Noir Mystery Thriller

Isobel Kingston is dead. Or so everyone believes. When a mysterious woman writes her last words in sand, Isobel steps out of the shadows to uncover the truth. As she plunges into a storm of betrayal, the winds are determined to throw Atticus Riot on her course, and the two detectives collide in a sea of madness and murder.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by "the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine" ( Booklist).

This quartet of crime stories about deadly books, penned by award-winning contemporary mystery writers, includes The Little Men, What's in a Name?, The Book of the Lion, and From the Queen.

There's nothing more deadly in a Louisiana bayou than the wildlife thriving in the dark green water and unbearable heat - except a cold-blooded killer with a body to hide. There nothing more desperate than the witness to a murder - with but one option to keep her from a similar fate. Run far and fast and don't look back.

Voodoo mambo Mama Mulate suffers a fate worse than death A grieving couple hires paranormal investigator Wyatt Thomas to find the person who killed their son. But is it murder if the victim isn’t dead? Wyatt goes undercover to discover the answer and soon learns death isn’t always a person’s worst fate. Will Wyatt solve the sticky mystery or fall victim to the seemingly supernatural killer and suffer a fate worse than death? Half Past Midnight is Book 10 of Eric Wilder’s intoxicating French Quarter Mystery Series set in that ‘exotic, erotic Mecca known as New Orleans. Visit the ...

Bo Luxton has it all - a loving family, a beautiful home in the Lake District and a clutch of best-selling books to her name. Enter Alice Dark, an aspiring writer who is drifting through life, with a series of dead-end jobs and a freeloading boyfriend. When they meet at a writers' retreat, the chemistry is instant, and a sinister relationship develops.... Or does it?

On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, on a cold February day in St. Paul, Guy Noir looks down the barrel of a loaded revolver in the hands of geezer gangster Joey Roast Beef, who is demanding to hear what lucrative scheme Guy is cooking up with stripper-turned-women's-studies-professor Naomi Fallopian. Everyone wants to know, and Guy faces them one by one, as he and Naomi pursue a dream of earning gazillions by selling a surefire method of dramatic weight loss.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Never before in audio, these vintage stories are the darkest of the dark, and the best of the best.

Crime fiction fans old and new will delight in rediscovering these taut, character-rich, heart-stopping tales, now on audio for the first time.

When poor little New Hampshire rich girl Mindy Hollis gets lost in Los Angeles, her big sister hires private detective Ed Traynor to find her. Traynor and Hollis's security chief, Jack McMahon, take off for Tinseltown to track down the aspiring actress - but they discover the only part she ever got was the one that killed her. Their hunt for her killers takes them from the bowels of Mexico City to the glitz of Los Angeles, north to the set of The Black Orchid in Vancouver, and then back again to Hollywood, where the angels are dying.

After a lifetime of raising hell, King uses earnings collected over a lengthy and chaotic career in government black-ops to purchase a mountaintop villa on the island of Corsica. He coasts through a peaceful existence as the owner of a seaside bar in the serene Bay of Calvi.... Then, after a sudden and violent chain of events, he resurfaces on the radar. His old unit - a clandestine special ops division known only as Black Force - deem him a danger to society, classifying his retirement as a colossal failure.

A private detective, down on his luck. A bus crash in the middle of nowhere. A murderer, hiding in plain sight. When Sydney Cartel investigates a murder, he usually stands on the other side of the police tape. Trying to escape the limelight of his career, he boards a night bus in rural southern Britain. But when the bus loses control and falls into a valley, Sydney and the survivors scramble to find shelter at a local inn by the side of the road. In the dead of night, with a storm preventing anyone from getting in or out, the survivors of the crash prepare for a long stay at the Roadside ...

Florida private eye Doak Miller agreed to help the local cops by posing as a hit man to catch a woman looking to get rid of her husband. But then he met the wife - and fell, hard. Now he's plotting with her to commit a murder that could net them millions of dollars and the chance to be together. But to pull it off under the watchful eyes of the police, it'll have to be the perfect crime....

From the author of The Find series comes PAINTER, the first book in the gripping new nordic noir series, The Stockholm Killings. In the frozen heart of a Stockholm winter, a new terror stalks the night. Families are being slaughtered, their bodies arranged in grotesque parodies of classical art—horrific masterpieces staged for Inspector Stefan Eklund to find. Haunted by his own past traumas, Eklund is thrust into leading a new elite unit, partnered with the sharp, ambitious Delara Holm and the unsettlingly brilliant forensic psychologist, Dr. Torre Nylander. Their only lead is a man found...

Claudia Shephard’s husband died in a fire. Everyone says it was tragic. Accidental. She doesn't remember much—just smoke, panic, the way her lungs burned as she ran. But three weeks after the funeral, a manuscript arrives on her doorstep. A book she didn’t write. A book that describes, in disturbingly intimate detail, her husband’s affair… and the precise steps she took to murder him. It’s written in her voice. With her quirks. Her phrases. Her secrets. And page by page, Claudia feels her grip on reality begin to unravel. As whispers swirl through their coastal town and friends ...

There is not much left of the irascible Albert Evan Jasper, "dean of American forensic anthropologists," after his demise in a fiery car crash. But in accord with his wishes, his remains are installed in an Oregon museum to create a fascinating if macabre exhibit. All agree that it is a fitting end for a great forensic scientist - until what is left of him disappears in the midst of the biannual meeting of the august WAFA - the Western Association of Forensic Anthropologists - in nearby Bend, Oregon. Like his fellow attendees, Gideon Oliver - the Skeleton Detective - is baffled.

The Lost Country centers on Edgewater, who's recently been discharged from the navy, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish who takes him under his wing as they both search desperately for a forgotten past and a future that may never come. The Lost Country cements Gay as one of the strongest voices in Southern literature, alongside Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner.

Even a city that boasts three hundred days of sunshine a year has its sudden, often violent storms—and writers have long taken advantage of that metaphor. Renowned authors Katherine Anne Porter, Jack Kerouac, Stephen King, Rex Burns, Robert Greer, Michael Connelly, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine—among many others—have brilliantly portrayed this picturesque but often merciless city. Today, Denver is home to a thriving literary scene, with writers of all stripes finding inspiration in its people and streets. The authors and stories featured in Denver Noir are no exception....

*Warning* Be prepared to lose sleep, skip chores, and hide from family to read this new Queen of Spades thriller! When Eva Santella answers a desperate plea for help from a boy worried about his sibling, she has no idea that a sinister organization is behind his problems. As Eva uncovers a mass murder scheme, her enemies try to stop her by striking at what she holds dear. The Queen of Spades must risk it all if she has any chance of stopping a deadly plot that will not only kill dozens but also destroy the lives of those she loves. One-click today! HIGH STAKES is the seventh book in the ...

The island city-state of Singapore harbors unique customs and traditions largely unknown to the West. A booming economy and embrace of conformity overshadow its gambling dens, red-light districts, and a collective passion for ghostly and gory tales. Now, in Singapore Noir, some of its best contemporary authors delve into its seedy side.

Los Angeles, 1963: African American Korean War veteran Harry Ingram earns a living as a news photographer and occasional process server: chasing police radio calls and dodging baseball bats. With racial tensions running high on the eve of Martin Luther King’s Freedom Rally, Ingram risks ending up one of the victims at every crime scene he photographs. When Ingram hears a call over the police scanner to the scene of a deadly automobile accident, he recognizes the vehicle described as belonging to his good friend and old army buddy, the white jazz trumpeter Ben Kinslow.