African American Suspense Thriller

For Reece and Qwess, being rap superstars was the dream, but in real life, nothing moved without the money. So they formed the Crescent Crew, an outfit of young, ruthless hustlers who locked the Southern drug trade in a stranglehold. They're at the height of their power when Qwess is offered a record deal from a major label. He accepts and makes plans for his whole crew to go legit, but Reece enjoys his position as king of the streets and has no desire to relinquish his crown.

Thanks to James Johnson's ground-breaking technology, the drug game and oil exports are now on life support. His prophecy has been fulfilled. However, the Saudi Arabian Oil King, Shalik Khalid, has unleashed a vicious death squad on American soil. The message is clear, and now the surviving members of the Johnson clan must regroup, while the architect of their movement lies in critical condition. The reigns have been passed down and now there exists one logical decision for the heirs to the throne. "Bring to them what they brought to us!"

Trained to be a Special Forces killer, Leader came back from his tours of duty broke - and near-broken. So when the streets came calling, he rose from ruthless hood enforcer to a powerful international cartel's most feared "cleaner". And when tragedy hit home, his sensitive son, Justus, turned out to be a natural assassin - and unshakably loyal to his father. Together, they are an unstoppable team that leaves no trace behind.... Until a mysterious woman from nowhere begins working Leader's deep-hidden weaknesses. Slowly, she's exploding all his secrets....

Framed for a high-profile murder, Abrianna Parker finds herself hurtling down a conspiracy rabbit hole in a desperate attempt to clear her name. Her only way out is to go after the most powerful man in the country. But the powers that be play dirty - and expose her billionaire adoptive father, Cargill Parker, and his criminal activity. With charges of collusion swirling on Capitol Hill, police and federal agencies force Abrianna off the grid. But she's not alone. By her side is ex-con turned private investigator Kadir Kahlifa, a man as seductive as he is dangerous.

At 37, Tuesday is eager for a better way of life. That means getting out of the game her gentleman's club has been fronting. Her all-female "business" team has made a fortune using the club to attract, seduce - and rob - wealthy men. But in addition to being squeezed by a corrupt cop, an unfortunate incident has put Tuesday deep in debt to a ruthless gun dealer and is creating dangerous dissent behind the scenes....

A former journalist with a knack for unraveling dirty secrets, Khloe Mercer figures if she's going to risk her life, she might as well make big money as a private investigator. But this reckless newbie needs a major case to make her name - and really show she can handle Norfolk, Virginia's toughest streets. When a narcotics detective's widow needs someone to investigate her disgraced husband's so-called suicide, Khloe jumps at the lucrative fee - and the clues that the Norfolk Police Department is rotten from top to bottom.

We last saw Easy in 2007’s Blonde Faith, fighting for his life after his car plunges over a cliff. True to form, the tough WWII veteran survives, and soon his murderous sidekick Mouse has him back cruising the mean streets of L.A., in all their psychedelic 1967 glory, to look for a young black man, Evander "Little Green" Noon, who disappeared during an acid trip. Fueled by an elixir called Gator’s Blood, brewed by the conjure woman Mama Jo, Easy experiences a physical, spiritual, and emotional resurrection, but peace and love soon give way to murder and mayhem.

Lieutenant Stuart Lyons is a single father and a well-respected veteran law enforcement officer. In addition, he serves as head of security at the ever-popular New Hope Church in Atlanta and above all, he loves the Lord. When sudden pandemonium strikes his “normal” life and he begins receiving threats from an unknown person who only identifies himself as “Dr. A. H. Satan”, Stuart’s life is turned upside down.

Felise is not the kind of woman to cheat on her husband - especially with her best friend's man. But after one perfect storm of a night, it happened... and she can hardly believe it herself. To top it off, when she woke up in the morning, she found that the man to whom she guiltily made passionate love died of a heart attack overnight. Felise, who is a nurse and a good citizen at that, leaves the hotel room without reporting his death.

