Crime Fiction Suspense

Commissario Guido Brunetti's hopes for a refreshing family holiday in the mountains are once again dashed when a gruesome discovery is made in Marghera--a body so badly beaten the face is completely unrecognizable. Brunetti searches Venice for someone who can identify the corpse but is met with a wall of silence. He then receives a telephone call from a contact who promises some tantalizing information.

On Christmas Eve, DCI Mackenzie Jones is called to a shooting at a remote farmhouse. Ralph Mallender believes his father lies dead inside. When three more bodies are discovered, it's clear a festive family gathering has turned into a gruesome tragedy. At first it seems like an open and shut case: a murder suicide committed by Ralph's volatile brother Cameron. Then new evidence makes Mack suspect the man who reported the crime is in fact the perpetrator. But Mack isn't the only one with a stake in the case.

Duchess Day Radley is a 13-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids. Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

It's early September in Glenkillen, Scotland, when American expat (and romance novelist) Eden Elliott is recruited by the local inspector to act as a special constable. Fortunately it's in name only, since not much happens in Glenkillen. For now Eden has her hands full with other things: preparing for the sheepdog trial on the MacBride farm, a fundraiser for the hospice, and helping her friend Vicki with her first yarn club skein-of-the-month deliveries. Everything seems to be going well until the head of the welcoming committee is found strangled to death with a club member's yarn.

Holmes and Watson discover that the missing woman—Hannah Woolfson—was herself on the trail of a missing person, her close friend Sophia. Sophia was recruited to a group known as the Elysians, a quasi-religious sect obsessed with Ancient Greek myths and rituals, run by the charismatic Sir Philip Buchanan. Hannah has joined the Elysians under an assumed name, convinced that her friend has been murdered. Holmes agrees that she should continue as his agent within the secretive yet seemingly harmless cult, yet Watson is convinced Hannah is in terrible danger.

Malcolm West is fleeing the hell he unleashed in his last assignment as an undercover cop. A backwoods bungalow sounds like the perfect place to start over. Until he discovers he's been set up....

Mark Ablett's stately mansion, the Red House, is filled with very proper guests when his most improper brother returns from Australia. The prodigal brother enters Mark's study, the parlor maid hears arguing and the brother dies...rather suddenly, with a bullet between the eyes. The study is locked from the inside and Mark is missing! Investigating the crime is wealthy Antony Gillingham, who rivals Sherlock Holmes in his remarkable powers of observation.

After surviving the heat, the torture, and making it out of the sandbox one mission at a time, I have spent years on the ride, going mile after mile to escape the past. I thought I had left hell behind. Only, it is hard to run from the demons inside you. It all changed when I found the Hellions brotherhood. My nightmares were chased away by the daylight of my new purpose in the club.

When an enemy from her past threatens to return, Margaret Douglas must go on the run. But danger is in hot pursuit, and Margaret finds herself matching wits with a man who refuses to be stopped. Turning from the hunted to the hunter, Margaret must use everything she has to not only survive, but defeat evil and prove she's No Easy Prey in this high-octane thriller.

Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange.

A strange group of people have descended on the small island of West Uist. Camped out in the grounds of the Castle, they are preparing to celebrate the summer solstice. Museum curator Finley McNab becomes suspicious of the cult-like group, and when he challenges them it seems his investigations could be deadly....Inspector Torquil McKinnon is called in to keep an eye on the group. Are they innocent pagan worshippers? Or is something more sinister going on behind the scenes? As the day of the solstice draws ever nearer, whispers of murder are on the horizon....

A knife that cut too deep, a slash that still burns, failures piled high and flammable. I held my losses at bay with knives, with guns, my hands, my bike, my brothers, my iron will. But not my heart. No, my heart was the flame that would light the match, ignite the blaze. I am the enforcer - the killer when called upon, the ruthless hound on demand, the one who cleans the mess left behind. I am the protector - I can make you bleed, smash you to pieces. But she smashed all my excuses, and I shattered hers.

Meet Preach, Digit, and Maria, three lost and damaged souls trying to make it on the streets of New York City, running petty scams to stay alive. A twist of events changes their lives forever when they accidently kill a man connected to the mob and find a small fortune. Now on the run, the trio tries to escape a notorious hit man called B-Boy. Along the way, they run into more shady characters and more trouble. Seduced by the siren call of the money and struggling with their own demons, Preach, Digit, and Maria will soon discover even the closest bonds can't overcome their past traumas.

Laos, 1979: Dr. Siri Paiboun, the twice retired ex-National Coroner of Laos, receives an unmarked package in the mail. Inside is a handwoven pha sin, a colorful traditional skirt worn in northern Laos. A lovely present, but who sent it to him, and why? And, more importantly, why is there a severed human finger stitched into the sin's lining?

A murder followed by a series of random, motiveless crimes leaves Detective Garda Sergeant Mike West and his team puzzled. When Edel Johnson arrives at the scene of a crime Mike is taken aback, more so when he discovers she is now working with a victim support group. He has feelings for her, but he is the garda who investigated her husband's murder, and their relationship is complicated.

Ned Kelly's name resonates in Australia the same way the name Jesse James does in America. Was he a crusading folk hero or murderous horse thief and bank robber? Who was the real Ned Kelly? As the impoverished son of an Irish convict, Kelly was cheated, lied to, and abused by the English. Committed to fighting back against oppression, Kelly and his gang of outlaws eluded police for nearly two years.

Peter Diamond, head of Bath CID, takes a city break in Vienna, where his favorite film, The Third Man, was set, but everything goes wrong, and his companion, Paloma, calls a halt to their relationship. Meanwhile, strange things are happening to jobbing musician Mel Farran, who finds himself scouted by methods closer to the spy world than the concert platform. The chance of joining a once-famous string quartet in a residency at Bath Spa University is too tempting for Mel to refuse. Then a body is found in the city canal, and the only clue to the dead woman’s identity is the tattoo of a music note on one of her teeth.

Retired from the force, Detective Superintendent Jeffrey Brandt goes native. He stabs a woman but holds back from killing her. Frustrated that no one takes any notice, he ups his game. Next time, he'll kill. Brandt fully knows how the police work. He'll use this knowledge to win a sick game; after all, he's chosen the rules. The crime scenes are spotless, Brandt's covered his tracks. There is no forensic evidence. Yet each killing has his unmistakable print. Faced with the challenge of discovering his identity is DCI Stella Johnson. She rises to Brandt's macabre challenge.

Commissario Guido Brunetti's career is under threat when his professional and personal lives unexpectedly intersect. In the chill of the Venetian dawn, a sudden act of vandalism shatters the quiet of the deserted city, and Brunetti is shocked to find that the culprit waiting to be apprehended at the scene is a member of his own family. Meanwhile, he is also under pressure from his superiors to solve a daring robbery with connections to a suspicious accidental death. Could the two crimes be connected? And will Brunetti be able to prove his family's innocence before it's too late?

A truck crashes and spills its dangerous cargo on a treacherous road in the Italian Dolomite mountains. Meanwhile, in Santa Lucia, a prominent international lawyer is found dead aboard an intercity train. Suspecting a connection between the two tragedies, Commissario Guido Brunetti digs deep for an answer, stumbling upon a seedy Venetian bar that holds the key to a crime network that reaches far beyond the laguna.