Noir Fiction

A disappearance. A missing brother. A lawyer asking questions. And a vast forest in the mountains—the western woods—where the trees huddle close together emanating a crushing darkness and a chill dampness fills the air. The ranger, In-su Park, who lives nearby with his family, is a recovering alcoholic. He claims no knowledge of the man who disappeared, even though the missing man had worked as the ranger just before him. In the little village down the mountain, the shopkeepers will do the same and deny they ever saw or knew the man.

The eyes of the world are gazing at India - the world's largest democracy. But the books you read about this Asian giant only show part of the picture. Delhi Noir offers bone-chilling, mesmerizing takes on the country's chaotic capital, a city where opulence and poverty are constantly clashing, where old-world values and the information age wage a constant battle. Delhi Noir's 15 original stories are written by the best Indian writers alive today - the ones you haven't yet heard of but should have.

Charlie Rutland, a womanizing journalist, is found brutally murdered. He worked for a muck-raking gossip magazine and therefore had many enemies. Detective Crow is assigned to Yorkshire where he must eliminate a long list of suspects. And where does the German businessman Conrad Gunther fit in? Mysterious lights at Lockyer Tarn, a homeless man hiding out on the Yorkshire Dales, a stolen Volvo, and a former Gestapo officer are all seemingly linked in some manner. And then the British spy services get involved....

Cassandra Tipp is dead...or is she? After all, the notorious recluse and eccentric best-selling novelist has always been prone to flights of fancy - everyone in town remembers the shocking events leading up to Cassie's infamous trial (she may have been acquitted, but the insanity defense only stretches so far). Cassandra Tipp has left behind no body - just her massive fortune and one final manuscript. Then again, there are enough bodies in her past.

Ex-detective superintendent Brandt has turned against society. The first kill was a stab in the dark, but now he's got a real taste for it. But his pursuer, DCI Stella Johnson, has rankled him. She has leaked to the press the idea he is impotent, and it has taken hold. Brandt wants to prove himself. Who better a victim than the woman who has embarrassed him? Johnson's strategy backfires, and she is in trouble with her superiors. Yet she now has a very personal reason to hunt down Brandt. Will going solo put her at even greater risk than before? And just what has he in mind for her?

Le gouverneur poussa un cri désespéré et se jeta sur son arme. L'homme des collines passa à l'action avec la vitesse dévastatrice d'un ouragan.Il bondit, envoya le gouverneur rouler à terre d'un puissant coup du pommeau de son poignard, saisit la Devi sous un bras puissant et bondit vers la fenêtre. Chunder Shan fit des efforts frénétiques pour se relever et vit l'homme rester un instant en équilibre sur le rebord de la fenêtre, dans une volée des habits de soie et des membres blancs de sa captive royale.

Former car thief Ray Lilly is now the expendable grunt of a sorcerer responsible for destroying extradimensional predators summoned to our world by power-hungry magicians. Luckily, Ray has some magic of his own, and so far it's kept him alive. But when a friend from his former gang calls him back to his old stomping grounds in Los Angeles, Ray may have to face a threat even he can't handle.

January '42. L.A. reels behind the shock of Pearl Harbor. Local Japanese residents are rounded up and slammed behind bars. Massive thunderstorms hit the city. A body is unearthed in Griffith Park. The cops tag it a routine dead-man job. They're wrong. It's an early-warning signal of chaos. There's a murderous fire and a gold heist. There's Fifth Column treason on American soil. There are homegrown Nazis, Commies, and race racketeers. It's populism ascendant. There's two dead cops in a dive off the jazz-club strip. And three men and one woman have a hot date with history.

It is an obsession that has haunted Nick Malick for seven years - to avenge the murder of his young son. In his gut Malick knows who did it. But the psychopath is in prison for another crime, scheduled to be released in a year. All Malick has to do is wait...and survive.

London, June 1965. Karl Braun arrives as a lodger in Pimlico: hatless, with a bow-tie, greying hair, slight in build. His new neighbours are intrigued by this cultured German gentleman who works as a piano tuner; many are fellow émigrés, who assume that he, like them, came to England to flee Hitler. That summer, Braun courts a woman, attends classical concerts, dances the twist. But as the newspapers fill with reports of the hunt for Nazi war criminals, his nightmares become increasingly worse.

