Dark Crime Fiction

Angelina Bonaparte is starting from square one. After a messy divorce, the middle-aged librarian put down her books and picked up a new gig as a private investigator. When a mob boss heads to jail for his mistress' murder, she has no issue with the womanizing scumbag rotting in prison. But when the suspect's pregnant wife swears his innocence, Angelina can't find it in her heart to refuse the case. Already reluctant to get involved, her frustration grows when she's forced to work alongside Ted Wukowski, a homicide detective who thinks a crime scene is no place for a woman.

Sean Suh is done with killing. After serving three years in a psychiatric prison, he’s determined to stay away from temptation. But he can’t resist Annabelle - beautiful, confident, incandescent Annabelle - who alone can see past the monster to the man inside. The man he’s desperately trying to be. Then Annabelle disappears. Sean is sure she’s been kidnapped - he witnessed her being taken firsthand - but the police are convinced Sean himself is at the center of this crime. And he must admit, his illness has caused him to “lose time” before.

From this “master of the genre,” Christina Dodd, comes three suspenseful short stories of this “remarkable, mesmerizing series” (Library Journal starred review) set in the quaint—and deadly—coastal town of Virtue Falls.

After a stint inside, notorious gangster Nathan Conlon is back. He says he’s a changed man, but old habits die hard on Liverpool’s gritty streets. He’ll stop at nothing to reclaim his formidable criminal empire—and his long-suffering ex-wife, Grace. Grace once kissed the ground that Nathan walked on, but not anymore. She’s head of the firm now, commanding respect from the best of them, and she’ll do anything to protect her family—even if it means beating Nathan at the dirtiest of games.

After hitting rock bottom mentally via a road sign in Bedford, Danny Murdo bounces back and straight into the Serbian mafia, the Hungarian aristocracy, and an American film producer, amongst others, as he flounders through an Eastern Europe lurching worryingly to its right. He somehow solves crimes, aided by his heroic homosexual brother and hindered by his devoutly pious brother-in-law.

In the picturesque coastal town of Fire Beach, Dr. Garrett Young seeks redemption from a troubled past by dedicating his life to healing. Little does he know that his journey toward salvation will lead him down a perilous path of unexpected love and life-threatening danger. As Garrett rebuilds his life, he finds solace in the arms of Renee Mackey, one of his dedicated nurses. Despite her skepticism about love at first sight, Renee can't deny the magnetic pull between them. However, their budding romance takes a dark turn when Garrett is mysteriously kidnapped.

Brian and Iggy are suddenly living the urban legends and ghost stories they love as they witness a jet-black car cruising across the fog-laced, moonlit surface of Gray Lake. At the same moment, in the marshes to the north, the battle for dominance over a troubled gang of small-town meth dealers begins. For Scott Ignatowski, the demonic car's arrival heralds a downward spiral as he dreams of its sometimes lovely, sometimes ghastly occupants chauffeuring him into murky depths.

When a boarding school master at an exclusive boys' school is shot dead, it is deemed accidental. A lazy and usually drunk detective is sent to write up the report. Cardilini unexpectedly does not cooperate, as he becomes riled by the privileged arrogance of those at the school. He used to have instincts. Perhaps he should follow them now...With no real evidence he declares the shooting a murder and puts himself on a collision course with the powerful and elite of Perth. As he peels back layers, the school's dark secrets begin to emerge.

When Joe Christie's fishing boat is swept onto Tentsmuir beach during a fierce storm, a man's mutilated body is found in the hold. DCI Andy Gilchrist of St Andrews CID is called in to investigate. But his murder investigation deepens when he learns that Joe Christie and his boat have been missing for three years. The police pathologist, Dr Rebecca Cooper, retrieves a five pound note from the dead man's throat. Is this the killer's calling card?

