Dark Humor Mystery

Southern California, 1996: a peaceful, scenic day in the coastal community of Santa Monica, except that there is a meter maid lying next to the sidewalk–dead. Fresh from a messy divorce case, North Hollywood private investigator Clive Wilts is on the case to find the killer before the bodies start stacking up and the city streets become a parking free-for-all.

It’s winter break at Treemeadow College, and theater professors and spouses Nicky Abbondanza and Noah Oliver, their best friends Martin and Ruben, and their sons, Taavi and Ty, are starring in a television pilot for the Nicky and Noah Mysteries series based on their first caper, Drama Queen. More is shot than footage as cast members drop like giant, flat-screen TVs mounted by an intoxicated carpenter. Once again, our favorite thespians will need to use their drama skills to catch the killer before they get cancelled.

To prevent the chaos and destruction they could impose upon the world, an age-old system has been in existence forcing beings of darkness and power to use humanity's legal systems. Snug safely under a "blanket of ignorance", most humans remain unaware of the existence of supernatural beings and the legal disputes which involve them. A select few professionals are required to participate and assist in the resolution of paranormal conflicts. Martin Sandberg is one of those professionals. This is his story.

The day after an epically hideous and embarrassing disaster, Allison comes to school transformed. Suddenly she's sporting a cute new hairstyle, and she has all the right answers in class. With the help of a strangely wise freshman boy, Jane discovers the unbelievable truth behind the drastic change: Allison has sold her soul to the devil. Now it's up to Jane to put it all on the line to save her friend - without losing her own soul in the process.

It's 1998. The Internet age is still in its infancy. Google has just been founded. Eighteen-year-old supermarket shelf-stacker Nigel Carmelite has decided that he's going to become a vigilante. There are a few problems: how is he going to even find crime to fight on the streets of Derbyshire? How will he create a superhero costume - and an arsenal of crime-fighting weaponry - on a shoestring budget?

All Nick wants to do is take his dying father for a perfect father-son weekend in the Scottish Highlands. It’s not much to ask, is it? A log cabin, a roaring fire, a bottle of fine whiskey, and two days to paper over the cracks in their relationship. However, Nick didn’t plan on making the trip with a dead neighbour in the back of his car. Or the neighbour’s dog. He really didn’t plan on being pursued by a psychotic female assassin intent on collecting body parts.

When Ren Sharpe was 14, she was kidnapped by a shadowy organization called FATE and trained to be a human weapon. Now, four years later, she receives her assignment: protect Gareth Young at all costs. Currently a student at Texas A&M, Gareth will someday change the world. FATE calls people like Gareth "FIPs" - future important people - and they're everywhere, each with a FATE-trained shadow.

Kate and Michael, twenty-something housemates working at the same Trader Joe’s supermarket, are thoroughly screwed when people start turning into zombies at their house party in the Oakland hills. The zombie plague is a sexually transmitted disease, turning its victims into shambling, horny, voracious killers.

Rock star Castor Greaves and his model girlfriend vanished twenty years ago after an infamous gig in Soho. According to urban myth they’re still alive - holed up somewhere by the Golden Road, a fabled music-industry 'disappearing' service - so when PI Kenny Gabriel is hired to solve the notorious case, he knows he’ll need to watch his back. But Kenny’s life is in danger already: a brain tumour is messing with his mind, and he may well have nothing to lose. Stalking the seedy clubs and backstreets of Soho, he makes a gruesome discovery....

The housing market is depressed. But not as depressed as anyone who spends a night at 668 Langford Place. The decaying mansion next door - number 666 - will soon see the return of Bog-Muggoth, an ancient, evil demon that makes the Amityville Horror seem like Casper the Friendly Ghost. But Bog-Muggoth isn’t making his haunted house call alone. Other vile gods from beyond time and space will be joining in the festivities to make the world their oyster - and leave it an empty shell.

After Jake quits the drug business, his realtor/ex-wife, Nina, gets him a job as a housesitter for her wealthy clients. Jake celebrates by throwing a party in the mansion he was hired to look after. Unfortunately, the guest list gets out of hand, leaving Jake to contend with a hallucinogenic-vitamin-dispensing yogi, a dead guy in the bathroom, and the Norwegian - a criminal force of nature with a grudge against Jake.

