Humor Crime

Life is going pretty well for Raymond "Stick" Hart. He's happily married to the former Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Club assistant pro, the beauteous Cajun firecracker Dannie, raising his rambunctious son, Charlie, and getting by writing smart-mouthed greeting cards for 50 bucks a pop. Then, one disaster of a day, Stick's world does a 10-car pile-up. Luckily, Stick has a solution to all his problems. He'll qualify for the British Open.

First, there's the media frenzy over the “Hollow Man,” a gutless corpse found on the beach. And yet people think it’s perfectly normal to find dead sharks in the middle of downtown boulevards - or to spot black mushroom clouds behind the airport. Then there are the roving bands of carjackers who suddenly find themselves inconvenienced. Not to mention people lurking outside sex-addiction meetings. Could this be the work of Serge, that eccentric trivialista and one-man vigilante? And why is he extensively photographing foreign consulates right before the critically important Summit of the Americas?

Most people can’t tell a good wine from a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck. At least that’s what best friends Reggie and Audrey decide one night while celebrating their daughters’ election to the elite Mohave High Tigerette Pom Squad. But cheerleading in Scottsdale doesn’t come cheap, and both women are strapped for cash and going through a rough patch. Reggie’s husband has announced he’s gay and wants a separation. Audrey’s husband is entering rehab. But what if they could earn money by selling cheap wine in fancy bottles? How hard could it be?

An anytime, anywhere listen, Office Shocks is a quirky and comical account of a young, impatient and opinionated B-school graduate who enters the corporate world and discovers it in all its backstage glory. He encounters a stereotypical yet unusual ensemble: the fickle-minded boss, the girl who got fired, the flirtatious colleagues, the dreaded lunch-sharing saint, the erudite two-timing family man, and much more on what turns out to be the most shocking first day at work.

Bryan LeBlanc worked his way up into a plum position on Wall Street as the boy genius of the foreign exchange desk. Surrounded by "the few, the proud, the completely full of themselves", he decides to give Wall Street a taste of its own medicine and hatches an intricate plan to disappear permanently with just enough misappropriated money - and sailing classes - to spend his golden years cruising the Caribbean. Bryan quickly learns that being a criminal, even a really smart one, is more complicated than he thought. He finds himself on the run in the Cayman Islands, wanted for murder.

Constable Nick’s beat is modernized, with his police bike replaced by a mini-van. He gets more than he bargained for as his work draws him into closer contact with villagers, in more ways than one. There are compromising positions aplenty in this next charming installment of Aidensfield life. Nick finds himself lost in heavy fog and runs across a couple of illicit lovers trapped in their car. He advises the village grocer about his very respectable lady shoplifter and discovers how farmer Owens copes with his bossy wife.

It’s Davis Way’s first slot-tournament season. And it may be her last. Things are dicey at work. A personal assistant goes missing, a little old lady goes on a suspicious winning streak, and a Bellissimo executive goes gaga for Davis. She follows a disappearing slot-tournament player trail to the So Help Me God Pentecostal Church in Beehive, Alabama, then jumps headlong into a high stakes holy scandal. She’s on a losing streak at home, too. Her days, nights, and dinners run together, as Davis juggles a revolving door of uninvited guests, namely her rotten ex-ex-husband, Eddie Crawford.

For nine long days, the mayor and district attorney of Reno, Nevada, have been missing. Vanished without a trace. Their vehicles were found parked side-by-side at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. Did they fly somewhere together? They aren't on any flight manifest. Did the two of them take off with a big pile of the city's money? If so, the city accountants can't find it. Were they murdered? There's no sign of foul play.

Nada Alic's women—the perverts, nobodies, reality TV stars, poetic hopefuls, shameless party girls, and self-help addicts of Los Angeles and its environs—are all wrestling with a shared stark reality: the modern world. To cope, they live in their baddest thoughts: the lush, strange landscape of female make-believe.

Failed Pitbull impersonator Ismael Reyes—you can call him Izzy—might not be the Scarface type, but why should that keep him from trying? Growing up in Miami has shaped him into someone who dreams of being the King of the 305, with the money, power, and respect he assumes comes with it. After finding himself at the mercy of a cease-and-desist letter from Pitbull’s legal team and living in his aunt’s garage, Izzy embarks on an absurd quest to turn himself into a modern-day Tony Montana.

In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred.

At 44, Eve Mozell has a wonderful husband and a creative job. She also has a temperamental teenage son, two headstrong sisters, and a demented old father. As she deals with her family's frequent crises, her days overflow with lengthy phone calls. She is never far from a dial tone. But as her father begins to die, Eve is tempted to disconnect and to sort out her feelings for this difficult man.

Antoine Eyrolles, un procureur français en vacances, passe le temps des fêtes au Québec. Il rencontre Tao Bilodeau, qui couvre l’affaire de l’Eggzotique, le drame d’une restauratrice sauvagement poignardée à qui l’on s’empresse de trouver un assassin convenable. Mais ce qui convient aux uns ne suffit pas toujours aux autres. Et ce qui éblouit au premier coup d’oeil n’impressionne guère celui qui prend le temps de regarder…

Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn't know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he's found a way, doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic.

The world you know is a lie. Global events are controlled by the Elders of Zion. And David Zelig wants to join them. There’s only one problem. The Elders of Zion doesn’t exist. It never did. So David rolls his own secret society. But he’s not the only player in town. Clandestine forces are closing in on every side. The race for survival launches David and his friends from the skyscrapers of Manhattan through the secrets of Imperial Russia to an embarrassing relic from the dawn of Christianity.

Paris, 1980. The literary critic Roland Barthes dies - struck by a laundry van - after lunch with the presidential candidate François Mitterand. The world of letters mourns a tragic accident. But what if it wasn't an accident at all? What if Barthes was murdered?

"Tout le monde riait. Les Manoscrivi riaient. C'est l'image d'eux qui est restée. Jean-Lino, en chemise parme, avec ses nouvelles lunettes jaunes semi-rondes, debout derrière le canapé, empourpré par le champagne ou par l'excitation d'être en société, toutes dents exposées. Lydie, assise en dessous, jupe déployée de part et d'autre, visage penché vers la gauche et riant aux éclats. Riant sans doute du dernier rire de sa vie. Un rire que je scrute à l'infini."

Written in reaction to what Bentley perceived as the sterility and artificiality of the detective fiction of his day, Trent's Last Case features Philip Trent, an all-too-human detective who not only falls in love with the chief suspect but reaches a brilliant conclusion that is totally wrong. Trent's Last Case begins when millionaire American financier Sigsbee Manderson is murdered while on holiday in England. A London newspaper sends Trent to investigate, and he is soon matching wits with Scotland Yard's Inspector Murth.

John Dortmunder doesn't like manual labor. So when he gets the offer of money to dig up a grave, he balks . . . then he wonders why Fitzroy Guilderpost, criminal mastermind, wants to pull a switcheroo of two 70-years-dead Indians.

Serge is upset that his beloved state isn't getting its proper recognition, so he sets up his own wildcat Internet travel service site, hyper blogging his way down the coast with his perpetually hammered sidekick, Coleman. Unfortunately Serge's Web presence catches the attention of his nemesis, Agent Mahoney, and the chase is on.