Dark Crime Fiction

In a dingy office in Fisherman's Wharf, the glass panel in the door bears the names of A. Kimrean and Z. Kimrean. Private Eyes. Behind the door there is only one desk, one chair, one scrawny androgynous P.I. in a tank top and skimpy waistcoat. A.Z., as they are collectively known, are twin brother and sister. He's pure misanthropic logic, she's wild hedonistic creativity. The Kimreans have been locked in mortal battle since they were in utero...which is tricky because they, very literally, share one single body. That's right. One body, two pilots.

Detective Madison Knight thought a midnight drive through the countryside would help clear her mind, but she thought wrong. Her car runs out of gas, stranding her in the middle of nowhere in pitch darkness. When she gets out to stretch her legs, the beam of her phone’s flashlight lands on a suitcase in the ditch. After she opens it, she’s sorry she did.

FBI Agent Devon Mitchell is trying everything he can to move on with his life...except he can't. After losing the one person he loved more than life itself, he struggles to carry on with the guilt and burden of letting her go. When a new assignment in his old hometown lands on his desk, he can't help but feel drawn to it. But this isn't a case he was assigned, but a secret undercover mission that could ruin his career if his cover is blown.

The reviews called it "A Play to Die For" after the woman was found dead in the front row. It didn't seem so funny the next night, when another body was found - this time the playwright's, his throat slashed.

Detective Kathy Mallory takes over, but no matter what she asks, no one seems to be giving her a straight answer. The only person - if "person" is the right word - who seems to be clear is the ghostwriter. Every night, an unseen backstage hand chalks up line changes and messages on a blackboard. And the ghostwriter is now writing Mallory into the play itself, a play about a long-ago massacre that may not be at all fictional.

Detective Sanne Jensen (not blonde, not tall, definitely not Scandinavian) and Dr. Meg Fielding (scruffy, scatterbrained, prone to swearing at patients) are lifelong best friends, sharing the same deprived background and occasionally the same bed. When a violent kidnapping stuns the Peak District village of Rowlee, both women become involved in the case.

A wave of apparent suicides hits a string of seaside resorts, but when a police officer is named as the latest to die, DI Amy Winter suspects there may be more than mere coincidence to these tragic deaths. But what dark motive could cause someone to throw themselves into the cold depths of the North Sea? Someone in the community knows more, but Amy’s questions are met with resistance. A group of mysterious teenagers might hold the key, but why are they so afraid to talk? Meanwhile, after the release from prison of her serial killer mother, Amy is fighting her own demons.

Professor Hans Rekke is a world authority on interrogation techniques, capable of dizzying feats of logic and observation. He was born into wealth and power and has a picture-perfect wife and daughter. But he also has a fragile psyche that falls apart under pressure. Micaela Vargas is a street-smart police officer, the daughter of Chilean political refugees, who grew up in the projects on the outskirts of Stockholm and has two brothers on the wrong side of the law. She is tenacious and uncompromising, and desperate to prove herself to her fellow cops.

Fin Fleming is an accomplished scuba diver and chief underwater photographer at a famed oceanography institute on Grand Cayman. Her best friends disappear, and it doesn’t take long for the kidnapper to contact her with demands. Since the kidnapping occurred on the water, the police have asked for her help. She’d do anything to save her friends, so she dives right in to solve the mystery. But it’s not easy. There’s a killer shark in the area and someone is stealing scuba tanks from her dive shop.

In Alaska, people disappear every day. In Aleut detective Kate Shugak's Park, they've been disappearing a lot lately. Hikers head into the wilderness unprepared and get lost. Miners quit without notice at the busy Suulutaq Mine. Suicides leave farewell notes and vanish. Not only are Park rats disappearing at an alarming rate, but so is life in the Park as Kate knows it.

After years of abandonment, Raven Hall has been restored to its former glory. For one night only, it is playing host to an evening of murder mystery. The guests have gathered. The roles have been cast. But someone is playing a sinister game, one with devastating consequences. And as the guests are about to discover, the truth is much darker than fiction.

Influenced by Vonnegut, Jose Saramago, David Foster Wallace, Will Ferguson, Lynn Coady, and the Coen Brothers, Buddy Roy Baldry inhabits the wildlands of Canada, where he writes darkly humorous novels about the everyday human neurosis of ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

This collection contains Book 1 - Undercurrents, Book 2 – Drowned Voices, and Book 3 – Emergence.

It's a bad time for unfinished business to come back and haunt him, forcing Daniel Faust to confront his tortured history and the family he left behind. It's an even worse time for his surviving foes to join forces and take deadly aim at Faust's throne. Toss in a syndicate operative from a parallel world, a deranged, half-demon assassin hungry for a duel, and the shadowy machinations of the King of Worms, and the stage is set for a showdown under the neon lights of Vegas.

When a young woman's body is discovered on a popular jogging trail in Birmingham, Detective Inspector Bernard Watts and his team are plunged into a disturbing murder investigation. Not only has the woman been violently stabbed - her head is missing. When a close examination of the crime scene results in a shocking discovery linking the present murder to a past crime, criminologist Will Traynor is brought in to assist the police. Aware of Traynor's troubled past, Watts is sceptical that he will bring anything useful to the investigation. He's about to be proved very wrong.

When someone burns down the home of the school janitor and he dies in the blaze, everyone in Addamsville, Indiana, points a finger at Zora. Never mind that Zora has been on the straight and narrow since her father was thrown in jail. With everyone looking for evidence against her, her only choice is to uncover the identity of the real killer. There’s one big problem - Zora has no leads. No one does. Addamsville has a history of tragedy, and 30 years ago a similar string of fires left several townspeople dead. The arsonist was never caught.

It's the score of a lifetime: easy access to a lavish New York City apartment, hordes of valuables, and an absentee owner avoiding the lawyers of his unhappy ex-wives. But before they pull the job, Dortmunder's crew is startled to find their beloved gin joint, the OJ, in the clutches of the Mafia--who consider it perfect for a little fraud, courtesy of a nice big fire. For tactical and highly superstitious reasons, the fate of the OJ is even more important to the crew than the enormous score.

Detective CJ O’Hara is finally getting a grip on life. Recently promoted and in a promising relationship, her instincts scream foul play when she responds to a reported heart attack at a bed and breakfast. Smelling a hint of vanilla in the air and noticing scratches on the victim’s back, she suspects she’s looking for a murderess.

Sam and Haley Quaid buried their 10-year-old son and then ended their marriage, all in one week. It wasn’t a volatile divorce, but three years later, except for trading Christmas cards, Sam and Haley have completely lost touch...until a dramatic weather report sets their paths on a collision course once more. Tropical Storm Gladys is heading straight toward coastal Texas, and locals are anxious as they prepare for potential devastation. Haley, a realtor, has an appointment to show a property and is determined to keep it, but a hurricane isn’t the only looming danger.

Actor Nora Blake finds her dream job when she is cast in a murder-mystery troupe that performs in an imposing but captivating old castle. When she stumbles upon a real murder, things take a nightmarish turn in this first book in an exciting new series.

Jacob Reese enjoys the quiet life, running a coffee shop and renting out his cottage in The Hollows, Vermont. But the calm is shattered when a woman who looks eerily similar to his ex-girlfriend Laura turns up to stay in the cottage, and leaves a mysterious note in the guest book. Now Jacob’s seeing Laura everywhere - a glimpse of her face across the street, her music box left outside his house, a gift he gave her years before hanging from the trees. But it can’t be Laura. Because Laura’s dead.