Comedy Crime Fiction

Berlin: a man wakes up in a trash can with no idea who he is. He's taken to hospital for treatment. Then people start trying to assassinate him. The man has to find out why, how to get them to stop, and what the CIA has to do with all this. There's also the little problem of working out who he used to be, and why that changed. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Piper and best friend Lance are trying to find him.

Hidden Behind the Robe is a tapestry of stranger-than-fiction scenes, observed over Matt Graham’s 43-year career in the criminal justice system. The story traverses the unexplored and overlooked inner workings of the raunchy, salacious, often hilarious, behind-the-scenes happenings of Los Angeles justice. Combining issues of privilege, race, and sexual misconduct, Hidden Behind the Robe provides a raw, behind-the-scenes perspective, and insight into the legal system that could only have been written by a Judge who has seen it all.

Private Detective Kaiser Wrench is a dangerous tiger to have as a friend, but he will avenge your death. Follow Kaiser as he prowls the streets of New York in the first five volumes of this series: I, the Tribunal; My Claws Are Quick; Retribution Is Mine!; A Solitary Evening; and The Great Slay.

What do you do if you witness a murder...but no one believes you? When Kate sees a horrific murder streamed live on her laptop, she calls the police in a state of shock. But when they arrive, the video has disappeared - and she can't prove anything. Desperate to be believed, Kate tries to find out who the girl in the video could be - and who her killer is.

The Wahoo Rhapsody is just one of countless fishing charters plying the waters of the Pacific between Cabo San Lucas and San Diego. But chances are good the Rhapsody is the only boat with a fortune in marijuana hidden inside a fresh catch of yellowfin tuna. This special cargo is the handiwork of first mate Weevil Ott, who is smuggling the pot on behalf of a mysterious drug lord known only as “La Cucaracha.” Since Captain Winston Weber is blissfully unaware of the secret tucked inside his ship’s hull, the operation runs smoothly…

Meet Cherry, a bandit queen on the run, driving a pink soft-top convertible through the Badlands of Southeast England. She's never felt more Thelma and Louise in her life - except there are three of them in the car and one of them is dead. How did a head nurse and mother of two end up driving a handcuffed policeman and the corpse of a murdered refugee on a journey to find justice? Pursued by a racist, roid-raged, shaven-headed officer of the law - not to mention by her husband and daughter - what else can a woman with a conscience do in modern Britain?

Here are kids in trouble and women in jeopardy. Here are private eyes and gangs. Here are loose cannons and innocent bystanders. Here, too, are cops and robbers. These are the stories that prepared Evan Hunter to become Ed McBain, and that prepared Ed McBain to write the beloved 87th Precinct novels. In individual introductions, McBain tells how and why he wrote these stories that were the start of his legendary career.

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.

Internationally best-selling author Tim Dorsey's irreverent and hilarious novels starring evil genius Serge A. Storms, lovable psychiatric hospital escapee, zoom along at breakneck speed, delivering laughs and shocks in droves.

A James Bond-meets-Austin Powers spoof about the gadgetmaker for a crime-fighting organization run by women. Jane Spyrus likes nothing more than devising new inventions, but even she knows her shrink-wrap prophylactic constraints, spray-on truth serum, and her other...rather innovative creations won't help save her kidnapped neighbor from the evil Ensecksi family.

The second crime novel by internationally best-selling writer Eoin Colfer is a gritty and utterly compelling follow-up to the critically acclaimed Plugged. In Screwed, Colfer adds an entirely new chapter to the adventures and misadventures of Daniel McEvoy, the down-on-his-luck Irish bouncer at a seedy New Jersey bar who, with the help of a motley crew of unlikely characters, solved a bizarre string of murders - including the one of the girl he loved. But people around him continue to die mysteriously, and Daniel is called into action once again.

Junior Bender is back to untangle one of the weirdest mysteries in Tinseltown. LA burglar Junior Bender has, unfortunately, developed a reputation as a competent private investigator for crooks. The unfortunate part about this is that, regardless of whether he solves the crime or not, someone dangerous is going to be unhappy with him - either his suspect or his employer. Now Junior is being bullied into proving aging music-industry mogul Vinnie DiGaudio is innocent of the murder of a nasty tabloid journalist he'd threatened to kill a couple times.

It's everyday business when Wattles, the San Fernando Valley's top "executive crook", sets up a hit. He establishes a chain of criminals to pass along the instructions and the money, thereby ensuring that the hitter doesn't know who hired him. Then one day Wattles finds his office safe open and a single item missing: the piece of paper listing the crooks in the chain. When people associated with the chain begin to pop up dead, the only person Wattles can turn to for help is Junior Bender, professional burglar and begrudging private eye for crooks.

Los Angeles burglar Junior Bender is in the middle of burgling a house and has just gotten his hands on one of the world's rarest stamps when the job goes terrifically wrong. After barely escaping, Junior realizes the danger is far from over. He's gotten himself on the wrong side of a man whose name is synonymous with violence, and to save his own skin he's set off a chain reaction of blackmail, strong-arming, and escalating crime.

IRS agent turned PI Mortimer Angel is relaxing in a hole-in-the-wall bar in a Reno casino when an attractive young girl hires him to find out who left her a cryptic message demanding a million dollars. At the girl’s house, Mort finds the body of missing rapper Jonnie Xenon - Jo-X to his legions of fans - hanging from the rafters with two bullet holes in him. Mort is shocked when he learns the identity of the girl’s father - and even more shocked when the father hires him to investigate the murder.

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.

Aspiring actress Elizabeth Smart lands her centre-stage role: her mutilated body is found dumped in North London's red light district. Clasped in her hand is a piece of human hair belonging to an unidentified body of a woman murdered two weeks ago. PC Donal lands himself a place on the murder squad just as his unconventional brother, journalist Finton, unearths the secret double life of Elizabeth. The bodies mount, each clinging to the strands of hair belonging to the previous victim.

Meet Jack Jordan. He’s a smooth-talking con artist with a penchant for the fast life. He’s snuck into Lufkin, Texas, in the dead of night with little more than a beat-up Honda, a hollowed-out King James Bible full of cocaine, and enough emotional baggage to sink a steamship. He’s charming, dedicated, and extremely paranoid.

When eighteen-year-old Ellie Canning is discovered wandering the countryside, dazed and traumatized, she tells a harrowing story of abduction, captivity, and escape. An overnight symbol of survival and empowerment, Ellie enthralls an outraged nation. Then authorities zero in on an unlikely suspect: high school teacher Suzannah Wells, identified by Ellie as the woman who kept her drugged and bound in a basement. The evidence against Suzannah is damning—vilified by the media, Suzannah’s only defense is that not a single word Ellie says is true. Suzannah has no reason to lie.

Summer 1989: Gunther Fahnstiel, once a tough cop who wasn't averse to taking a little side money from a certain madam, has just escaped the dementia ward of his Wichita nursing home. He's not exactly sure where he wants to go, but wherever it is, it has to do with the bag full of cash belonging to the man he accidentally backed over with his RV in 1979. During his search, Gunther begins to relive the violent fallout of that madam's sex lottery 40 years ago. As Gunther's memories unravel, his past and present will collide in a devastating reckoning.