Noir Mystery Thriller

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.

In this first installment of the Miami Crime Trilogy, Don Donovan spins a sprawling noir tale of three hardened individuals whose lives are woven together in a web of money, betrayal, and murder.

Her body floats. A bloated thing half atop the river. Naked. Pale. Mouth and eyes open wide. When two fishermen discover a corpse floating in the Clackamas river, profiler Violet Darger heads to rural Oregon to hunt another serial killer. What she discovers in the woods might change the course of her life. What secrets does the water conceal? The girl in the water marks the third such case in the area - all drowned with superficial stab wounds and discovered in a body of water - and Darger feels certain she won't be the last. The corpses are badly decomposed.

It is deep winter, and the darkness is unending. A private detective named Jaycob Eklund has vanished, and Charlie Parker is assigned to track him down. Parker's employer, Edgar Ross, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has his own reasons for wanting Eklund found. Eklund is no ordinary investigator - he is obsessively tracking a series of homicides and disappearances, each linked to reports of hauntings.

Fred Underhill is a young cop on the rise in Los Angeles in the early 1950s - a town blinded to its own grime by Hollywood glitter; a society nourished by newspaper lies that wants its heroes all-American and squeaky clean. A chance to lead on a possible serial killing is all it takes to fuel Underhill's reckless ambition - and it propels him into a dangerous alliance with certain mad and unstable elements of the law enforcement hierarchy. When the case implodes with disastrous consequences, it is Fred Underhill who takes the fall. His life is in ruins, his promising future suddenly a dream of the past.

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.

Claire Perrigaux a clandestine SOE agent during WW2 operating from Saint Brieuc in Northern France,has a past life she doesn't like to talk about. In 1925, the world was a different place. As a child prodigy, Claire Lane, a Professor of Mathematics at London’s prestigious St Anne's University. Her specialty- scientific study of probability. In other words, the likelihood that an event will reoccur. Chief Police Inspector Ralph McGinniss of Scotland Yard is sent down from London to investigate these heinous crimes, and enlists the skills of Claire Lane to help him. A team is forged. How ...

All'inizio di un gennaio milanese in cui c'è aria di neve, una segnalazione anonima porta al ritrovamento di un uomo ucciso in una mansarda in zona Lambrate: indossa una maschera da medico della peste e apparentemente è morto dissanguato; ­intorno al suo corpo sono appese sacche piene del suo stesso sangue. Il commissario Mandelli e l'ispettore ­Casalegno capiscono subito di trovarsi di fronte a un'efferatezza destinata a seminare altre vittime, e a un ­killer che vuole attirare l'attenzione lasciando una firma: la foto in bianco e nero di una rara specie di rosa.

The quiet northern Swedish town of Kurrajakk is rocked when a popular teenager is found dead, mounted on a sacrificial altar, body covered in strange cuts, a crow shoved down his throat. Rumors begin to swirl. A local ghost story, Krakornås Kung, The King Of Crows, is back. Jamie left the Violent Crimes department in Stockholm to rebuild her life. Her body. Her mind. To get away from cases like this. But Jamie can’t let injustice go unpunished – and now, she’s all out of compassion. The King may think Kurrjakk is his for the taking, but he’s never met Jamie Johansson.

In A Suspension of Mercy, a masterpiece of noir fantasy, Highsmith revels in eliciting the unsettling psychological forces that lurk beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life.

1955: Tampa, Florida, is a city pulsing with Sicilian and Cuban gangsters, cigar factories, sweet rum, and violence. The death of retired kingpin Charlie Wall—the White Shadow—has shocked the city, sending cops, reporters, and associates scrambling to find those responsible. As the trail winds through neighborhoods rich and poor, enmeshing the innocent and corrupt alike all the way down to the streets and casinos of Havana, an extraordinary story of revenge, honor, and greed emerges.

