Noir Fiction

DCI Harry Grimm is weary of humanity’s evil. Dragged to the middle of nowhere during the darkest of hours, he’s enraged by grisly evidence of a horrific illegal dog fight. And when the mutilated remains turn out to be a gamekeeper’s stolen pet, the gritty detective senses he has a solid lead after learning of a long-running feud. Immediately putting his team on the case, Grimm worries the stakes may be escalating when the animal’s owner is beaten and left for dead.

Pete Fernandez is a mess. He’s on the brink of being fired from his middle-management newspaper job. His fiancée has up and left him. Now, after the sudden death of his father, he’s back in his hometown of Miami, slowly drinking himself into oblivion. But when a coworker he barely knows asks Pete to locate a missing daughter, Pete finds himself dragged into a tale of murder, drugs, double-crosses, and memories bursting from the black heart of the Miami underworld - and, shockingly, his father’s past.

I don’t love him. I don’t even like him.I just want him. Eli Loveless was my nemesis from the first day of kindergarten until we graduated high school. Everything I did, he had to do better—and vice versa. The day he left town was the best day of my life. Ten years later, the day he came back was the worst. Now he’s my co-worker. Grown-up Eli Loveless is sexy as sin. He’s hotter than asphalt in the summer. The irritating kid I once knew is gone, and he’s been replaced by a man with green eyes, perfect abs, and a cocky smile. It’s bad that I want him. It’s worse that he wants me back.

Everyone knew the kind of girl Jean Timberlake was: wild, looking for trouble. But she certainly wasn't looking for murder. She was found dead on the beach 17 years ago, and an ex-boyfriend named Bailey Fowler was convicted of her murder and imprisoned, and then escaped. Now private eye Kinsey Millhone steps into a case that should have never been closed, in a town where there's no such thing as a private investigation.

Just after devastating riots tear through Los Angeles in 1965, when anger is high and fear still smolders everywhere, the police turn up at Easy Rawlins' doorstep. He expects the worst, as usual. But they've come to ask for his help.

Son avenir était tout tracé, sa vie était cadrée et millimétrée mais il n’a suffi que d’un instant pour que tout s’évapore... Qui pourra sauver Jaeger et surtout, qui laissera-t-il lui tendre la main ?

When single-mother Devon Connor hires Elvis Cole, it’s because her troubled teenage son Tyson is flashing cash and she’s afraid he’s dealing drugs. But the truth is devastatingly different. With two others, he’s been responsible for a string of high-end burglaries, a crime spree that takes a deadly turn when one of them is murdered and Tyson and his girlfriend disappear. They stole the wrong thing from the wrong man, and, determined to get it back, he has hired two men who are smart and brutal and the best at what they do.

- Peut-on étudier la magie et exercer le métier de guérisseur ? - Bien entendu. La plupart des mages ont des passions personnelles et des projets bien à eux. Mais pour l'instant, ta priorité est d'apprendre à contrôler ton pouvoir. C'est ce que l'on appelle le "prix de la magie". Si tu ne réussis pas, ton don finira par te tuer. Considérant la force de ton pouvoir, je doute que les ravages se limitent à une seule pièce.

William "Kid" Collins was once a respected boxer. Now he's a drifter, on the run after escaping from a mental institution. One afternoon he meets Fay, a beautiful young widow. She is smart and decent - at least when she's sober. Soon Collins finds himself involved in a kidnapping scheme that goes drastically wrong almost before it even begins. Because the kid they've picked up isn't like other kids: He's diabetic and without insulin, he'll die. Not the safest situation for Collins, a man for whom stress and violence have long gone hand-in-hand.

When a prominent Manhattan lawyer is murdered, two estranged sisters - one the dead man’s widow, the other his ex - must set aside mistrust and old resentments...but can they escape their past?

When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie’s mental state has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax returns to the house, she learns that Lexie was researching their family’s and the house’s history. And as Jax dives deeper into that research, she discovers that the land holds a far darker history than she could have ever imagined.

Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara hit it off in prison, where they were both doing time for grand theft auto. Now that they're out, they're joining forces for one big score. The plan is to kidnap the wife of a wealthy Detroit developer and hold her for ransom. But they didn't figure the lowlife husband wouldn't want his lady back. So it's time for Plan B and the opportunity to make a real killing - with the unlikely help of a beautiful, ticked-off housewife who's hungry for a large helping of sweet revenge.

It's 1918. The war in Europe grinds on, and the Spanish flu seems to be on an insatiable killing spree. But in the small fishing village of Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, a more confined drama-harrowing and provocative-slowly unfolds. It begins when Elizabeth Frame murders her husband hours after their wedding and thrusts the revolver into the blowhole of a beached whale.

Zack Walker a le cœur sur la main, une générosité quasi pathologique qui lui vaut d'être régulièrement dans le pétrin. Et son karma ne va pas s'améliorer : Trixie, sa charmante voisine, comptable le jour, dominatrice la nuit, a besoin d'aide pour empêcher le reporter Martin Benson de dévoiler la nature illégale de sa "profession". Zack, plus chevaleresque que jamais, est prêt à tout pour rendre service à son amie ; quitte à rogner sur la déontologie pour aller menacer son confrère...

In keeping with the Akashic Noir series tradition, each story in Boston Noir is set in a different neighborhood of the city - the impressively diverse collection extends from Roxbury to Cambridge, from Southie to the Boston Harbor, and all stops in between. Lehane's own contribution - the longest story in the volume - is set in his beloved home neighborhood of Dorchester and showcases his phenomenal ability to grip the heart, soul, and throat of the reader.

When McGee picks up the phone and hears a voice from the past, he can't help it. He has to meddle. Especially when he has the chance to reunite Sam Taggart, a reckless, restless man like himself, with the woman who's still waiting for him. But what begins as a simple matchmaking scheme soon becomes a bloody chase that takes McGee to Mexico, a beautiful country - and one from which he hopes to return alive.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: The end of the line. Lawless, drug-soaked, forgotten - it's where bad journalists go to die. For once-great war photographer Will Keller, that's kind of a mission statement: he spends his days floating from one score to the next, taking any job that pays; his nights are a haze of sex, drugs, booze, and brawling. But Will's spiral toward oblivion is interrupted by Kara Saito, a beautiful young woman who shows up and begs Will to help find her sister, June, who disappeared during a stint as an intern at the local paper.

It is the present day, and the world is as we know it: smartphones, social networking, and Happy Meals. Save for one thing: The Civil War never occurred. A gifted young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshal Service. He's got plenty of work. In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called "the Hard Four". On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn't right—with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself.

On her sixtieth birthday, a woman commits suicide. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck’s desk, he can’t imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold cases division since the cause of death seems to be clear. But his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is not in fact a suicide, but a murder related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.

Fritz Brown’s L.A. - and his life - are masses of contradictions, like stirring chorales sung for the dead. A less-than-spotless former cop with a drinking problem - a private-eye-cum-repo man with a taste for great music - he has been known to wallow in the grime beneath the Hollywood glitter. But Fritz Brown’s life is about to change, thanks to the appearance of a racist psycho who flashes too much cash for a golf caddie and who walked away clean from a multiple murder rap.