International Mysteries Fiction

It starts with the destruction of a US Coast Guard cutter and the loss of her entire crew. But the USCG Claiborne was on an innocuous mission to open a sea lane between an oil field off the coast of South America and the refineries of southern Louisiana. The destruction of the ship, tragic as it is, won't stop that mission from continuing.

DCI Harry Grimm’s happy emotions are confusing the hell out of him. Enjoying the company of his new girlfriend and furry black dog, the usually gruff detective finds himself feeling genuinely content for the first time in a very long while. But it’s soon back to business as usual when the idyllic countryside is rocked by the demise of a popular farmer in a horrific hay-baler accident. After the coroner rules the mangled remains a homicide, Grimm sends his team out to follow clues that provoke more questions than answers.

The year started badly and only got worse - blizzards, strikes, power cuts, and political unrest were the norm. For journalist Allie Burns, however, someone else's bad news was the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking, and the year is ripe with possibilities. But Allie is a woman in a man's world. Desperate to get away from the "women's stories" the Glasgow desk keeps assigning her, she strikes up an alliance with wannabe investigative journalist Danny Sullivan. From the start, their stories create enemies.

When fifteen-year-old Oscar Dreyer-Hoff disappears in this “masterpiece” (Booklist, starred review), the police assume he’s simply a runaway—a typically overlooked middle child doing what teenagers do all around the world. But his frantic family is certain that something terrible has happened. After all, what runaway would leave behind a note that reads:

When a body is discovered floating in a Thames river lock one dreary morning, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James are summoned from Scotland Yard to Chiltern Hills. The dead man is Connor Swann, son-in-law of two of London's most renowned opera personalities. And prints on the corpse's neck suggest that Swann was strangled.

Behind every assassination, there is an anonymous mastermind - a plotter - working in the shadows. Plotters quietly dictate the moves of the city's most dangerous criminals, but their existence is little more than legend. Reseng is an assassin. Raised by a cantankerous killer named Old Raccoon in the crime headquarters "The Library", Reseng never questioned anything: where to go, who to kill, or why his home was filled with books that no one ever read. But one day, Reseng steps out of line on a job, toppling a set of carefully calibrated plans.

In London’s MI5 headquarters a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster—a specialist who advises the Prime Minister’s office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate—has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads him straight back to Regent’s Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last?

Stone Barrington receives a rather unexpected phone call from Arrington Calder, the ex-girlfriend with whom he has a son. Arrington's much older husband, the actor Vance Calder, has just died, leaving her a fortune in Centurion Studios stock. Arrington has plans for the money and asks Stone to represent her in the sale of the company. But when he arrives at her home in Bel-Air to finalize the deal, things take a nasty turn.

High in the Himalayas, armed with a host of barbaric, improvised weapons, Chinese troops ambush a contingent of highly decorated Indian soldiers. The brutal, hand-to-hand combat lasts for over six hours, destabilizing the already tenuous relationship between the two nuclear neighbors.

Alicia Bjelke has always been the "other sister," the foil to her beautiful sister Stella—people turn their backs when they see Alicia's disfigured face. So she created a life in the background, becoming a coding genius and founding a groundbreaking dating app company. With Stella as the face of the company, Alicia has found success. Until one day, when Stella is found dead and Alicia’s life takes the wrong turn. Soon, she realizes that she is the next target.

First-year detective Kathleen Doyle is a plucky Irish redhead of humble origins and modest means. Chief Inspector Michael Acton is her antithesis: a British lord turned cop. He's tall, handsome, and enigmatic - to a fault. He also has a knack for solving London's most high-profile crimes. Acton selects Doyle out of the newbie squad to partner with him on a series of investigations because she always knows when someone is lying - a trait that comes in handy when interviewing suspects and witnesses.

Hamish Macbeth ambles over to the nearby backwater of Drim, ostensibly to check out a posh English chap who is causing a most unusual problem. Single, wealthy, and terribly attractive, newcomer Peter Hynd has thrown the middle-aged matrons of Drim into a flutter and put their men, dour Highlanders whose feelings run deep, on a slow burn. Hamish’s instincts tell him this seemingly charming young man likes to stir up trouble, and it’s not long before the seething emotions transform the sleepy village into a hotbed of threats, domestic rows, and violent murder.

DS George Cross has always wondered why his mother left him when he was a child. Now she is back in his life, he suddenly has answers. But this unexpected reunion is not anything he's used to dealing with. When a disturbing case lands on his desk, he is almost thankful for the return to normality. The body of a monk is found savagely beaten to death in a woodland near Bristol. Nothing is known about Brother Dominic's past, which makes investigating difficult. How can Cross unpick a crime when they don't know anything about the victim? And why would someone want to harm a monk?

Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George Smiley, and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War.

Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep - a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. - is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones....

A winter weekend ends in snowbound disaster in a novel which remains a favourite among Marsh readers. It began as an entertainment: eight people, many of them enemies, gathered for a winter weekend by a host with a love for theatre. They would be the characters in a drama that he would devise. It ended in snowbound disaster. Everyone had an alibi - and most had motives as well. But Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn, when he finally arrived, knew it all hung on Thomas, the dancing footman....

About the best that can be said of wealthy Maggie Baird is that inside her middle-aged body, there still beats the heart of a beautiful tart. So when her car catches fire with Maggie in it, there are five likely suspects right on the premises of her luxurious Highlands cottage. Lochdubh police constable Hamish Macbeth has to question Maggie's timid niece and four former lovers, one of whom Maggie had intended to pick for her husband. All five are equally poor - with ample motive and opportunity to monkey with Maggie's car.

When the launch of their powerful new hypersonic missile ends in destruction, the Chinese government needs someone to blame. Was it a failure of engineering, or sabotage? The chief engineer on the project, Dr. Yang Dàyóu, is targeted as the scapegoat and arrested—unable to help his family as they are hunted down by the military. Op-Center’s Lt. Grace Lee is sent to China on a solo reconnaissance mission, but when she sees an opportunity to free the imprisoned scientist, she seizes it.

In a rural Wilshire town lies the Devil’s Corridor—a haunted road which has witnessed eerie happenings, from unexplained deaths to the sounds of a child crying in the night.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies. This collection, with voices of French and English writers, visits many neighborhoods and combines them into something that is, if not totally coherent, at least as coherent as the beautiful mess that is Montreal....