Southern Mystery Crime

Sam Southern: For the Defense A badly decomposed body has been discovered on an old Indian burial mound at a small airport, and it is not long before Tiffany McAvoy's name comes to the attention of the local police. McAvoy is quickly arrested, and as evidence against her mounts, and with time running out, it is up to defense attorney Sam Southern and her team to put the pieces of the mystery together and learn what really happened on a fateful night two years earlier. Sam will need all of her skills – along with a little luck – to find justice for her client.

From the Editor: Night in London is a feast of non-stop action. It moves with the velocity of a breaking wave. And it gains a special impact from the fact that it rings of authenticity. When Casey Christie describes the viciousness and extreme brutality of a criminal gang, he is writing from raw experience. Christie was at the cutting edge of the police drive against criminals in Johannesburg. And we meet again with the colourful crew he assembled in his first novel set in South Africa—the fearsome Black Bastards, so called because they have special police dispensation to wear all-black ...

Life was never going to be the same again…friends had become family and strangers became friends…all in the midst of a storm like no other and the aftermath that no one could have ever predicted. Jess and Max find their relationship takes an unexpected and life-changing turn…Brian decides on a risky mission that no one can talk him out of…and Sara struggles with the knowledge that among those responsible for the terror of the last year are a few who have ties to the tragedy in her past that is never far from her thoughts.After the Storm is the final book in the ongoing story of ...

Nolan Bishop has felt like an outsider in the Savage Kings MC, ever since he gave up the nomad lifestyle to try and put down some roots. He’s a convicted felon, searching for his place in the world without screwing up his probation. The last thing Nolan needs is a giant oaf from a rival biker gang showing up at the MC’s clubhouse, threatening to kill Nolan if he doesn’t give his estranged wife, Rita, a divorce.

In the far south, a young girl goes missing, lost without trace in the wilderness beyond her remote family cottage. A year later, her father disappears in the exact same place. Then, nothing. At all. Eventually, the years grow over the grief. The decades wear away the questions and life flows past the forgotten tragedy. Until Finn moves into the abandoned home, looking for a fresh start.

All Mel and Dana wanted was a weekend break... Mel and Dana take a long weekend break with the family on a Lake Erie island, or so they planned. Things just never seem to work out as they plan because crime follows them everywhere. Will they ever get a break? Probably not, but maybe Mel will find the career spark that's been missing for a while. This is a short story featuring Mel and Dana that takes place sometime after Book 12 of the Morelville Mysteries series. You don't need to have read the series to enjoy this story, but it will certainly help you understand Mel and her motivations. ...

The deed is done when flower petals land on the body. To this serial killer, it’s all about the flowers. It always has been and always will be. A young female slides onto a stool at a hotel bar, hoping to escape life for a few minutes. She promises herself one drink will make it all better, even though she doesn’t drink alcohol. Halfway through her drink, she chats with a nice-looking guy. Then things turn for the worse. The following day, Sheriff Steele responds to a report of a deceased body at the park. The victim was later identified, and her death shocked even the hardened agents ...

Her mother’s death was ruled a suicide. She knew it was murder. And the truth might just kill her too. Matti Mack’s life is going nowhere. She's a college dropout with a freeloader boyfriend. While bartending, she gets the call that changes everything. She returns home to learn that her mother has died unexpectedly. Suicide, she is told, but she knows that can't be true. At her mother’s funeral, an attorney slips a note into her hand. He doesn’t think Diana Mack committed suicide either. He thinks it was murder. In her quest for the truth, Matti isn’t sure who to trust, and what ...

As far as everyone in the squad room knows, Ben Halloran is completely fresh to the streets of the 77th Division - just a soft kid from the West Side who's decided to become a cop and happened to draw the hardest neighborhood in LA. But demons from Ben's complicated past catch up with him and his tough, oddly principled Daryl Gates-era partner, Miguel Marquez, all too quickly. From the moment Ben and Marquez hit the streets together, they're pulled into a web of ultra-violent corruption and retribution.

When one of Hannah Huntsford's friends goes missing, the private investigator starts a frantic search to find her. Hannah is determined to find her friend at all costs. She's willing to risk life and limb to get answers.

