English Crime Thrillers

Architect Douglas Layton has lost everything. The balcony of one of his beautiful music halls collapsed during a packed performance, killing dozens. Layton knows the flaw was not in his design; someone else must have caused the dreadful catastrophe. But with no proof, Layton finds himself facing a five-year prison sentence. When he is finally freed, Layton starts over with a new name and identity, taking a job as a set painter. But as Layton begins to discover dead bodies hidden within theater halls across London, it soon becomes clear something darker is chasing him.

Scarborough Castle, high on the headland, is the picturesque backdrop for an English Civil War re-enactment. But the day takes a sinister turn when the town’s MP is shot and killed in broad daylight. DCI Tom Raven is quickly on the scene, but the investigation is soon commandeered by a senior officer from Counter Terrorism, leaving Raven sidelined. When cryptic letters are received, taunting the police, it becomes clear that democracy itself may be the target.

From the first moment single mother Nicolette Winchester held her daughter in her arms, she knew she'd do everything in her power to keep her safe. Now 18 years old, Ella is bright, kind, and a cello prodigy headed for Juilliard. Nicolette can't help but feel proud of the young woman her daughter's become. Then Ella calls home one night. There's been an accident. A classmate is dead. And Ella is the only one on the scene. To protect her daughter, Nicolette makes an unthinkable decision.

He's back and better than ever. James Ryker, a veteran intelligence agent now freelancer, working for the secretive Joint Intelligence Agency on an op-by-op basis, finds himself embroiled in a complicated mission that will test him to his limit. When a simple surveillance mission goes awry and the key target is kidnapped in broad daylight in a busy London square, Ryker knows he has his work cut out. Ryker is tasked with figuring out what went wrong. But when his good friend Sam Moreno disappears without a trace, the mission becomes more personal than he could have imagined.

When a sniper kills four people on Boston Common, Boston homicide detective Mike Houston and his partner Anne Bouchard are sent to investigate the case. Amidst the blood and terror, Houston discovers similarities, likenesses the killer’s positioning, his choice of victims, and his code of ethics between the crime scene and his own training as a US Marine scout and sniper. And with the staging of the scene set for prime shock value, Houston has to wonder what it is this murderer intends to accomplish.

The oldest mystery specialty bookstore in the world, The Mysterious Bookshop, has for most of its forty-five-year history commissioned an original short story as a holiday gift for its customers. Written exclusively for the store, the stories were given as a holiday gift to its customers as a thank you for their business, handed out or mailed between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

Joe Sunday has been a Los Angeles low-life for years, but his life gets a whole lot lower when he is killed by the rival of his crime boss-only to return as a zombie. His only hope is to find and steal a talisman that he learns can grant immortality. But, unfortunately for Joe, every other undead thug and crime boss in Los Angeles is looking for the same thing.

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia.

After eight years spent locked up, Max has gotten very good at being a prisoner. He knows the guards, the inmates, and how to survive. But the parole board has decided that he has sufficiently reformed, and it's time for him to say good-bye. When Max reaches the outside world, he finds that freedom doesn't make anything easier. Based on his own experiences in prison, Edward Bunker first drafted No Beast So Fierce in the 1950s, while incarcerated in San Quentin State Prison.

They were just kids when Claudette McPhearson took them all in. Eight of them all together. All different races and ethnic makeups, but she loved them as her own. One woman taught them how to love, trust, and respect one another. She was the only glue that kept them together, the only one they wanted to please and never let down. She had been their light at the end of a long troublesome tunnel - it shined so bright. Then, one dreadful day, it all came to a crashing halt.

Photographer Cass Neary, introduced in the underground classic Generation Loss, finds herself drawn into the shadowy world of crime in Scandinavia's coldest corners. As this riveting tour-de-force opens, the police already want to talk to Cass about a mysterious death she was involved with previously, but before they can bring her in, Cass accepts a job offer from overseas and hops on a plane. In Helsinki, she authenticates a series of disturbing but stunning images taken by a famous fashion photographer who has cut himself off from the violent Nordic music scene.

The victims are all found face-down in the murky waters of the creek that runs through Cherokee Pointe, Tennessee. They are naked, except for the black satin ribbon tied around their necks. And each murdered woman shares a single characteristic... they are all redheads... Socialite Reve Sorrell has come to Cherokee Pointe seeking answers about her family history and her shocking connection to wrong-side-of-the-tracks Jazzy Talbot. With their stunning good looks and shining red hair, the two are mirror images of each other—twins abandoned at birth and raised in very different worlds.

One September morning, Doug accidentally runs right into another surfer on the beach. There are rules about these things. The other guy should call Doug a jerk, Doug should say, "my bad", and they should both paddle back out and move on. Problem is, the other surfer doesn't want to move on. He wants to fight. And for once in his life, Doug wants to fight back.

Mystery lovers everywhere are addicted to Donna Leon's ever-honorable Commissario Guido Brunetti and her portrayal of Venice's beautiful but sinister byways and canals. In Willful Behavior, Brunetti is approached for a favor by one of his wife's students. Intelligent and serious, Claudia Leonardo asks for his help in obtaining a pardon for a crime once committed by her now-dead grandfather.

Inspector Green is coping with an office job, still eager to get back into the day-to-day fray of policing. His chance comes when an unidentified woman is drowned in the Ottawa River. In her possession is a Medal for Bravery from a peacekeeping mission. As Green and his team dig deeper into the military past, Green finds himself sucked not only into the murky past of a peacekeeping unit but into the high-stakes present of a federal election race. What crime was committed in Yugoslavia more than a decade ago? Is someone still killing to prevent that secret from coming to light?

A body, wrapped in plastic, is discovered in a ditch along a secluded country road. Detective Jade Monroe and her partner Jack Steele arrive at the scene in minutes. Suspicious-looking evidence gives the impression that this young woman has been held captive. As days pass, more local women vanish without a trace. Jade and her team of detectives fear the worst. With precious time slipping away, Jade needs to pull out all stops to find this perpetrator, even if that means putting herself directly in harm's way.

Sleepy little North Bend just woke up. The newly promoted Sergeant Jade Monroe and her partner, detective Jack Steele, have just been informed of an unidentified male body found at a local lake. The town is in an uproar. The victim was nearly decapitated, and murder simply doesn't happen in North Bend. As more bodies turn up, the single connection between all of the victims becomes clear - it's Jade, herself. With each new victim getting one step closer to Jade, time begins to tick away. She must find the person responsible before her loved ones, or herself, are targeted next.

As a shaky truce between suburban gangsters starts to unravel, schlubby civilian Scott Clark has other things on his mind: if he can't afford to buy out his ex-father-in-law, Scott's about to lose the only house he's ever called home. In the red-hot urban housing market, he doesn't have a chance - until he and his best friends take the desperate measure of staging a fake drive-by shooting on the property to push down the asking price. But then Scott's mobster-posturing stunt attracts the attention of the real criminals.

It may be less than a month since the doors of New Order opened, but that doesn't mean Bo Blackman isn't busy. It's not just daft allegations about vampire dogs and complicated relationships that she has to deal with, however.

It is 1980, and the Democratic People's Republic of Laos is proud to be competing in its first-ever Olympics. Ex-national coroner of Laos Dr. Siri Paiboun may be retired, but he and his wife, Madame Daeng, would do just about anything to have a chance to visit Moscow, so Siri finagles them the job of medical oversight for the Olympians. As the competition heats up, however, Siri begins to suspect that one of the athletes is not who he says he is. Then another Lao Olympian is accused of murder.