Reid left the small town of Manson a decade ago, promising his former Chief of Police boss he'd never return. He made a new life in the city, became a PI and turned his back on his old life for good. Now an insurance firm has offered him good money to look into a suspicious car crash, and he finds himself back in the place he grew up—home to his complicated family history, a scarring relationship breakdown and a very public career-ending incident. As Reid's investigation unfolds, nothing is as it seems.

A successful entrepreneur in the mushroom industry, Jaakko Kaunismaa is a man in his prime. At just 37 years of age, he is shocked when his doctor tells him that he's dying. What is more, the cause is discovered to be prolonged exposure to toxins; in other words, someone has slowly but surely been poisoning him. Determined to find out who wants him dead, Jaakko embarks on a suspenseful roller-coaster journey full of unusual characters, bizarre situations and unexpected twists.

Red Harvest is a hardboiled classic that set the standard for gritty, no-nonsense crime fiction. Written by Dashiell Hammett, this explosive novel follows an unnamed detective—referred to only as “The Continental Op”—as he arrives in a corrupt industrial town known as “Poisonville.” Hired to clean up the city, he quickly finds himself in the middle of a brutal gang war. Betrayals, double-crosses, and brutal power plays spiral into chaos as the Op’s relentless quest for justice leads to a blood-soaked reckoning.

New York Times best-selling author Sara Paretsky is the master of twisting suspense and propulsive plot. She has been hailed by the crime community as "a legend" (Harlan Coben) and "one of the all-time greats" (Karin Slaughter). Her acclaimed novels featuring detective V.I. Warshawski rank among the most celebrated crime series in modern fiction. Now in this spellbinding collection, Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents with 14 short stories, eight of which feature the indomitable detective - and a new V.I. story.

When a grisly double homicide takes place in an old apartment building, no one doubts the guilt of the victims' next-door neighbor. Not only does the man have a history of mental illness, he confessed to the murder within hours. True, he had no apparent motive, but who needs motive when the supposed murderer is crazy? The NYPD's lead detective would be happy to close the case, but he's facing his own demons, and letting the investigation drag on allows him to protect his own dark secret. Imagine his surprise when he begins uncovering facts that cast the murder in an all-new light.

The Assistant Registrar Emily Price, from the London Archives commits a crime of passion. Or is it? A man falls from the balcony. Was he pushed? And what is Emily Price hiding? Chief Police Inspector Ralph McGinniss from Scotland Yard investigates. He calls in his newly appointed assistant for help. Claire Lane is a Professor of Mathematics at London’s prestigious St Anne's University. Her speciality-scientific study of probability. In other words, the likelihood that an event will reoccur. She takes on the challenge until she discovers there is more to this story. A birth certificate ...

A killer with a signature, a city on edge, and detectives racing against time. For three years, the 'Rose Slayer' has haunted Los Angeles, leaving behind a chilling pattern: middle-aged women, living alone with their cats, executed with a single shot, a red rose left as a macabre calling card. But when the seventh victim is found with her fingers severed and her laptop missing, Detectives Bill Pawson and Sean Wells realize the killer is evolving—and the stakes are higher than ever. Their investigation takes an unexpected turn when all the victims are linked to a popular online book community.

When Deputy Coroner Mattie Winston and her boss/best friend, Izzy, are called to the home of waitress and part-time model Shannon Tolliver, they find the ghoulish Halloween decorations a bit too authentic. Among the fake blood and skeletons is the corpse of Shannon herself. Since the whole town knows Shannon recently had a very public spat with her estranged husband, Erik, he's suspect number one. But Mattie happens to know Erik truly loved his wife and is simply incapable of the brutal act - even if he owns the exact same caliber handgun as the murder weapon....

When Detective Kim Stone is called to a local business, what she sees leaves her speechless. The photo on the driving license bears little resemblance to the man laid out before her, and she knows she’s up against the most twisted killer she has ever encountered. But as she breaks the devastating news to the victim’s wife, Diane Phipps, Kim can’t help feeling that something isn’t quite right about the woman’s reaction.