Criminal defense investigator Cecil Younger spends his days coaching would-be felons on how to avoid incriminating themselves. When Sherrie, a returning client with a good heart but a penchant for bad boys, asks him to track down some evidence that will help with her case, Cecil agrees. Cecil treks out to the shady apartment complex she mentioned, only to find his teenage daughter, Blossom, inside. He manages to get both the box Sherrie wanted and his daughter safely home, and later discovers the "evidence" is a large pile of cash - fifty thousand dollars, to be exact.

A finely tuned comic depiction of Melbourne's ethnically diverse northern suburbs and the dark underbelly of city life. Down on his luck and hard up for cash, Carl works in the kitchen of a seedy rock 'n' roll joint in ethnically diverse Brunswick. The bouncers and bosses terrify him, he's desperately in love with a much younger Greek waitress, and to make matters worse his mother has come to stay with him. Then a dead body turns up. He and his best mate, Dave, will have to do something about it, and fast....

Words come easily to writer Danni Hewitt. If only success did the same. The news of America's latest reality sweetheart inking a major book deal sends Danni spiraling into depression, to the point where the idea of soothing her jealousy with a murderous rampage appeals to her. Of course, this requires getting close enough to Krystal Kordova and her family to draw blood, something Danni achieves when she manages to land a job as Krystal's ghostwriter.

Don't you trust me? I mean, look at me. Blond, blue eyed, the very image of innocence. Pretty enough, if you care about that kind of thing. I don't. But would a normal person switch identities with some wet mess of a girl at the airport just to get her to stop bawling about being separated from her loser boyfriend and sent to live with some distant relatives? Nope, she wouldn't. Yet I did. I'm not as normal as you think. And you'll just have to trust me.

Henry, a New Yorker left destitute by circumstance and obsession, is plucked from vagrancy by a shadowy outfit whose primary business is arranging for staged murders of anxiety-ridden clients unhinged by the “events downtown” and seeking to experience - and live through - their own carefully executed assassinations. When Henry joins this nefarious crew, which includes a beautiful blonde tattooist named Tulip, contortionist twins, and a woman referred to only as “the knockout”, he becomes inextricably linked to its ringleader, the mysterious herring connoisseur Mr. Kindt.

The landscape of contemporary Paris, replete with the best restaurants, the trendiest bars and clubs, is usually filled with the wealthy, the famous, and le rake or le rou, the charming, educated sophisticate with little or no conscience. Into this cushy world bursts Dr. Crandall Taylor - or rather the actor who plays him, the star of a dated American soap opera that is now one of the hottest prime-time shows in France. And this newfound fame, as enriching as it is unexpected, is not wasted on Crandall, eager to put his dark and often violent American past behind him and enjoy all the fruits and the women that Paris and fame have to offer him.

A red-letter day had turned bizarre as a lady in her mid-30s, Ritz Laggard, had been murdered in the most grotesque manner right at the venue of a high-powered business meeting. Inspector Brown is assigned the case file to unravel the killer and has an inkling it was state-sponsored. Meanwhile, when Stewart Larzio narrowly escaped death by the whiskers, in the same typical scenario as Ritz Laggard, it dawned on Inspector Brown that a serial killer was on the loose as he found a connection between both scenes in the same city of Bloomington.

Eine Ratte, ein Spielzeugmotorrad und ein Mord: Das humorvolle Krimi-Debüt von Comedian Benjamin Tomkins Als Bauernhofratte Ede ein ADAC-Spielzeugmotorrad findet, befördert er sich kurzerhand selbst zum Pannenfahrer. Der erste Einsatz führt ausgerechnet in den Stall, in dem der tote Bauer liegt. Mord ist zwar keine Panne, doch die ehrgeizige Ratte übernimmt sofort die Beweisaufnahme und stürzt sich in ein actionreiches Abenteuer.

The sequel to Bocas, Bronte follows George to Australia. PJ left a little surprise back home. And her name is Charlotte.