Comedy Crime Fiction

My name’s Ernest Cunningham. I used to be a fan of reading Golden Age murder mysteries, until I found myself with a haphazard career getting stuck in the middle of real-life ones. I’d hoped, this Christmas, that any self-respecting murderer would kick their feet up and take it easy over the holidays. I was wrong.

It’s been a year since Simi Chopra’s motley crew pulled off a high-wire diamond necklace heist with the help of sexy rogue Jack Danger. After living it up on the reward money, they're back where they started, struggling to pay their bills. So when a Chicago Mafia boss demands they return the jewels—plus interest, or else—they need to get the team back together…and fast. Unfortunately, Simi soon discovers that the necklace is in the hands of Jack's nemesis, a highly skilled and supremely vengeful master thief who is not above a little blackmail to get even.

Cold Storage, Alaska, is a remote fishing outpost where salmonberries sparkle in the morning frost and where you just might catch a King Salmon if you're Zen enough to wait for it. Settled in 1935 by Norse fishermen who liked to skinny dip in its natural hot springs, the town enjoyed prosperity in the mid-20th century, at the height of the frozen fish boom. But now the cold storage plant is all but abandoned and the population is shrinking every day.

When Chaz Perron's wife discovers that he is running a scam (posing as a marine biologist to doctor water samples so that an agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the Everglades), he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner. Unlucky for Chaz, Joey survives clutching a bale of Jamaican pot. Rescued from the Atlantic by a former police officer, Mick Stranahan, she decides not to report him but instead haunt and taunt him, with Mick's help, by playing dead.

For Detective Bunny McGarry, life is complicated, and it is about to get more so. It’s 1999 and his hard won reputation amongst Dublin’s criminal fraternity, for being a massive pain in the backside, is unfortunately shared by his bosses. His partner has a career-threatening gambling problem and, oh yeah, Bunny's finally been given a crack at the big time. He’s set the task of bringing down the most skilled and ruthless armed robbery gang in Irish history. So the last thing he needs in his life is yet another complication.

Poor Meg Langslow. She's blessed in so many ways. Michael, her boyfriend, is a handsome, delightful heartthrob who adores her. She's a successful blacksmith, known for her artistic wrought-iron creations. But somehow Meg's road to contentment is more rutted and filled with potholes than seems fair.

Coalville is on fire—from below. The old mines are burning, and everyone has poison gas in their brain. Maybe that’s why the town is so corrupt. Now that he’s a Benedictine monk, Tommy Martini never wants to see the place again—hell-raisers there hold a grudge till they die, and he’s on their wish list. But a girl he once loved has gone missing, and his best friend from childhood has been murdered. Among the living is a shy girl from Tommy’s past, who wants to help. Together, they learn the secret of the elephant’s graveyard, and it’s not in Africa.

The chill of a San Francisco summer can be deadly. No one knows this better than Capri Sanzio, who makes her living giving serial killer tours of the city. Capri has been interested in the topic since she was a kid, when she discovered she’s the granddaughter of serial killer William "Overkill Bill" Sanzio. She’s always believed in his innocence. But now an Overkill Bill copycat has struck in San Francisco. And Capri’s former mother-in-law, Sylvia, just cut off Capri’s daughter’s tuition payments. Needing cash, Capri wonders if this is the time to exonerate her grandfather.

Wisecracking private detective Sam Rockwell is running for his life, but that doesn't keep him from taking the case of a Return who's slipped past Heaven's radar and overstayed his time on Earth. Together with his fiance, Amelia, Sam brawls and dances his way through San Francisco to unravel a zany mystery where nothing is what it seems at first blush.

The town's psychic cat, Irene Peggledrip, is being visited by a band of malevolent spirits who all claim to be murderers. The stage is set for Hettie and Tilly to solve an old murder mystery, where all the cats involved appear to be dead. Will our feline sleuths finally lay the ghosts to rest? Can Molly Bloom’s new cafe survive the seance? And will the moving claw give up its secrets before the gravy congeals? Join Hettie and Tilly for another spirited adventure.

Depressed, lonely, and tired of life, George Thring leaves work one night but never makes it home. Before he knows it, he's driven over 200 miles in the wrong direction and finds himself in a strange little town, in the middle of nowhere, during their annual Elvis Presley appreciation festival. As he stumbles from one mishap to another, George meets the woman of his dreams, unwittingly aids in a bank robbery, and finds himself pursued by both the police and a gang of angry criminals.

Dublin is in the middle of a heat wave, and tempers are running high. The Celtic Tiger is well and truly dead, activists have taken over the headquarters of a failed bank, the trial of three unscrupulous property developers teeters on the brink of collapse, and in the midst of all this, along comes a mysterious organisation hell-bent on exacting bloody vengeance in the name of the little guy. Paul Mulchrone doesn’t care about any of this; he has problems of his own.

Something bad happened last night. My best friend Posey is dead. The police think it was a tragic accident. I know she was murdered. But I can’t remember a thing. I’ve woken up with the hangover from hell, a stranger in my bed, and I’ve gone viral for the worst reasons. There’s only thing stopping me from dying of shame. I need to find a killer.

It’s the year 2000 in Dublin and, following some traumatic events, Detective Bunny McGarry is taking a well-earned break from the force. Bunny’s former partner died in the line of duty under dubious circumstances, but his murky background has suddenly resurfaced, threatening Bunny’s reputation as well. As if that isn’t enough, a young boy is in danger and a woman from the big fella’s past is trapped in a loveless marriage to a monster. They both need Bunny’s help, but he must get to work fast - it seems someone is trying to frame him for murder.

A chain of events that will change the lives of each and every character will leave some of them wiser, some of them deader, and some of them definitely looking for a new line of work. With a wicked wit, razor-sharp observations, rich characters, and a plot with more twists than the Inland Waterway, Dave Barry makes his debut a complete and utter triumph.

Bunny McGarry has finally got a lead in his mission to find the Sisters of the Saint, but the lead, one Father Gabriel de Marcos, isn’t willing to play ball. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Bunny has to put the padre under surveillance with a little help from some old friends. Father Gabriel runs a boxing club at the bad end of the Bronx, battling to keep kids out of gangs - noble, thankless work. Thing is, saints don’t typically have assassins sent after them. What sins are hidden in the padre’s mysterious past?

In this quirky debut novel from author Matthew Dicks, career criminal Martin uses his OCD to pilfer items from his victims' houses without being discovered. It helps that he only takes things the homeowner would never notice are missing - like a roll of toilet paper or a bottle of maple syrup. Martin has spent so much time snooping through homes he feels like he knows the owners, but when he starts meddling in their personal lives, his precise world turns to haos.

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.

Harry Christmas is unable to cope with the death of his wife and has been bouncing from one bad decision to the next. After a terrifying assault by the son of a woman he has conned, he makes up his mind to leave the country. Now Harry Christmas is on the run.

Criminal defense investigator Cecil Younger spends his days coaching would-be felons on how to avoid incriminating themselves. When Sherrie, a returning client with a good heart but a penchant for bad boys, asks him to track down some evidence that will help with her case, Cecil agrees. Cecil treks out to the shady apartment complex she mentioned, only to find his teenage daughter, Blossom, inside. He manages to get both the box Sherrie wanted and his daughter safely home, and later discovers the "evidence" is a large pile of cash - fifty thousand dollars, to be exact.