In the fifth Leonid McGill novel, Leonid finds himself in an unusual pickle of trying to balance his cases with his chaotic personal life. Leonid is approached by an unemployed office manager named Hiram Stent to track down the whereabouts of his cousin, Celia, who is about to inherit millions of dollars from her father's side of the family. Leonid declines the case, but after his office is broken into and Hiram is found dead, he gets reeled into the underbelly of Celia's wealthy old-money family.

Smoke Kings is a powerful and propulsive novel with a diverse and unforgettable cast of characters. Like Steph Cha's Your House Will Pay it explores decades of racial tensions through a fictional landscape where the line between justice and revenge is blurred.

Caren Gray manages Belle Vie, a sprawling antebellum plantation that sits between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the past and the present coexist uneasily. The estate's owners have turned the place into an eerie tourist attraction, complete with full-dress re-enactments and carefully restored slave quarters. Outside the gates, a corporation with ambitious plans has been busy snapping up land from struggling families who have been growing sugar cane for generations, and now replacing local employees with illegal laborers. Tensions mount when the body of a female migrant worker is found in a shallow grave on the edge of the property.

It was the night before his wedding, 15 years ago, when the nightmare began for Jay Crawford - locked up for a crime he never committed. Now he's escaped prison and wants nothing more than to clear his name and protect his family. To get justice,he'll need the help of the three best friends who have always had his back - Wil, Kyle, and Allan. But a man on the run requires absolute trust...and Jay may just be setting himself up for the ultimate betrayal.

Leonid McGill's spent a lifetime building up his reputation in the New York investigative scene. His seemingly infallible instinct and inside knowledge of the crime world make him the ideal man to help when Phillip Worry comes knocking. Phillip "Catfish" Worry is a 92-year-old Mississippi bluesman who needs Leonid's help with a simple task: Deliver a letter revealing the black lineage of a wealthy heiress and her corrupt father. Unsurprisingly, the opportunity to do a simple favor while shocking the prevailing elite is too much for Leonid to resist.

In the New England university town of Elm Harbor, a murder begins to crack the veneer that has hidden the racial complications of the town's past, the secrets of a prominent family, and the most hidden bastions of African-American political influence. At the center is Lemaster Carlyle, the university president, and his wife, Julia Carlyle, a deputy dean at the divinity school - African Americans living in "the heart of whiteness".

Jasmyn and King Williams move their family to the planned Black utopia of Liberty, California hoping to find a community of like-minded people, a place where their growing family can thrive. King settles in at once, embracing the Liberty ethos, including the luxe wellness center at the top of the hill, which proves to be the heart of the community. But Jasmyn struggles to find her place. She expected to find liberals and social justice activists striving for racial equality, but Liberty residents seem more focused on booking spa treatments and ignoring the world’s troubles.

Mayor Victoria Dobbs Overstreet is a Harvard-trained attorney and Spelman alum, married to a celebrated heart surgeon, mother to beautiful twin girls, and a political genius. When her mentor, ally, and friend Congressman Ezra Hawkins is gunned down in Ebenezer Baptist Church, Victoria finds a strange piece of origami - a “paper god” - tucked inside his Bible. These paper gods turn up again and again, always after someone is killed. Someone is terrorizing those who are close to Mayor Dobbs, and she can't shake the feeling that the killer is close to her, too.

Dmytryk Knight was a respectable man who had followed the blueprints for the American Dream: go to college, find the girl of your dreams, get married, buy a house on the affluent side of Detroit. He’d done it all by the book. But when a crippling recession annihilates the auto industry, Dmytryk and his wife, Cora, suddenly find themselves without jobs and in foreclosure. And after two years of taking any job they can find and trying to live honestly, they realize that integrity just doesn’t pay the bills.

Just after devastating riots tear through Los Angeles in 1965, when anger is high and fear still smolders everywhere, the police turn up at Easy Rawlins' doorstep. He expects the worst, as usual. But they've come to ask for his help.

After years of self-exile, Jacinda “Jac” Brodie is back in Brook Haven, South Carolina. But the small cliffside town no longer feels like home. Jac hasn’t been there since the beloved chief of police fell to his death—and all the whispers said she was to blame. That chief was Jac’s father. Racked with guilt, Jac left town with no plans to return. But when her granddad lands in the hospital, she rushes back to her family, bracing herself to confront the past.