Comedy Crime Fiction

In Family Life, Russell Banks' first novel, he transforms the dramas of domesticity into the story of a royal family in a mythical contemporary kingdom. Life inside this kingdom includes the king (dubbed "the Hearty" or "the Bluff"), who squeals angrily as is his wont; the queen, who, while pondering the mirror in her chambers, decides to write a book; three adolescent princes who are, respectively, a superb wrestler, a fanatical sports car driver, and a sullen drunk.

A selection from the John Updike audio collection. These extraordinarily evocative stories depict the generation born in a small-town America during the Depression and growing up in a world where the old sexual morality was turned around and material comforts were easily had. Yet, as these stories reflect so accurately, life was still unsettling, and Updike chronicles telling moments both joyful and painful.

There's a brutal murder in the small Welsh village of Gilfach. The police are clueless. With no motive and no real suspect, the investigation soon grinds to a halt. Enter Mary Anne Smith, otherwise known as Granny Smith, the 71-years-young, pipe-smoking, heavy metal-loving, chaos-causing amateur sleuth with a difference.

The night world of Old Town, Portland, Oregon, has gone mad in the grip of gentrification, and at the center of it all is Lucky Supreme, a seedy tattoo parlor, whose proprietor is a street-bred artist with a unique approach to problem solving. Darby Holland has enough on his radar, but when some flash (tattoo artwork) stolen from him resurfaces in California, he can't help himself. His efforts to reclaim it set him on a dangerous path, dragging along his delightfully eccentric colleagues.

In this short story from his Getting Even collection, Woody Allen takes an in-depth look at the Mafia, detailing heretofore unknown facts about the Cosa Nostra, from their aliases (and aliases' aliases), to how little they spend on office supplies in a given year.

Julia Blair is hoping for a fresh start. So when she sees an apartment-for-rent sign on Brambleberry House, she can’t help but feel that it’s a good omen. Having spent summers as a teen in a cottage near the rambling Victorian home, Julia easily pictures herself and her two children starting over in the one place that’s always felt welcoming to her. When Julia walks up to inquire about the apartment, she finds her old friend Will Garrett repairing the house.

After failing at being a cop and a not-so private investigator, Frank Jones is known as Double O 12, or 12 Gauge. Now a US international agent, his chaos continues to Paris and Moscow.

A town full of mystery and intrigue. Corrupt politicians. An out-of-control police force. A wealthy family who controls everything. Criminal merchants, drug trafficking, and violence. Other than that, a pretty nice place to visit.

Hannah Mills, local photographer, is struggling for work and to pay her rent. Great-aunt Dorothy comes to the rescue from beyond the grave after she leaves Hannah a first phase Indian Chief Navajo blanket, a very rare item worth at least a million dollars. That kind of money would set Hannah up for life. But, before she can take it to auction, her niece is kidnapped and a ransom demanded - the blanket. Hannah has to go to France to get her niece back, but she has no money to get there until she robs a bank.

Joe Brody is just your average Dostoevsky-reading, Harvard-expelled strip-club bouncer who has a highly classified military history and whose best friend from Catholic school happens to be head mafioso Gio Caprisi. FBI agent Donna Zamora, the best shot in her class at Quantico, is a single mother stuck at a desk manning the hotline. Their storylines intersect over a tip from a cokehead that leads to a crackdown on Gio's strip joint in Queens and Joe's arrest - just one piece of a city-wide sweep aimed at flushing out anyone who might have a lead on the most-wanted terrorists....

Alan Newberg, a staid title-company lawyer in the middle of a divorce, escapes to the French Riviera in an effort to reinvent himself. Instead, he catches a case of careful what you ask for when his soon-to-be-ex wife freezes his bank accounts. Without access to money, Newberg gets a job working for a crazy American ex-pat from Texas who owns a questionable vehicle-for-hire business that is at war with a local mob-run cab company. The ever-growing predicament leads to Alan being framed for murder and forces him to run the gauntlet of French criminal justice.

Magical Crimes is a fun CSI with magic and "a little something else" story. The little something else being two foot long and lurking in the hero’s trousers. But don’t worry, the penis in this story is used purely for the purpose God intended - humour and crimefighting - not lustful titillation. Seb Kemp is a psychic profiler with a problem. After a night out drinking some men wake up with an unexpected tattoo. Seb woke up with a floor-length boinkwurst and no memory of how, when, or where it happened.

Eine halbe Stunde vor der Hochzeit ihrer Cousine Emma finden Carlina und Emma ihren Großvater tot in seiner Wohnung in der Altstadt von Florenz. Carlina merkt schnell, dass Emma nicht bereit ist, ihre Hochzeit wegen des plötzlichen Todesfalls abzusagen - ein natürlicher Tod liegt ja auch nahe. Also lässt sich Carlina überreden, ihren toten Opa in seinem Bett zu verstecken und jedem zu erzählen, dass er sich nicht gut genug fühlte, um an der Hochzeit teilzunehmen.

Charmante Dilettanten: Monsieur Lipaires Gauner-Truppe träumt vom großen Coup an der Côte d'Azur – doch irgendwas geht immer schief. Ein Rätsel, das zum Familienschatz einer südfranzösischen Adelsdynastie führt, versteckt im Kanallabyrinth der malerischen Küstenstadt Port Grimaud? Das klingt zu formidable, um wahr zu sein. Gelegenheitsgauner Guillaume Lipaire sieht endlich seine Chance, schnell an viel Geld zu kommen. Er versammelt ein ungewöhnliches Team um sich, das ihm dabei helfen soll, das Rätsel zu lösen.

Lenny wants to get into the good graces of the guys who have connections. He's willing to do anything. His cousin, Eddie, sets him up with a simple job—drive a classic red convertible from Boston to Brooklyn. Nobody told him there would be a dog involved. Or a girl. And when the girl's husband shows up, Lenny is in way deeper than he ever wanted. It's not his fault, or is it?

En este ensayo, narrado como novela negra, un detective es contratado para dilucidar, con todas las evidencias de rigor, cuál es la primera novela de este género en Sonora, si Juan Justino Judicial, de Gerardo Cornejo, o La madriguera de los Cobra, de Alonso Vidal.

Midnight Rider Productions is a dark-web nightmare machine, headed by the one man who years ago drove Darby to hide in the seamy environs of Old Town and make his life there. But Darby left his own mark back in the day, and the shadowy head of production has a grudge to settle. Rider has found him at long last and plans to make an example of him.

Time is up in Old Town. As the pace of gentrification reaches frenzy in Portland, Oregon, Darby Holland’s beloved tattoo parlor, Lucky Supreme, is destroyed by a bomb that ripped through an entire city block. Only a warning call from his favorite prostitute saved his life. Developers have been like wolves at the door of Dmitri (the drunken landlord) for the past few years, but this is different.

Constable Nick’s beat is modernized, with his police bike replaced by a mini-van. He gets more than he bargained for as his work draws him into closer contact with villagers, in more ways than one. There are compromising positions aplenty in this next charming installment of Aidensfield life. Nick finds himself lost in heavy fog and runs across a couple of illicit lovers trapped in their car. He advises the village grocer about his very respectable lady shoplifter and discovers how farmer Owens copes with his bossy wife.

A palm reader notifies Lord Arthur that murder is in his future. But not his murder - he’s the murderer. This really throws a wrench into his wedding plans, for Lord Arthur is soon to be married to the most beautiful lady in London. In fact he loves her so much, he decides to postpone the wedding until his business is done. Now, for a tasteful homicide....