Noir Fiction

Just when DI Tom Mariner seems to be settling down with his new girlfriend...everything kicks off. First, a badly decomposed body of a young woman is found in a Birmingham sewer. The police can't identify her and dub her "Madeleine". Then, an important politician and his wife are shot on an isolated road. "Vengeance is mine" is scrawled in blood at the scene. Finally, a bomb explosion in the busy city kills five people, causing chaos and panic. Can Detective Mariner and his team get to the bottom of crimes that will come very close to home for him and his team?

Violence, love, and a torrent of blood. A man wakes in a grimy hotel to find his marriage has ended but not in divorce. An orphan discovers he has a sister and a grisly family secret. And the loss of an infant son drives a man back to his brutal, bad ways. From the Manhattan's Lower East Side to the west coast of Africa, the seven noir stories in this riveting collection cut to the core of what makes us human - and what makes us killers.

From Ian Rankin to Joe Lansdale, Seanan McGuire to David Morrell, each author reveals the dark truths and buried secrets that make institutions of higher learning such a hotbed of controversy. You'll encounter plagiarism, sexual misconduct, and brutal competition - not to mention secret societies, cover-ups of murder, and one near-future course of study that makes The Handmaid's Tale look like Mother Goose. So: collect your supplies, plan your schedule, and prepare to pull an all-nighter, because The Darkling Halls of Ivy is required listening.

On a remote island off the coast of Maine lies a secluded estate. There, behind wrought iron gates and rock walls, sits Halcyon Hall. Today, it is an exclusive spa catering to wealthy elites and pampered celebrities. But once, it had another name - and a terrifying reputation.... Rosemary Tulle has come to Halcyon Hall desperate to find her younger sister. Seventeen-year-old Genevieve left a brief, troubling message on Rosemary's phone, begging to be picked up. But Rosemary is not on the visitor list, and no one will let her in....

Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires. Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, is just trying to survive its heavily policed streets when a jaded vampire on the run swoops into his life. Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, is smart, beautiful, and dangerous. Domingo is mesmerized.

In The Lady in the Lake, hard-boiled crime-fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wives - one a rich man's and one a poor man's - who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo, and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

First there was The Last Quarry, then there was The First Quarry - now look who's caught in the middle.

The enigmatic hit man Quarry - star of seven celebrated novels and an award-winning feature film (The Last Lullaby) - is back in this violent, steamy tale of warring crime families. When two godfathers set out to bump each other off, guess who winds up with both contracts….

Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she’s even better at getting away with murder. Every year, Dr. Clark searches for the worst man at Gorman University - professor, student, or otherwise - and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she’s avoided drawing attention to herself…but as she’s preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus.

It is early 1942. You are in San Francisco, and you need a private eye. Sam Spade is rumored to be in Istanbul. The Continental Op has been drafted and is a sergeant in the Aleutians. Philip Marlowe is up at Little Fawn Lake investigating the disappearance of Mrs. Derace Kingsley. Lew Archer is in the army. Who's left? Nobody but C. Card. You haven't heard of C. Card? That's all right. Nobody has.

San Francisco, 1947. Bartender Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin and the rest of the Cookie’s Coffee Irregulars—a ragtag bunch of working mugs last seen in Noir—are on the hustle: they’re trying to open a driving school; shanghai an abusive Swedish stevedore; get Mable, the local madam, and her girls to a Christmas party at the State Hospital without alerting the overzealous head of the S.F.P.D. vice squad.

Thirty-three years ago two little girls disappeared from a notorious run-down neighborhood in south London. One was found dead within a few days; the body of the other was never discovered. Today, the man convicted of murder three decades ago is back on the streets, and another girl vanishes. Hard-nosed investigative journalist Angela Tate reported on the old case and is back to cover the new story, determined to persuade the mother of the missing girl, Trisha Collins, to reveal a secret she’s been keeping about the original killing. But Trisha is terrified and refuses to talk.

Dionysos Mavroulis is a man without a future: a man who embraces destiny and risks everything for love. A refugee from Asia Minor, he escapes Smyrna in 1922 disguised as an old woman. Alienated and plagued by feelings of remorse, he spirals into poverty and seeks solace in the hashish dens around Piraeus. Hitting rock bottom, he meets Aleko, an accomplished bouzouki player. Recognizing in the impoverished refugee a rare musical talent, Aleko offers to teach him the bouzouki.

McGee Ridge, earthquake-rattled and clinging to the thousand-foot cliffs of the Northern California coast, is nestled in one of a very few truly wild places left in the Lower 48. It is also home to a band of off-grid outlaws who vanished behind the famed Redwood Curtain in the 1960s and whose time there is swiftly coming to an end.

Le maître de vos nuits blanches : les origines. Suspense magistral, intrigue machiavélique à souhait, tension psychologique à son comble. Des côtes australiennes aux parcs de Boston et aux banlieues new-yorkaises, le premier coup d'éclat de celui qui allait révolutionner le monde du thriller. Laura Ayars et David Baskin, l'ancien top model devenue femme d'affaires et la superstar de l'équipe de basket des Celtics : un couple béni des dieux ! Mais, en pleine lune de miel, la tragédie frappe. David part nager et disparaît. Sans un adieu.

Votre fille de 17 ans part de bon matin pour son petit boulot d'été. Elle vous promet d'être de retour pour le dîner. Mais elle ne rentrera pas. Ni ce soir-là, ni les suivants. Votre pire cauchemar a commencé... Pour Tim Blake, le père de Sydney, une seule mission : la retrouver à tout prix. Un coup de fil mystérieux, des individus menaçants, des meurtres... et la vie sans histoire de Tim bascule dans un engrenage incompréhensible et totalement terrifiant. Pourtant, galvanisé par son amour paternel, il ira jusqu'au bout, au risque de tout perdre...

Cleveland Noir joins Columbus Noir as the Akashic Noir series continues its tour of Ohio and navigates the dregs of the North Shore.

This first book in a new series is set in and around the Portland, Maine, waterfront. It introduces Brandon Blake, a loner who lives on his old wooden cruiser. Raised by his alcoholic grandmother after his mother was lost at sea, Blake learned to depend on himself. During an assignment for a law-enforcement class, Blake gets involved in a fight and is marked for payback by a soon-to-be-released convict. Meanwhile, questions surface about his mother's disappearance.

When poor little New Hampshire rich girl Mindy Hollis gets lost in Los Angeles, her big sister hires private detective Ed Traynor to find her. Traynor and Hollis's security chief, Jack McMahon, take off for Tinseltown to track down the aspiring actress - but they discover the only part she ever got was the one that killed her. Their hunt for her killers takes them from the bowels of Mexico City to the glitz of Los Angeles, north to the set of The Black Orchid in Vancouver, and then back again to Hollywood, where the angels are dying.

Intrepid Mountie Jack Taggart is hurled into a world where morality, justice, and the legal system are pitted against one another. Taggart investigates the murder of someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wiretap information identifies a shadowy gang member known only as Cocktail as being responsible. Taggart and his partner go undercover to join one of a coalition of gangs who are at war in British Columbia. Their mission is to identify Cocktail and gain evidence to convict him of murder.

The Bucket List starts when undercover FBI Agent John Adderley wakes up in a hospital bed in Baltimore with extensive gunshot wounds. He knows he’s lucky to be alive. And just a few beds away is the man who 24 hours ago pointed a gun to his head. Soon, a high-profile cold-case file is sent to Agent Adderley, now living in Sweden (where he’s not lived since he was a boy) in witness protection, hiding until he can testify against the drug cartel he infiltrated back in the States. Adderley is determined to solve the case, even with a price on his head....