Dark Crime Fiction

Three years ago, DCI Laura Hart was the top hostage and crisis negotiator for the Greater Manchester Police. Then her husband was kidnapped. Despite her best efforts to reason with the criminals, he was brutally murdered. Now living on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, Laura is slowly healing. Then she gets a call: armed drug dealers have seized a tourist boat—and her 10-year-old son Jake is on board. There’s no other negotiator available, and the police need her to step up.

Henry and his wife, Frances, have gone bamboo - living an idyllic, tequila-drenched life as two of the Caribbean's most charming expatriates (and professional assassins). But when Charlie "Wagons" Iannello, a powerful capo with a heart of gold, is relocated to the island under the Federal Witness Protection Program, Henry and Frances' plan suddenly, dangerously falls apart.

When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed, elderly writer falls to his death in the local theater, Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one and secrets and lies are a way of life. Past plays tag with the present and the claustrophobic tension mounts as Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness - blinded by snow and with a killer on the loose.

All Bunny McGarry wants is a spot of breakfast and a decent cup of tea. So imagine how annoyed he gets when two masked men attempt to rob the New York diner he is in. Unfortunately, dealing with that problem just leads to a whole lot more. One of the diner’s other customers isn’t who she appears to be, and the odds aren’t great that she is going to live to see another breakfast.

Addison Stern is unparalleled when it comes to spinning a story. A ruthless PR executive, Addison is the star employee of the infamous Ovid Blackwell Group where the rich and famous go to hide all their secrets. Connor Windell, on the other hand, is in the business of finding out information others would rather keep hidden. He used to be LA's top private investigator until a betrayal from his ex-girlfriend ruined his reputation and sent him into early retirement. That ex? None other than Addison Stern. Connor has one chance to redeem himself and salvage his career, but he needs Addison’s help.

The feds want Miami bookmaker Harry Arno to squeal on his wiseguy boss. So they're putting word out on the street that Arno's skimming profits from "Jimmy Cap" Capotorto - which he is, but everybody does it. He was planning to retire to Italy someday anyway, so Harry figures now's a good time to get lost. U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens knows Harry's tricky - the bookie ditched him once in an airport while in the marshal's custody - but not careful.

Morris Duckworth can't get over Massimina, or Mimi, as he likes to refer to her. But then, he should have thought of that before he kidnapped and killed her. Only now, living in Verona and married to Mimi's sister, does he appreciate how much he misses her and how blindly he has stumbled into a trap of fate. Struggling to adjust to his good fortune, with a lavish house and cushy job, our unsavory hero finds that his new success is rife with tribulation: not least his pushy bride's staggering sexual appetite.

Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever. Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more.

Almost everyone in prison will tell you they’re in there for a crime they didn’t commit, but Anthony Rourke really means it. That’s because he’s actually Bunny McGarry, who has got himself into one of Nevada’s finest penitentiaries under false pretenses. He is there to bust someone else out.

Legendary bush pilot Josie Jonson can’t believe her luck when a skilled builder just happens to show up after she purchases land near Prentiss Pond. All Mark Redmond asks in return for building Josie’s dream cabin is that he be left alone to homeschool his 12-year-old daughter, Cady. For Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch, the intensity of Redmond's secretiveness is troubling, especially in light of suspicious criminal activity being reported around the area―including rumors of an armed man offering large sums of money in exchange for the location of Redmond and Cady.

DCI Mark Joesbury has been expecting this. Monitoring a complex network of dark web sites, Joesbury and his team have spotted a new terrorist threat from the extremist, women-hating, group known as 'incels' or 'involuntary celibates.' Joesbury's team are trying to infiltrate the ring of power at its core, but the dark web is built for anonymity, and the incel army is vast. Pressure builds when the team learn the snatched child was just the first in a series of violent attacks designed to terrorise women.

They call me a playboy. Society’s pretty pet. What they don’t know is I’m so much more. My only directive was to keep her hidden, and safe. After everything she’s been through I’m the last person to offer comfort and care. I have little experience with either. Both of us have been broken by our pasts. But mine is catching up to me, and I would deal with it as I usually do: with total decimation. But that puts her in the crosshairs, and that’s unacceptable.

Albinus, a respectable, middle-aged man and aspiring filmmaker, abandons his wife for a lover half his age: Margot, who wants to become a movie star. When Albinus introduces her to Rex, an American movie producer, disaster ensues. What emerges is an elegantly sardonic and irresistibly ironic novel of desire, deceit, and deception, a curious romance set in the film world of Berlin in the 1930s.

Deranged and violent. Gorgeous but frightening. I’m a businessman, so when one of my debtors offers me his fiancé in exchange for a debt settled, I figure why not? The woman will be a quick sell. Repayment comes in the form of a beautiful but haunted young woman. The light in her tempts the darkness inside of me. Teases it, tortures it. I want to hurt her. I want to break her. I want to keep her. Luckily for Celia, she fails to see that there is no goodness in me.

Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven't all been together in years. And for very good reasons - we'll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and - more importantly - secure their inheritance. But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone. It's even harder when you're all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory, a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck....

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.

Rowan Wolff was five years old when she, her brother, and their babysitter were kidnapped by a serial killer in the Pacific Northwest. The babysitter was murdered. Rowan was saved. Her brother was killed and buried in the forest, his remains never found. The convicted killer refuses to say where he buried the boy. Twenty-five years later, Rowan is committed to search and rescue with her faithful canine and is obsessed with finding her brother’s grave—and closure.

Seth Ramsey is a normal guy, working a normal job in Tempe, Arizona. He stops for coffee every morning at the Stardust Café. The only thing wrong with his life is the suicide of his sister. What he doesn't know is that his sister was also a patron of the café, and that her connection to the establishment may have led to her murder, not suicide. Uncovering her relationship with the café owner, Tomas, Seth is determined to find out the truth, even as it leads him to a group of "Delegates" who have unusual abilities. How will Seth navigate this new reality and get the answers he needs?

When a gambling debt puts him between a rock and a swim in the Hudson with concrete shoes, Smithy has no choice but to take the worst job imaginable. The gig - as prey in a leprechaun hunt for a bunch of Wall Street jerks - goes as badly as it sounds. He could leave it there and write it off as a harsh lesson learned, but 14 months later when Smithy comes up with a plan to take his revenge on the man behind it all, it is too good to resist.

Sergeant Logan McRae is in trouble.... His missing-persons investigation has just turned up a body in the woods - naked, hands tied behind its back, and a bin bag duct taped over its head. The Major Investigation Team charges up from Aberdeen under the beady eye of Logan's ex-boss, Detective Chief Inspector Steel. And, as usual, she wants him to do her job for her.