Starr Wyman is hedged in on all sides: caring for her war-broken brother, tormented by her crooked father, still in mourning for the disappearance of her mother. Her father, the Bible-quoting “Wint” Wyman, dismisses her herbalist work as witchcraft, but when a body drops and her brother is responsible, Wint calls on Starr to make the corpse disappear. As the town's chief Alderman and drug kingpin, he can do that. Enter the mysterious Jase Patton, hunting an ivory artifact owned by Wint Wyman.

Dennis 'The Menace' Pike, former wild man of Tottenham, is going grey and going straight. Anyway, it was hard work being a yob - the birds, the brawls, the endless beers - and he hasn't really got the energy any more for life on the edge. Then two old faces turn up from the past - the Bishop brothers, Chas and Noel. Famously inept, they were bad news then, and they haven't aged well. What's worse, they need Pike's expertise on a scheme wealth distribution really - offloading one of the old gang's ill-gotten millions. Robbing the robbers - now what's criminal about that?

In this thriller that will grip you from the first minute until the very last twist, a young lawyer suffering from traumatic memory loss peels back her past to discover that she might be a killer.

When a young boy goes missing, DCI Will Blake and his team are led into the little-known subterranean world beneath the Wirral. But the investigation unearths the body of a man who has been missing for almost 60 years. Ernie Hughes, lead singer of the little known Merseybeat band Arthur and the Galahads, disappeared one November in 1964, the night before the band were off to chase their dreams in Hamburg. It appears that Ernie’s death was violent. Blake’s investigations take him back to the heady days of The Cavern Club and Liverpool during the swinging '60s.

Franny has one thing in common with Wan Huang, head of the notorious Triads gang: they both want Vaughn six feet under. When Harry brings Vaughn into his business and his fold, his life is protected - for now. But when Franny finds out the truth about Wan and Harry’s dark dealings, all hell breaks loose in Soho. And Vaughn is the key to helping Franny with the score she now has to settle; together with Alfie Jennings, they were once a formidable trio. But can bitter enemies once again become allies?

When Avery Hansen awakens, it's not to the warmth of her bed, but to the sterile white walls of an unfamiliar hospital room. Her mind races with fragments of the night before—a gathering of girlfriends at the local bar, laughter echoing in the air amid clinking glasses and upbeat chatter—now drowned by the eerie silence and the pungent scent of antiseptic.

Kitty Marchland has always known that her family isn't like others. But when her father uproots them to a remote cottage in the woods, she realises that her parents are keeping secrets from her - secrets that could unravel everything. Years later, Kitty starts to question what really happened out in the forest. When the police revisit a suspicious death, she must examine her most painful memories - and this time, there’s nowhere to hide.

In a quiet village surrounded by ancient woods and the imposing Italian Alps, a man is found naked with his eyes gouged out. It is the first in a string of gruesome murders. Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, a detective with a background in criminal profiling, is called to investigate. Battaglia is in her mid-60s, her rank and expertise hard-won from decades of battling for respect in the male-dominated Italian police force. Soon she finds that buried deep in these mountains are whispers of a dark and dangerous history, possibly tied to a group of eight-year-old children.

Special Agent Lisa Tanchik is the best at taking down cybercriminals. So when the FBI discovers a multibillion-dollar black market online, she’s tasked with finding the creator and bringing him to justice. Donning one of her many digital disguises, Tanchik goes undercover into the network. Brilliant college student Nate Fallon started his site as an idealistic experiment. But his platform has made illegal trade not only more efficient - but also more dangerous. Now the FBI aren’t the only ones out to get him.

The remote town of Oriska, New York, hasn't been home for Sydney Lucerno for 13 years. She's escaped the creeping addictions and long-simmering anger that are as much a part of the landscape as the bitter cold. But when she gets the call that her mother is dying, every secret and fear she left behind is waiting to welcome her back.

Serial killer Neva has been conditioned not to ask questions of the mysterious Network, to remain perfectly incurious and perennially cold-blooded. She must simply execute the targets they text her and live to bury the tale. But then she’s tasked with terminating a fellow assassin and glimpses her own future in her colleague’s fate. When she leaves flowers on the gravesite, someone notices.