Crime Noir

Nightmare Alley is American author William Lindsay Gresham’s first and best-known work. The novel - most admired by noir fiction fans - was published in 1946, adapted into a film in 1947 starring Tyrone Power and subsequently printed as a graphic novel by Spain Rodriquez. During the 1940s Gresham worked as an editor for a genuine crime pulp magazine in New York, during which period he wrote this book; characters range from hustlers to Machiavellian femme fatales in a dark world of show business.

By all accounts, Carol and Roy Opgard are doing quite well for themselves. Or at least they are doing as well as can be expected in a small town like Os. Carl manages the area's swanky and successful spa, while Roy runs the local gas station and dreams of building it into an entire amusement park complete with a roller coaster. But then news breaks about a new highway that will bypass Os and leave the town cut off and isolated. Something has to be done about that, even if the methods need to be dirty. Fortunately, Roy and Carl have experience with dirty work.

In Ostia, a depressed coastal settlement 20 miles from the powerful and corrupt city of Rome, a mighty local crime family, the Mafia, corrupt politicians, and new rabid criminal elements battle each other for a billion-dollar payoff. During the final days of Silvio Berlusconi's reign, a massive development proposal that will turn Ostia into a gambling paradise, a Las Vegas on the Mediterranean, is winding its way through the Italian legislature thanks to the sponsorship of politicians in the pay of crime syndicates with vested interests.

Three citizens are butchered during a liquor store holdup. An unstable veteran cop vanishes without a trace. Nothing connects these events except for a nagging hunch in the back of Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins' brain--a sinister foreboding that will lead him through the sin-and-sleaze playground of nighttime L.A. on the trail of a psycho psychiatrist with a talent for terror and mind-control. His gore-soaked journey through Hell will plunge this determined manhunter into the dark heart of madness--and beyond.

Quarry doesn't kill just anybody these days. He restricts himself to targeting other hitmen, availing his marked-for-death clients of two services: eliminating the killers sent after them, and finding out who hired them…and then removing that problem as well. So far he's rid of the world of nobody who would be missed. But this time he finds himself zeroing in on the grieving family of a missing cheerleader. Does the hitman's hitman have the wrong quarry in his sights?

He slowly eased back on the throttle and brought the boat to a stop on the desolate river. They zipped the large canvas bag shut and then hoisted the body over the side of the boat and watched as it slipped beneath the dark surface. Looking to the west, they could see fiery storm clouds were brewing - an eery sign of the fire storm of brutal killings and ruthless revenge to come. Detective Mac McRyan returns home to Minnesota to find the dead body of a retired police detective in the scraggly trees along the rough shores of an island in the Mississippi River.

As a massive storm batters the Scottish coast, Gordon Smith’s home is falling into the sea. The trouble is: that’s where he’s been hiding the bodies. It’s too dangerous to go near the place, so there’s no way of knowing how many people he’s murdered. Or how many more he’ll kill before he’s caught. As more horrors are discovered, ex-detective Ash Henderson is done playing nice. He’s got a killer to catch, and God help anyone who gets in his way.

Lawyer Bobby Carter did a lot of work for the wrong type of people. Now he’s dead and it was no accident. Besides a distraught family and a heap of powerful friends, Carter’s left behind his share of enemies. So, who dealt the fatal blow? DC Jack Laidlaw’s reputation precedes him. He’s not a team player, but he’s got a sixth sense for what’s happening on the streets. His boss chalks the violence up to the usual rivalries, but is it that simple? As two Glasgow gangs go to war, Laidlaw needs to find out who got Carter before the whole city explodes.

David Rivers is no ordinary mercenary. He’s just been assigned command of a team in the international criminal war raging in South America. But the Triple Frontier region is deadly. Narcos and terrorists rule its remote jungle, and David must lead his team into the heart of danger. Getting in is easy. Getting out might be impossible. When a high-risk recon mission turns deadly, David’s team must fight for survival against overwhelming odds. Desperate and on the run, they use everything at their disposal just to stay alive.

Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965 - 30 years after its original publication - Despair is the wickedly inventive and richly derisive story of Hermann, a man who undertakes the perfect crime: his own murder. One of the 20th century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator.

Even a city that boasts three hundred days of sunshine a year has its sudden, often violent storms—and writers have long taken advantage of that metaphor. Renowned authors Katherine Anne Porter, Jack Kerouac, Stephen King, Rex Burns, Robert Greer, Michael Connelly, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine—among many others—have brilliantly portrayed this picturesque but often merciless city. Today, Denver is home to a thriving literary scene, with writers of all stripes finding inspiration in its people and streets. The authors and stories featured in Denver Noir are no exception....

Prohibition. Mobsters, murder, and mayhem. FBI agents. Cops, robbers, and worse. Sound like the background for a Hollywood epic? It's Ernest Marquez's latest very true story of the renowned gambling ships that anchored in Santa Monica Bay in the 1920s and 1930s. It's the story of Tony Cornero, the cockiest gangster who ever bootlegged a bottle of scotch, the man who helped found Las Vegas, and the smooth operator of the most glamorous gambling ship in the Pacific, the Rex.

Alicia Bjelke has always been the "other sister," the foil to her beautiful sister Stella—people turn their backs when they see Alicia's disfigured face. So she created a life in the background, becoming a coding genius and founding a groundbreaking dating app company. With Stella as the face of the company, Alicia has found success. Until one day, when Stella is found dead and Alicia’s life takes the wrong turn. Soon, she realizes that she is the next target.

John McFetridge takes us deep inside the gray zone on the Canadian and American border, delivering up-to-the-minute twists and edgy action.... Vernard "Get" McGetty is back from serving in Afghanistan, back dealing drugs in Detroit and looking to move up with his buddy JT, a guy he met in Kandahar who also happens to be the leader of the Saints of Hell—a notorious Ontario biker gang currently in the process of taking over all north-of-the-border drug traffic.

From the creator, writer, and executive producer of the HBO series True Detective and soon to be a major motion picture comes a dark and visceral novel set along the wastelands of Galveston. On the same day Roy Cady is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he learns that his employer has put a hit out on him. After narrowly escaping an attempt on his life, Cady goes on the run with a young prostitute named Rocky and her three-year-old sister, from New Orleans to Galveston, Texas. But though they run, they cannot hide in this explosive, atmospheric, impossible-to-pause thrill ride.

With the scars of her last case still fresh on her skin, DI Jamie Johansson is piecing together a puzzle that’s been buried for 20 years. It killed her father, and now she’s determined to finish what he started and expose the corruption threaded through every street of Stockholm. When a series of violent incidents rock Jamie’s fragile existence in Sweden, she’s faced with a choice - drop the case, or have her loan to Stockholm Police terminated.

In the glorious sunshine of Oxford, on a day when everyone should be celebrating, tragedy strikes when a university student is found floating in the river, dead. Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday finds herself paired with coroner Clement Ryder to investigate and it soon becomes clear that this case is not going to be easy. The witnesses all refuse to give a straight answer, each new lead sends them in a new direction and tales of other missing youngsters add further mystery to the investigation.

In the final scene of Cape Diamond, millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds went missing, which is where Ron Corbett’s latest novel begins. When rumors spread that they were buried on Mission Road, an old logging trail outside the town, people swarm to the area, setting up temporary camps and searching for fortune. But when a known murderer shows up, the real mystery begins.

After years of struggling in the Chicago theater scene, ambitious actress Kira Rascher finally lands the role of a lifetime. The catch? The mercurial Malcolm Mercer is the director, and he’s known for pushing his performers past their limits - on stage and off. Kira’s convinced she can handle Malcolm, but the theater’s cofounder, Joanna Cuyler, is another story.

Spenser's out to make war, not love, as he goes after Boston's entire X-rated industry. Pretty teenager April Kyle has disappeared into the city's darkest underworld, and to rescue her, Spencer pits muscle and wit against bullets and bullies.