Life has been difficult lately for Somerton County Deputy Sheriff John Lee Quarrels. He's on the trail of a sexual predator, his love life is in turmoil, his soon-to-be ex-wife just served him with divorce papers, someone has stolen his police car and is using its radio to broadcast offensive jokes, a 350-pound redneck named Baby Bubba just tried to brain him with a shovel, and all of that happened before John Lee shot the dead guy.

New Orleans: live music, endless drinks, brightly coloured attractions, the perfect place for a party. The bachelorette begins on a Friday night; all six women are excited for a chance to escape their everyday lives. But then friendly rivalries turn vicious, and a game of truth or dare turns deadly. By the end of the weekend one of them will be dead.

Fresh out from under five years of deep cover in New York City’s seamy world of narcotics trafficking, Detective Joe Dante is teamed with the straight-laced Rosa Losada to investigate a series of gruesome serial murders that have all of Manhattan on edge. The mystery killer is clearly obsessed with a type and has the means to strike at will. Motivated by entirely different sets of life experiences, both Dante and Losada are equally obsessed with seeing this string of killings brought to an end and need to discover a means of working together without friction to accomplish that task. “...

Evil is stalking South Africa’s Sabi Sand Game Reserve. Viewers around the world are shocked when a live lockdown webcast of a safari game drive exposes them to the brutal reality of rhino poaching. A wily poacher disappears into thin air, confounding logic and baffling ace trackers Mia Greenaway and Bongani Ngobeni. Detective Colonel Sannie van Rensburg, still reeling from a personal tragedy, is dealing with an angry community on the border of the Kruger National Park - two young girls have been abducted.

"The Serpent and the Menace brilliantly blends the mystery and crime thriller genres and can be enjoyed from both the fictional thriller and historical aspect." –Anne Brownlow, ex-criminal investigator John Doby is many things: a venomous snake hobbyist and societal dissident with a list of priors not for the faint of heart, an autodidact versed in herpetology and Native American languages—and according to some, a “carnival attraction” and “welfare queen.” But is he the person responsible for the disappearance of local boy, JC Wagoner, in this quiet community? Is John involved? ...

She’d known the boy he was and it had never been a secret that she loved him with all her heart...then walked away...her dreams and hopes lost. Years later her life depends on the man he’s become. Dark secrets and twisted truths...hidden clues and unexpected danger...a lost island of dreams and mystery... There was only time to grab her purse and the small keepsake box she couldn’t leave behind. She had no choice but to trust a family friend with his own share of secrets to keep them safe from a mysterious and threatening danger. But was her heart safe from him...was it ever? Addie ...

The bayou holds many secrets. One of them is what really happened to Lisette, a beautiful Creole teenager who died on the last day of school. Everybody in Fanchon's reclusive bayou parish knows Lisette died in a boating accident, but when the police take a closer look, they unearth the dead girl and find a surprise in her grave.

With one phone call from a man he barely recalls meeting years ago, South Florida detective Louis Kincaid heads to the Michigan town of his college days to reopen a disturbing cold case -- and finds himself confronting his own painful past secrets...secrets that risk his future with the woman he loves, detective Joe Frye.

Flooded by memories, poisoned by Agent Orange, Dan Lambert kills a man in a moment of fear and fury - and changes his life forever. Pursued by police and bounty hunters, Dan flees south toward the Louisiana bayous. In the swamplands he meets Arden Halliday, a young woman who bears the vivid burdens of her own past, and who is searching for a legendary faith healer called the Bright Girl. Looking for simple kindness in a world that rarely shows it, bound by a loyalty stronger than love, Dan and Arden set off on a journey of relentless suspense and impassioned discovery....

Jake Scarne has retired. But he has mixed feelings about it. He suspects that there is more to life than golf outings and sojourns down the Jersey Shore. Little does he know that some of his old skills will come in handy when the Staten Island Ferry he is on is hijacked! The hijackers claim they are terrorists. But their real motives are more venal. Scarne avails himself of possibly the most unusual ally he's ever had. But there is death and tragedy in this twisty tale that reminds some critics of two classic movies: DIE HARD and THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE-TWO-THREE. “IF YOU LIKE HARD-...