting attorney Albert Patterson is gunned down in a Phenix City, Alabama, alley in the spring of 1954, the entire town seems to pause for just a moment—and when it starts up again, there is something different about it. A small group of men meet and decide they have had enough, but what that means and where it will take them is something they could not have foreseen.

Everyone in the small town of Central City, Texas loves Lou Ford. A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers - the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between - as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday. But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen.

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.

Henry Cimoli and Spenser have been friends for years, yet the old boxing trainer has never asked the private eye for a favor. Until now. A developer is trying to buy up Henry's condo on Revere Beach - with a push from local thugs. Soon, Spenser and his apprentice, Zebulon Sixkill, are on the trail of a mysterious woman, a megalomaniacal Las Vegas kingpin, and a shady plan to turn a chunk of land north of Boston into a sprawling casino. As alliances shift and twisted dreams surface, the Boston political machine looks to end Spenser's investigation one way or another.

It's not the dead that seem strange to Quirke. It's the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse—and concealing the cause of death.

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.

An intense psychological thriller for fans of I Am Watching You, The Luckiest Girl Alive, and All the Missing Girls. Two missing girls. Thirteen years apart. Olivia Shaw has been missing since last Tuesday. She was last seen outside the entrance of her elementary school in Hunts Point wearing a white spring jacket, blue jeans, and pink boots. I force myself to look at the face in the photo, into her slightly smudged features, and I can't bring myself to move. Olivia Shaw could be my mirror image, rewound to 13 years ago.

Of all the demons and monsters Samantha Moon has faced over the years, only one is unstoppable: time. Life feels as stable as it's likely to get for her, which should have been her first warning something was about to go wrong. An out-of-the-blue call from her sister brings bad news concerning her father's health. Ever since she went off to college, Sam has been somewhat estranged from her parents—no surprise since they never seemed to much even notice their kids' existence, leaving the eldest sister to fill the role of mother and father. Whatever notion she had to reestablish contact ...

Jim Thompson's classic The Grifters is one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for the critically acclaimed film by Stephen Frears and Martin Scorcese. To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

TV reporter Candy Sloan has eyes the color of cornflowers and legs that stretch all the way to heaven. She also has somebody threatening to rearrange her lovely face if she keeps on snooping into charges of Hollywood racketeering. Spenser's job is to keep Candy healthy until she breaks the biggest story of her career.

Scandinavian crime writer and international literary phenomenon Arnaldur Indridason pens compulsively readable mysteries that have shot to the tops of best-seller lists around the world. When the U.S. Army attempts to secretly remove a plane from an Icelandic glacier, World War II intrigue erupts in the present - and threatens to engulf everyone in its path.

An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother's life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can't resist—the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves. To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago's most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await.

Jake Leonard has more than his share of trouble. He’s close to 40 now and still suffers from bipolar disorder and the painful memories of the psychotic episodes that derailed his life and sent him behind bars. He lives in the rural South, where he spends his days breaking horses and his nights training dogs in solitude. His 19-year-old girlfriend Nikki is the daughter of the sheriff, and she’s just getting worse with drugs, alcohol, and satanic metal.

His name is Dex. He's huge, terrifying, and has an edge to him that I shouldn't find intriguing, but I do. He's also the enforcer to a rival family, and my current prison guard. Dex wants me. I can see it in his eyes. Feel it in his innocent touch. He could break me with ease. But he hasn't. Instead, he's threatened to cut off any hand that dares to try. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he cares about me. But blood means everything in this world, and we're on opposite sides of a war. After all, I'm the Romano mafia princess. He's nothing but an Allegretti.

In a remote Polish village, Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her 60s, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken. When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation.