Noir Mystery Thriller

Even a city that boasts three hundred days of sunshine a year has its sudden, often violent storms—and writers have long taken advantage of that metaphor. Renowned authors Katherine Anne Porter, Jack Kerouac, Stephen King, Rex Burns, Robert Greer, Michael Connelly, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine—among many others—have brilliantly portrayed this picturesque but often merciless city. Today, Denver is home to a thriving literary scene, with writers of all stripes finding inspiration in its people and streets. The authors and stories featured in Denver Noir are no exception....

Gus Murphy and his girlfriend, Magdalena, are put in harm's way when Gus is caught up in the distant aftershocks of heinous crimes committed decades ago in Vietnam and Russia. Gus' ex-priest pal, Bill Kilkenny, introduces him to a wealthy businessman anxious to have someone look more deeply into the brutal murder of his granddaughter. Though the police already have the girl's murderer in custody, they have been unable to provide a reason for the killing.

La petite ville de Promise Falls est sous le choc : les Langley viennent d'être sauvagement assassinés. Qui pouvait en vouloir à cette famille en apparence tranquille ? Qui a bien pu commettre cet acte aussi barbare que gratuit ? Les rues de cette banlieue réputée paisible sont-elles encore sûres ? Seul témoin du drame : Derek Cutter, dix-sept ans, qui n'aurait jamais dû se trouver là.

Jessica Fletcher knows better than anyone that creativity is meant to be nurtured. So when a young lady from Cabot Cove shows promise as a country-and-western singer and songwriter, Jessica and a local citizens’ committee send the talented teen on a scholarship trip to Nashville, Tennessee, where she can benefit from professional instruction.

A young hospital security guard with a disturbingly unique taste in women. A maternity doctor with a horrifically unusual appetite. When the two of them meet, they embark on a journey of self-discovery while shattering societal norms and engaging in destructively aberrant behavior. As they unwittingly help each other understand a world in which neither seems to belong, they begin to realize what it truly means to be alive...and that it might not always a good thing.

No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a surprising tale that explores the nature of mystery itself.

Aux États-Unis, de nos jours. Zack Walker a une obsession : la sécurité. Marié et père de deux enfants, cet auteur de science-fiction a préféré quitter un environnement urbain qu'il estime trop dangereux, pour une vie de banlieue bien paisible. Paisible ? A voir. Car Zack, en bon parano, continue de voir le danger partout : ses ados s'obstinent à laisser la porte d'entrée ouverte aux cambrioleurs potentiels et surtout, sa femme Sara laisse son sac à main à disposition de tous.

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....

In this stunning and provocative domestic drama about a sweet 16 birthday party that goes horribly awry, a wealthy family in San Francisco finds their picture-perfect life unraveling, their darkest secrets revealed, and their friends turned to enemies.

The police are desperate for information on the triple homicide. Detective Joona Linna enlists the help of hypnotist Erik Maria Bark. But when Bark unlocks the secrets in the boy’s memory, he triggers a terrifying chain of events that will put all their lives in jeopardy.

Jun Nakayama was a silent-film star in the early days of Hollywood. By 1964, he is living in complete obscurity, until a young writer, Nick Bellinger, tracks him down for an interview. When Bellinger reveals that he has written a screenplay with Nakayama in mind, Jun is intrigued by the possibility of returning to movies. But he begins to worry that someone might delve too deeply into the past and uncover the events that abruptly ended his career in 1922. Like the changing social and racial tides in California - and the unsolved murder of his favorite director.

Still reeling from a brutal dismemberment, detective Kline is forcibly recruited to solve a murder inside a religious cult that takes literally the New Testament idea that you should cut off your hand if it offends you. Armed only with his gun, his wits, and a gift for self-preservation, Kline must navigate a gauntlet of lies, threats, and misinformation. All too soon he discovers that the stakes are higher than he thought and that his survival depends on an act of sheer will.

Paul Edgecombe, ancien gardien-chef d'un pénitencier dans les années 1930, entreprend d'écrire ses mémoires. Il revient sur l'affaire John Caffey - ce grand Noir au regard absent, condamné à mort pour le viol et le meurtre de deux fillettes - qui défraya la chronique en 1932. "La Ligne verte" décrit un univers étouffant et brutal, où la défiance est la règle. Personne ne sort indemne de ce bâtiment coupé du monde, où cohabitent une étrange souris apprivoisée par un Cajun pyromane, le sadique Percy Wetmore, et Caffey, prisonnier sans problème.

En 1979, le lagon bleu était nommé par les Islandais "le champ de lave maléfique". En pleine Guerre froide, la proximité d'une base américaine ne facilite pas les rapports entre Islandais et Américains. C'est dans ce lagon qu'est découvert le cadavre disloqué d'un homme. L'enquête, menée par le tout jeune inspecteur Erlendur et Marion Briem, s'oriente rapidement vers la base où la victime est employée comme ingénieur.

Some cases never leave you. For John Rebus, 40 years may have passed, but the death of beautiful, promiscuous Maria Turquand still preys on his mind. She was murdered in her hotel room on the night a famous rock star and his entourage were staying there, and Maria's killer has never been found. Meanwhile, the dark heart of Edinburgh remains up for grabs.

Mon assassin n’est pas un Pennac de plus, c’est tout Pennac dans un roman. C’est le portrait de l’assassin que l’auteur cherche en lui depuis qu’il a conçu Pépère, le redoutable tueur de "Terminus Malaussène". C’est aussi le portrait de toutes les personnes réelles devenues les personnages principaux de la tribu Malaussène. Daniel Pennac interprète avec jubilation ce formidable préquel de la saga Malaussène, où il dévoile tout à la fois son processus créatif et l'enfance de Pépère.

It's not the dead that seem strange to Quirke. It's the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse—and concealing the cause of death.

Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt”, he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils, whether the self-torture of addiction, the authoritarianism of a state locked in a colonial mindset, or the paradox of how to reunite his two closest friends.

After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now, more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.

Cherry, Nebraska, population 312, is just off the highway between the sticks and the boonies. It’s where Dave Rhodes and his friends have lived all their lives. They own businesses, raise families, pay taxes, deal with odd neighbors, and, once or twice a month - just like their fathers before them - transform into wolves.