English Crime Thrillers

On a rainy morning, not long after the funeral of his mother, Commissario Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello respond to a 911 call reporting a body floating near the steps in one of Venice's side canals. Reaching down to pull it out, Brunetti's wrist is caught by the silkiness of golden hair, and he sees a small foot - together he and Vianello lift a dead girl from the water.

>From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask.

The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” (Booklist).

Meet Preach, Digit, and Maria, three lost and damaged souls trying to make it on the streets of New York City, running petty scams to stay alive. A twist of events changes their lives forever when they accidently kill a man connected to the mob and find a small fortune. Now on the run, the trio tries to escape a notorious hit man called B-Boy. Along the way, they run into more shady characters and more trouble. Seduced by the siren call of the money and struggling with their own demons, Preach, Digit, and Maria will soon discover even the closest bonds can't overcome their past traumas.

The Cambodian Curse: When an ancient and supposedly cursed Cambodian sculpture disappears from an impenetrable museum, and the carving's owner is killed by an invisible assailant while a witness is a few feet away, historian Jaya Jones and her old nemesis Henry North team up to solve the baffling crime. Additional stories include: "The Hindi Houdini", "The Haunted Room", "The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn", "The Curse of Cloud Castle", "Tempest in a Teapot", "A Dark and Stormy Light", "The Shadow of the River", plus the bonus novella Fool's Gold.

Rebecca Heilshorn lies stabbed to death in her bed in a remote upstate New York farmhouse. Rookie detective Brendan Healy is called in to investigate. All hell breaks loose when her brother bursts onto the scene. Rebecca turns out to have many secrets and connections to a sordid network mixing power, wealth, and sex. Detective Brendan Healy, trying to put his demons behind him, pursues a dangerous investigation that will risk both his life and his sanity.

The Aether Shift. An event that changed the world forever. Unleashing untold powers onto the minds and bodies of humans on Earth. Some were chosen, against their will, to become something new. Azaria, finally allowed leave the house on her own for the first time, ends up as a Dungeon Core, however, the situation gets turned sideways during the process and she's left alone for nearly a year. Lance, an individual with a hidden past has been struggling in the changed world that is Earth. Meeting Azaria through a twist of fate, what will change with the two brought together.

Hoping to put behind him tragedy in his professional life and to resolve the turmoil in his personal life, Reykjavik police officer Guðgeir Fransson has moved as far away from home as he can, marking time in a dead-end job in a small town in eastern Iceland.

At the Great New York Cookie Swap, pastry chefs bake up their very best for charity. Clare is in charge of the beverage service, and her famous Fa-la-la-la Lattes make the gathering even merrier. But her high spirits come crashing down when she discovers the battered body of a hard-working baker's assistant. Police suspect a serial attacker whose escalating crimes have become known as "the Christmas Stalkings". Clare'sboyfriend, NYPD detective Mike Quinn, finds reason to believe even more sinister forces are involved.

In the heart of the Amazon, NRI operative Danielle Laidlaw makes an incredible discovery: a translucent Mayan stone generating massive waves of energy while counting down toward the infamous apocalyptic date: December 21, 2012. And somewhere, there are three more just like it. What power will be unleashed if all four stones come together? Who created them - and who has them now? Using a cryptic Mayan map and a prophecy that points to the end of the world, Danielle and her team race toward answers. But one staggering question remains: Were these artifacts meant to save - or to destroy?

Detective Ulf Varg from the Department of Sensitive Crimes is often called upon to investigate unusual matters. But rarely is he asked to conduct an inquiry on behalf of his own family. Is such a thing ethical? Adding to Ulf's moral discomfort is the fact that he does not exactly see eye to eye with his younger brother Bjorn - a leading player in one of Sweden's right-wing parties, the Moderate Extremists. Still, family is family, so Ulf finds himself working to uncover the mole leaking secrets to a rival party, the Extreme Moderates.

Detective Reed Mattox, just three months removed from the death of his partner, has turned invisibility into an art form. Switching to the K-9, taking over the graveyard shift, moving to a farmhouse miles outside of Columbus - his every move has become predicated on putting as much distance between himself and the outside world as possible. That distance is shattered, though, when bodies begin turning up in The Bottoms, the poverty-stricken section of town he is assigned to patrol.

In the darkening days of autumn, a murdered journalist's body is discovered in a remote region near the Canadian border. Before she was found, Anne Marie Johnson had been writing an article about a canine research program that uses trained dogs to track scientific data. She was last seen with a man named Reeve Landon, whose chocolate Lab was one of the subjects of the piece. Now he's the prime suspect. Back in the FBI's regional office in Montana, investigator Ali Paige is not officially assigned to the case since the crime was committed outside federal land.

The year is 1142, and all England is in the iron grip of civil war. And within the sheltered cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, there begins a chain of events no less momentous than the political upheavals of the outside world.

I was known as the traitor's daughter. When I was five years old, my father was tortured, branded with the letter Z, then beaten and left for dead. The grueling punishment for his crime was a reminder to all others who dared threaten the Russian's reign. I was the young girl left behind. A living piece of the traitorous puzzle the Russian leader tried so diligently to ignore - until I grew up. No longer could he deny how much my existence had always been intertwined with his. And in order to survive the life I was thrown into, I was forced to learn my place inside of it.

Holmes and Watson discover that the missing woman—Hannah Woolfson—was herself on the trail of a missing person, her close friend Sophia. Sophia was recruited to a group known as the Elysians, a quasi-religious sect obsessed with Ancient Greek myths and rituals, run by the charismatic Sir Philip Buchanan. Hannah has joined the Elysians under an assumed name, convinced that her friend has been murdered. Holmes agrees that she should continue as his agent within the secretive yet seemingly harmless cult, yet Watson is convinced Hannah is in terrible danger.

Covert government operative Danielle Laidlaw leads an expedition into the deepest reaches of the Amazon in search of a legendary Mayan city. Assisted by a renowned university professor and protected by a mercenary named Hawker, her team journeys into the tangled rain forest - unaware that they are replacements for a group that vanished weeks before, and that the treasure they are seeking is no mere artifact but a breakthrough discovery that could transform the world.

Private detective Matt Scudder investigates a series of kidnappings that always end in brutal murder. Best-selling author Lawrence Block takes us into the seedier back alleys and side-streets of New York City, rendering his subject with a gritty realism.

Gideon's planning a heist, to steal the only thing that matters from the worst man in the world. To get past his security, he's going to need a crew who can do the impossible...but luckily, he has the right people in mind. The Damned, the Ghost, the Wild Card...and his ex-girlfriend, Annie Anybody. A woman who can be anyone, with the power to make technology fall in love with her. If things go well, they'll all get what they want. And if they're lucky, they might not even die trying.

As private eye Lew Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the megarich to jazz joints where you can get beaten up between sets, The Moving Target blends sex, greed, misdirected love, and family hatred into an explosive crime novel.

Despite their investigative prowess, Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Michael Sinclair, Lord Acton, and rookie detective Kathleen Doyle stir more than a few feathers at CID Headquarters when their relationship comes to light. But office politics quickly become trivial when a rash of underworld murders shatters London's normally austere façade. With a growing list of successfully solved cases to her name, the ever-dauntless Doyle shakes off the gossip and sets out to investigate the escalating turf war.