Urban Mystery Thrillers

Lumi Northrop is having the best summer of her life. She's earned the respect of the entire haven after her role in recovering Rudolph and saving Jack Frost, her family's reindeer sanctuary is thriving, and she's even got herself a date to the Summer Solstice Celebration. Life is sweeter than a bowl full of jelly. Right up until the beloved frost pixies start going full gremlins-after-midnight, wrecking havoc around the sanctuary, and threatening to invade the entire magical Christmas village. Can they save the pixies before they are lost forever?

Perhaps best known for his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, #1 New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith delights fans around the world with his warmhearted 44 Scotland Street novels. In the series’ sixth entry, the residents of 44 Scotland Street grapple with problems both trivial and severe, but none so great as when six-year-old Bertie Pollock - who longs to be seven - mislays his mum and learns a valuable lesson about wish fulfillment.

Aella thinks she's leading a normal life in LA, making ends meet as a waitress. Until she finds something she wasn't meant to: A dragon's egg. Now on the run from secret government agents and protecting the vulnerable hatchling, Aella finds there's more to her past and her parents than there seemed. With nowhere to turn, Aella gets help in the unlikeliest of places and has her eyes opened to a secret world of mythical races and creatures living hidden among the humans of the world.

A body in an alleyway. Blood on the accused. Witnesses to the crime. When a sleepy Georgian town is rocked by the brutal murder of the local prosecutor’s son, all the evidence points to one man: Marcus Brantley. His only hope rests in defense counsel, Ryan Noble, drawn back to the town he tried to forget by his mother’s cancer diagnosis. But Noble’s homecoming brings a case that could cost him everything. Unwelcome, outnumbered, and with the clock ticking, Noble must navigate a dangerous game of secrets and lies before time runs out—where hostility lurks behind every corner and he ...

We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks--as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . . He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heir--young, romantic, cultivated--to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life....

The name's John Taylor. I work the garish streets of the Nightside - the hidden heart of London where it's always three a.m., where inhuman creatures and otherworldly gods walk side by side in the endless darkness of the soul. I have a talent for finding things. People...property...no problem. But now I'm after something different. A local diva called the Nightingale has cut herself off from her family and friends, and I've been hired to find out the reason. I'm also wondering why her suicide-prone fans think she has a voice to die for. Literally.

Yes, you should be afraid of the dark.... A powerful demon is hell-bent on revenge, and he knows paranormal investigator Ford Atticus Ford by name. As Ford wrestles with the uncertain nature of his future, a different kind of evil storms into his world, proving that not all demons are inhuman. Trailing in Lauren Coeburn's wake are some of the most elusive and terrifying paranormal entities in existence - the black-eyed children.

Once upon a time, I was your average spunky redhead with the lamest employment history ever, a shaky relationship with my only family member, and no idea what I was doing with my life. Now, I'm a pseudo mythic with the best bartending job in the world, the most amazing (and hot) best friends I never knew I needed, and a guild of misfit magic-users who've become my extended family. And I'm about to lose it all. In my desperation to save Ezra, I stumbled into a web of ruthless deception - and seriously pissed off a sleeping hydra.

Another day, another hijacked body. And just 13 hours to solve a murder…Detective Vincent Graves has made a habit of dying. Waking up in someone else’s body isn’t pleasant, especially when it's inside a coffin with tons of dirt pressing down on it. Once he’s out, he learns his soul has 13 hours to find the borrowed body’s killer. With the help of a brilliant FBI agent, Vincent’s quest for clues leads to a looming supernatural presence. And escaping the dark threat may be impossible with his ever-ticking clock… Can Vincent close the case in time?

Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross is renowned for his cutting-edge science fiction. This third entry in his “edgy … spoof of Cold War spy thrillers” ( Booklist) finds covert agent Bob Howard learning about a top-secret dossier that vanishes with his boss. Determined to discover the contents of this memorandum, Howard runs afoul of Russian spies, ancient demons, and apostles of a hideous cult planning to raise the Eater of Souls from the undead.