Chicago private investigator Michael Kelly is hired by his former partner, John Gibbons, to help solve an eight-year-old rape and battery case, a case it turns out his old friend was once ordered to forget. When Gibbons turns up dead on Navy Pier, Kelly enlists a team of his savviest colleagues to connect the dots between the recent murder and the cold case it revived.

It was just another Tuesday morning when she walked into the office - young, as I suspected they all might be, another dark brunette with some assistance and enough eye black to match up to Cleopatra. And who am I? I'm Ray, the world's last robot, famed and feared in equal measure, which suits me just fine - after all, the last place you'd expect to find Hollywood's best hit man is in the plain light of day.

It’s a case unlike anything detective Mina Dabiri has seen before. A woman trapped inside a magician’s box, with swords pierced through. But this time, it’s not a magic trick. It’s murder. Knowing she has a terrifying killer on her hands, Mina enlists the help of celebrity mentalist, Vincent Walder. Only he can give her an insight into the secret world of magic and illusions. Mina and Vincent soon discover that the murder victim has the roman numeral III engraved on her leg. The killer is counting down.

On the day Stockholm police officer Hanna Ahlander’s personal and professional lives crash, she takes refuge at her sister’s lodge in the Swedish ski resort paradise of Åre. But it’s a brief comfort. The entire village is shaken by the sudden vanishing of a local teenage girl. Hanna can’t help but investigate, and while searching for the missing person, she lands a job with the local police department. There she joins forces with Detective Inspector Daniel Lindskog, who has been tasked with finding the girl. Their only lead: a scarf in the snow.

My whole life, I’ve been a good girl. I follow rules like nobody’s business. I obey guidelines like I was born to it. Show me a line, and I’ll toe it. I’m even a twenty-two-year-old virgin. Good is my middle name. And then, I break one tiny little rule. Miniscule. Inconsequential. Next thing I know, I’m trapped with an incredibly handsome stranger. He’s got eyes like cut emeralds, biceps that makes my head spin, and a smile that has me rethinking all my life choices.

Three friends go on a foodie road trip to the Scottish Highlands and Islands to celebrate their pending retirement, expecting stunning scenery, great food, fine wines, and a chance to reminisce about the good old days. When they somehow secure a reservation at a remote and extremely exclusive restaurant set on a private island in Loch Broom, they know they’re in for a once-in-a-lifetime dining experience.

Jack Till, who has retired from the LAPD after a respected career as a homicide detective, now works as a private investigator, comfortable chasing down routine cases while visiting his 24-year-old daughter, Holly, who has Down Syndrome. But when the parents of a recently murdered young girl, about Holly's age, ask for his help when the police come up empty, Till reluctantly takes the case.

They left him for dead. They made a mistake. On sabbatical from the force after a personal loss, DCI Harry McNeil spends his days renovating an old cottage he bought, and his nights down at the local bar. He's living in a small town where nothing much happens. Until it does. Harry meets a young woman who is searching for her brother who went missing in the area two years ago. He is special needs and she's convinced he wouldn't just run off.

Stacey and Felix are the glamorous owners of the stylish, modern Glass House, with its pool and floor-to-ceiling windows. Now they’re downsizing, but Stacey can’t sell to just anyone. She needs the right buyer, who will keep her secrets. Millie and Tom have always imagined living in the Glass House. Now it’s for sale. With property prices booming, if they can sell quickly, it could be theirs. But is the house and its charming owners all they seem? Harper and Kyle are moving up in the world.

Bergen Private Investigator Varg Veum is perplexed when two wildly different cases cross his desk at the same time. A lawyer, anxious to protect her privacy, asks Varg to find her sister, who has disappeared with her husband, seemingly without trace, while a ship carrying unknown cargo is heading towards the Norwegian coast, and the authorities need answers. Varg immerses himself in the investigations, and it becomes clear that the two cases are linked, and have unsettling - and increasingly uncanny - similarities to events that took place 36 years earlier.