Noir Mystery Thriller Suspense

Harper must deal with a dark part of her past when she defends her rapist, Michael Reynolds, who is charged with murdering a judge. Harper wants revenge, so she takes the case with the explicit desire to throw it. But as she digs deeper into the case, she understands that if she throws Michael's case, it means that the real culprit will go free. Struggling with her conscience, which is fighting for her desire for vengeance, Harper must access some of the darkest recesses of her brain.

Stories by: Desmond Barry, Ken Bruen, Stewart Home, Barry Adamson, Michael Ward, Sylvie Simmons, Daniel Bennett, Cathi Unsworth, Max Décharné, Martyn Waites, Joolz Denby, John Williams, Jerry Sykes, Mark Pilkington, Joe McNally, Patrick McCabe, and Ken Hollings. Cathi Unsworth moved to Ladbroke Grove in 1987 and has stayed there ever since. She began a career in rock writing with Sounds and Melody Maker, before co-editing the arts journal Purr and then Bizarre magazine. Her first novel, The Not Knowing, was published by Serpent’s Tail in 2005.

Meet Tommy Martini, the monk with an anger management problem. His meditations are interrupted by a legacy from his uncle, a crooked priest. Arriving in a New Age Arizona town to claim his inheritance, Brother Tommy meets a charismatic, smoking-hot cult leader who claims that women are being impregnated by alien beings while they sleep. Tommy’s own sleep is disturbed - by cartel hitmen, Mafia bill collectors, and women intrigued by his vow of chastity.

There was only one reason Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan was prepared to let her boyfriend help out with an investigation into a car sales fraud - nothing bad could happen. But by now Kate should know that with Richard you have to expect the unexpected. With Richard behind bars, Kate must look after his eight-year-old son - who proves even more troublesome than his father. Kate finds herself dragged into a world of drug traffickers, child pornographers, fraudsters, and violent gangland enforcers in the most terrifying investigation of her career.

Murder isn’t uncommon in a big city, but when young women start turning up dead next to mysterious symbols painted in their blood, the police turn to Alex Lockerby to find the killer. Unfortunately, the bloody symbols aren’t any form of magic Alex knows, leaving him precious little to work with and a nagging feeling that he’d better stop this madman before he finishes whatever spell he’s attempting.

New York Times best-selling author Sara Paretsky is the master of twisting suspense and propulsive plot. She has been hailed by the crime community as "a legend" (Harlan Coben) and "one of the all-time greats" (Karin Slaughter). Her acclaimed novels featuring detective V.I. Warshawski rank among the most celebrated crime series in modern fiction. Now in this spellbinding collection, Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents with 14 short stories, eight of which feature the indomitable detective - and a new V.I. story.

A troubled war hero. A criminal mastermind. And the meeting of two fatal enemies....

It’s been seven years since Gloomy Knob landed in the Ted Stevens High-Security Federal Penitentiary and five years since the end of the war, the one North Korea started when they sent a missile to Cold Storage, Alaska. Serving a life sentence for the murder of his sister, Gloomy spends his time trying to forget about the past. Then one day, Gloomy is snatched from his off-site work station. Instead of celebrating his newfound freedom, Gloomy comes unmoored - he feels he belongs in prison. But his kidnappers believe Gloomy knows where a second nuclear warhead is hidden.

Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel got caught fitting up Jack Wallace - that's why they demoted her and quashed his sentence. Now he's back on the streets, and women are being attacked again. Wallace has to be responsible, but if Detective Sergeant Steel goes anywhere near him, his lawyers will get her thrown off the force for good. The Powers That Be won't listen to her, not after what happened last time. According to them, she's got more than enough ongoing cases to keep her busy.

In Manchester, two hardened gang members on the run take Catherine Blake and her one-year-old son hostage at gunpoint. She is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Held in a Transit van, Catherine needs a plan fast. But it means diving into her captors’ risk-drenched world, and playing them at their own game. Catherine has been through cancer, miscarriages and five draining years of IVF in order to have her son Ethan. He is the most precious thing in the world. She may be terrified out of her wits, but she’d do anything to protect him. Anything, no matter the cost. Brace yourself.

Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She’s looking for her friend’s missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist to help. A laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer, Heist intrigues the sarcastic and garrulous Phoebe. Reluctantly, he agrees to help. The unlikely pair navigates the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and finds Arabella is in serious trouble - caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end.

Nordland. A region in the Norwegian Arctic; a remote valley that stretches from the sea up to the mountains and the glacier of the Blue Man. It is May. In Nordland it's a time of spring and school-leavers' celebrations - until Daniel, a popular teenage boy, goes missing. Conflicting stories circulate among his friends, of parties and wild behaviour. As the search for Daniel widens, the police open a disused mine in the mountains. They find human remains, but this body has been there for decades, its identity a mystery.

In Amped, people are implanted with a device that makes them capable of superhuman feats. The powerful technology has profound consequences for society, and soon a set of laws is passed that restricts the abilities - and rights - of "amplified" humans. On the day that the Supreme Court passes the first of these laws, 29-year-old Owen Gray joins the ranks of a new persecuted underclass known as "amps." Owen is forced to go on the run, desperate to reach an outpost in Oklahoma where, it is rumored, a group of the most enhanced amps may be about to change the world - or destroy it.

Juillet 1942. Jamais l'issue du conflit n'a semblé aussi incertaine. Si l'Angleterre a écarté tout risque d'invasion, la Russie de Staline plie sous les coups de boutoir des armées d'Hitler. L'Europe est sur le point de basculer.

The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula. Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose social-media presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark. But is the real danger inside...within the family itself?

Seventeen-year-old Tyler lives in one of Edinburgh’s most deprived areas. Coerced into robbing rich people’s homes by his bullying older siblings, he’s also trying to care for his little sister and his drug-addict mum. On a job, his brother Barry stabs a homeowner and leaves her for dead, but that’s just the beginning of their nightmare, because the woman is the wife of Edinburgh’s biggest crime lord, Deke Holt.

Wes Cooper was dead. Then he wasn't-though he's not exactly alive, either. As an immortal not-ghost, he can transition between this world and the otherplane, which makes him the perfect thief for hire. For 70 years he's made a "living" returning items to their rightful owners, seeing his fair share of the bizarre in the process. But he's never witnessed murder. Until now.

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.

A young boy walks into a police station in France. He claims to be Carl Meagan - a missing child from Sheffield whose name is still whispered as a warning to kids who stay out after dark. On her way home from the supermarket, nine-year-old Keeley Armitage vanishes without trace. Her family is overcome with shock and DCI Matilda Darke can’t help but focus on memories of the Carl Meagan case that almost ruined her career.

Detective Louise Rick is on a beach in Thailand when the panicked call from her father comes through. Louise′s beloved brother, Mikkel, has attempted suicide. His wife, Trine, left him days earlier, walking out the door one day with no warning and leaving Mikkel devastated. Louise rushes home to Osted, the small, insular Danish town where she grew up and where Mikkel still lives. But the more Louise learns about Trine and her state of mind in the days before she left Mikkel, the more Louise begins to wonder whether Trine really meant to leave him.