Crime Mystery Fiction

When frantic, disheveled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation. The cocreator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity.

Even though working a wake isn’t Goldy Bear’s idea of fun, the Colorado caterer throws herself into preparing a savory feast featuring Poached Salmon and Strawberry Shortcake Buffet designed to soothe forty mourners. Her culinary efforts seem to be exactly what the doctor ordered … until her former father-in-law, gynecologist Fritz Korman, is struck down—and Goldy is accused of adding poison to the menu.

When Robin Ellacott opens an unexpected delivery, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman's severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but just as alarmed. He suspects that four people from his past could be responsible - and any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality. With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike has essentially ruled out, he and Robin take matters into their own hands and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men.

Hi, I'm Keshav, and my life is screwed. I hate my job and my girlfriend left me. Ah, the beautiful Zara. Zara is from Kashmir. She is a Muslim. And did I tell you my family is a bit, well, traditional? Anyway, leave that. Zara and I broke up four years ago. She moved on. I didn't. I drank every night to forget her, I called, I messaged, and stalked her on social media. She just ignored me. However, that night, on the eve of her birthday, Zara messaged me. She called me over, like old times, to her hostel room 105.

Serge and sidekick Coleman head out west to take on Hollywood bigwigs and L.A. lowlifes in Dorsey's most outrageous novel yet. Before Tinseltown knows what's hit it, Serge has made an unforgettable foray to the Playboy Mansion and come up against Japanese Yakuza and a host of wacky characters.

Meet the Wolf. Joe Wolf. He’s the head of a multibillion-dollar empire—a newspaper, a holding company, a football team—and the head of a family that puts King Lear to shame. His empire shows signs of crumbling when he’s approached with an “offer” to sell. It’s clear from the start that Joe is going to pay the ultimate price—and maybe more—if he refuses.

A young "national model worker," renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career-perhaps even his life-to see justice done.

From the first moment single mother Nicolette Winchester held her daughter in her arms, she knew she'd do everything in her power to keep her safe. Now 18 years old, Ella is bright, kind, and a cello prodigy headed for Juilliard. Nicolette can't help but feel proud of the young woman her daughter's become. Then Ella calls home one night. There's been an accident. A classmate is dead. And Ella is the only one on the scene. To protect her daughter, Nicolette makes an unthinkable decision.

Newly minted San Francisco police detective Manhattan Sloane lets no one get close. Especially lovers. Sloane has her reasons for keeping the world at arm's length. But then her first childhood crush, DEA Agent Finn Harper, reappears and changes everything. Harper has arrived in San Francisco to investigate a new street drug weaving its way into the city - a drug that has personal ties for Sloane. The two find themselves thrown together as they team up to take down a ruthless cartel lord. Soon, sparks fly as old feelings surface.

Dr. Siri Paiboun, the ex-national coroner of Laos, may have more experience dissecting bodies than making art, but when he manages to smuggle a fancy movie camera into the country he devises a plan to shoot a Lao adaptation of War and Peace. The only problem? The Ministry of Culture must approve the script first. That and he can't figure out how to turn on the camera. Meanwhile, the skeleton of a woman has appeared under the Anusawari Arch in the middle of the night. Siri assists his friend, the newly promoted Senior Police Inspector Phosy Vongvichai, with the ensuing investigation.

Ice: The fighting cage made me a monster, and that's what came out when they freed me. She thinks I saved her from monsters, but she just fell into the hands of an even bigger one. She also thinks we're falling in love. She's wrong. I forgot how to do that. Besides, love's not what I want from her. She should've run away from me when I told her to do it. Because now it's too late. Barbie: I'm not letting him toss me aside. I'm staying right where I am, in his arms, and in his bed, and on the back of his bike.

His existence shattered by the Great War, Bennett Grey is investigated by an American agent who thinks he may be useful for protecting national security. U.S. Bureau of Investigation agent Harris Stuyvesant's first inclination is to let his fists do the talking. But he's well out of his jurisdiction, having traveled across the Atlantic to dig up clues on an Englishman he believes responsible for terrorist acts in the States.

Lorenzo Gambini is bored. So f--king bored. Most people either annoy him or avoid him, afraid to face him. Figuratively. Literally. With his face partially disfigured, scarred, he looks every bit the monster the stories make him out to be: the notorious Scar. They say he's a sociopath. Maybe he's a psychopath. Whatever path he's on, people tend to stay far away from it. Until one day, a young woman bumps right into him - a woman just as fed up with life, but for much different reasons.

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the best-selling crime writer for years, she's intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan's traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.

Covert government operative Danielle Laidlaw leads an expedition into the deepest reaches of the Amazon in search of a legendary Mayan city. Assisted by a renowned university professor and protected by a mercenary named Hawker, her team journeys into the tangled rain forest - unaware that they are replacements for a group that vanished weeks before, and that the treasure they are seeking is no mere artifact but a breakthrough discovery that could transform the world.

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer....

Caroline Overington's stunning fiction debut is a multi-voiced novel centred around a child's death and its terrible repercussions. In 1982 Victorian police were called to a home on a housing estate an hour west of Melbourne. There, they found a five-year-old boy lying still and silent on the carpet. There were no obvious signs of trauma, but the child, Jacob, died the next day. The story made the headlines, and hundreds attended the funeral. Few people were surprised when the boy's mother and her boyfriend went to prison for the crime.

They struck in a pack, in the dead of night. They had crept in like thieves, like the cowards they were...but it wasn't robbery they had in mind. It was something much darker. Smoke Jensen was buying cattle 100 miles away from his Colorado ranch when he got the news. Drawing two horses from the remuda, he saddled up, rode off...and didn't stop until he reached his wife's side. She had been shot three times, and lay close to death. Smoke Jensen knew the outlaws had come to kill him. He wouldn't give them a second chance. He was going after them. And he wasn't taking any prisoners.

When a sniper kills four people on Boston Common, Boston homicide detective Mike Houston and his partner Anne Bouchard are sent to investigate the case. Amidst the blood and terror, Houston discovers similarities, likenesses the killer’s positioning, his choice of victims, and his code of ethics between the crime scene and his own training as a US Marine scout and sniper. And with the staging of the scene set for prime shock value, Houston has to wonder what it is this murderer intends to accomplish.

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. So here I am, backstage at the show of world-famous magician Rylan Blaze, whose benefactor has just been murdered. My suspects are all professional tricksters: masters of the art of misdirection.