Crime Noir

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....

The first the police know of the crime is when clips are sent from the victim's Snapchat account, showing her begging for forgiveness. The CCTV at the cinema where she was working show her being dragged into the night by a masked killer. When the body is found, it is marked with a number 2...Detective Huldar joins the murder investigation, bringing child psychologist Freyja on board to help question the murdered teenager's friends. Soon, they uncover that Stella was far from the angel people claim: a relentless bully, she made life miserable for those around her.

A serial killer stalks women in rural Ohio. He is deranged but brilliant, known only by the grotesque nickname the media has given him - The Doll Parts Killer. The name is apt. He dismembers his victims and leaves them in garbage bags in public places. A residential neighborhood. Next to a roller rink. Behind a Burger King. The investigation is a disaster. No physical evidence. Unreliable witnesses. To make matters worse, the FBI has lost contact with the star profiler working the case.

Rene Beckman is a dishonored ex-cop with only two things on his mind: his new boat, the Triggerfish; and his hot date, an environmentalist named Vicki. When the two unknowingly dock the boat in the same secluded cove as a Mexican cartel's drug submarine, the date ends with a bang. With the cartel's coke-for-guns deal with local bikers torched by Beckman, he's forced to go on the run with half the underworld chasing him through the streets of Vancouver and the waters surrounding it.

Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns - it's standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He's a slumlord, a bagman, an enforcer, a power in his own small corner of hell. Then the Feds announce a full-out investigation into local police corruption, and everything goes haywire. Klein's been hung out as bait, "a bad cop to draw the heat", and the heat's coming from all sides.

At the age of twenty-four, Griselda Satter lee has already lived two lifetimes. A star of the silver screen, she gives up Hollywood after a year and moves to New York to become a designer. While her ex-husband, Con, is out of town, she is staying in his apartment. Walking back one night, she meets two cheerful young men who want to go home with her - and won't take no for an answer.

An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one, grisly solution; a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.

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.

Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case.

Adam Rubinstein and Sunil Rao have been nemeses and reluctant partners since their Uzbekistan days. Adam is a seemingly unflappable American Intelligence officer; Rao is ex-MI6, an addict and rudderless pleasure-hound with an uncanny ability to discern the truth about anything and anyone—except Adam. Adam and Rao have gone their separate ways until they are called back together when a full-sized, 1950s American diner shows up in an English farmer's field and a mysterious death ensues.

The crime fiction canopy's a broad one, with room to give shelter to writing of all sorts, as editor Lawrence Block shows with At Home in the Dark.

Il existe, quelque part en Asie du Sud-Est, entre le tropique du Cancer et la ligne de l'Équateur, une autre ligne. Une ligne noire jalonnée de corps et d'effroi.

On a remote island off the coast of Maine lies a secluded estate. There, behind wrought iron gates and rock walls, sits Halcyon Hall. Today, it is an exclusive spa catering to wealthy elites and pampered celebrities. But once, it had another name - and a terrifying reputation.... Rosemary Tulle has come to Halcyon Hall desperate to find her younger sister. Seventeen-year-old Genevieve left a brief, troubling message on Rosemary's phone, begging to be picked up. But Rosemary is not on the visitor list, and no one will let her in....

Spenser has gone to London -- and not to see the Queen. He's gone to track down a bunch of bombers who've blown away his client's wife and kids. His job is to catch them. Or kill them. His client isn't choosy. But there are nine killers to one Spenser -- long odds. Hawk helps balance the equation. The rest depends on a wild plan. Spenser will get one of the terrorists to play Judas Goat -- to lead him to others.

Everyone knew the kind of girl Jean Timberlake was: wild, looking for trouble. But she certainly wasn't looking for murder. She was found dead on the beach 17 years ago, and an ex-boyfriend named Bailey Fowler was convicted of her murder and imprisoned, and then escaped. Now private eye Kinsey Millhone steps into a case that should have never been closed, in a town where there's no such thing as a private investigation.

When Angela met Jason Powell while catering a dinner party in East Hampton, she assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling, like so many relationships between locals and summer visitors. To her surprise, Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, had other plans, and they married the following summer. For Angela, the marriage turned out to be a chance to reboot her life. She and her son were finally able to move out of her mother's home to Manhattan, where no one knew about her tragic past.

They call him el Carnicero—the Butcher. He is the most powerful drug lord on the planet, and when the city of New York incurs his wrath, he utters a single word: “¡Venganza!” With military precision, he strafes Central Park with 4,000 pounds of cocaine, killing hundreds of innocent people enjoying a summer afternoon.

London, June 1965. Karl Braun arrives as a lodger in Pimlico: hatless, with a bow-tie, greying hair, slight in build. His new neighbours are intrigued by this cultured German gentleman who works as a piano tuner; many are fellow émigrés, who assume that he, like them, came to England to flee Hitler. That summer, Braun courts a woman, attends classical concerts, dances the twist. But as the newspapers fill with reports of the hunt for Nazi war criminals, his nightmares become increasingly worse.

Atlantica - the forgotten isle, the glittering gem in the cesspool of humanity's future. Anything you do inside your own home is allowed. Those with obscene wealth find it a haven, while every major country of in the world craves the secrets they believe are buried in the mist. Where mystery happens, John Chambers can exist: ex-soldier, gritty realist, detective. It's whispered that John "Dick" Chambers is the man you go to when you need someone who can't be bought.

Los Angeles is not itself. Rain falls hard every day. Homeless men are set on fire in their tents. Detective Sam Carver chases leads into a maze of militias and neo-Nazis. But before he gets too deep into the case, a past that has haunted him for years returns in the name of Dylan Cross. The killer who got away. Carver knows she has murdered again, but no one believes him. She leaves him clues, writes him notes, tempts him. She wants him to betray everything he is. He is drawn to her by the damage and demons they both carry.