Being a bouncer at a heavy metal/goth bar sounds pretty exciting...unless you're one of Odin's Chosen Warriors hiding out from Valhalla and your past. So Magnus a.k.a. Mouse is less than thrilled when Fate drops a supernatural murder at his feet. Is there any way he can stop the killer without tripping over his own secrets? Or will the cops, the feds, or his Valkyrie find him first? And can someone explain how his pet raven is learning to speak Norse?

The wolf essence stone - finding it could free werewolves from the curse of the moon. Or it could kill them all. Victoria has burned with "the fever" to find the stone since hearing about it. Hundreds of werewolves before her have died in the quest. That legacy doesn't deter her, though. She's willing to risk anything to find the stone and break the curse that forces them to shift every full moon. Her obsession compels her to travel to Iceland, where she feels the stone calling to her. Pulling her toward it. If only she knew the ancient evil residing inside....

The Alaskan wilderness is a harsh landscape in the best of conditions, but with a pack of rogue werewolves on the loose, it's downright deadly. Elena Michaels, the Pack's chief enforcer, knows all too well the havoc "mutts" can wreak. When they hear of a series of gruesome maulings and murders outside Anchorage, she and her husband, Clay, journey to Alaska in the dead of winter in order to hunt down the dangerous werewolves.

A big storm is brewing, there's a killer on the loose, and the ghosts of Myrtle Beach are restless. Psychic medium Simon Kincaide and his sexy cop boyfriend, homicide detective Vic D'Amato, have their hands full helping the Grand Strand brace for rough surf, driving rain, and high winds as a winter storm roars toward shore. Everyone's on edge, and rumors are rampant about sightings of Blackcoat Benny, a ghostly omen of danger, and worse, the Gallows Nine, the spirits of nine infamous criminals hanged back in the 1700s.

One Master survived the inferno that destroyed the Order of the Illuminati. He may know that I survived, but does he suspect that I betrayed the Order? Rudolf Heine has sent Hunters flooding into Westport, wreaking carnage on vampires, shifters, and mages. Normal humans are taking notice, and the shadow world teeters on the verge of being revealed. The Hunters also may be hunting me. Do I stay and fight for my new life and my friends, or run again?

Lucy Heron is a mom with three kids, and a baker with a happy marriage in sunny Echo Park. She's also Silver Griffins Agent 485. The suburbs will never be the same. Fighting supernatural crime from a minivan while keeping the magical world a secret is a full time job. Then there's the PTA bake sale and the neighborhood barbecue.

Juniper Wiles once starred as a plucky teen detective in the popular TV show, Nora Constantine. When the series ended seven years ago, Juniper made a decision to leave LA and return home to Newford where she joined friends at the artists' collective, Bramleyhaugh, the center of which is her pal, beloved faerie artist Jilly Coppercorn.

With the world clinging to a fragile peace forced on the Fae by humanity after the Faerie Wars, metalsmith Alex Blackwood is plunged into the world of the half-fae who traffic in illegal magical artifacts. Her best friend's murder and his cryptic last message place her in the crosshairs of a scheme to reignite the decade-old war between humans and fae. Worse, violent attacks against her and the arrival of a fae knight on a mission force Alex to face a devastating revelation of who and what she is.

After landing my first official journalist job I thought the ideas would be spilling out faster than I could type. But it turns out life in the shadow of my debut piece is a little...make that a lot, harder than I expected. So, when a convicted murderer reaches out begging for help in proving her innocence, I jump at the chance to dig into another investigation. The only problem? This trail is ice cold.

As Sarah and Julian begin their quest to uncover the truth surrounding his curse, a new threat arises, endangering not only their lives but the future they hope to build with one another. In order to protect themselves and those they care about the most, Julian and Sarah must use all of the resources at their disposal to neutralize their adversaries.