Police State

What is the reality of policing in the United States? Do the police keep anyone safe and secure other than the very wealthy? How do recent police killings of young Black people in the United States fit into the historical and global context of anti-blackness? This collection of reports and essays explores police violence against Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities, miscarriages of justice, and failures of token accountability and reform measures.

The sun-drenched Caribbean island of Guadeloupe is technically part of France, subject to French law, and loyal to the French Republic. But in 1980, the scars of colonialism are still fresh, and ethnic tensions and political unrest seethe just below the surface of everyday life. French-Algerian judge Anne Marie Laveaud relocated to this beautiful Caribbean island confident that she could make it her new home. But her day-to-day life is rife with frustration. Now she is assigned a murder case in which she is sure the chief suspect, an elderly ex-con named Hégésippe Bray, is a political scapegoat.

Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team have a heavy work load with several high-profile cases. First, a suicide bombing that was apparently the work of a militant Islamist group. Then, a gubernatorial candidate is assassinated in broad daylight at a campaign rally. Could the cases be related? To complicate Silva's investigation, a criminal with a very bad grudge against the Chief Inspector has been released from prison and is plotting ugly revenge.

The Awana tribe, who live in the remote Amazon jungle in the Brazilian state of Pará, have dwindled to only forty-one members - and now thirty-nine of them have dropped dead of what looks like poison. The neighboring white townsfolk don't seem to be mourning the genocide much – in fact, the only person who seems to care at all is Jade Calmon, the official tribal relations agent assigned to the area. She wants justice for the two survivors, a father and his eight-year-old son.

Bike cop Ellie Rush dreams of becoming a homicide detective, but it's still a shock when the first dead body she encounters on the job is that of a former college classmate. At the behest of her Aunt Cheryl, the highest-ranking Asian-American officer in the LAPD (a source of pride for Ellie's grandmother, but annoyance to her mom), Ellie becomes tangled in the investigation of the coed's murder—with equal parts help and hindrance from her nosy best friend, her over-involved ex-boyfriend, a smoldering detective, and seemingly everyone else in her extended family.

Oregon State Trooper Gabriel Hawke’s sister, Marion, is on a corporate retreat in Montana when she becomes a murder suspect. Running for her life from the real killer, she contacts Hawke for help. Hawke heads to Montana to find his sister and prove she isn’t a murderer. He hasn’t seen Marion in over 20 years but he knows she wouldn’t kill the man she was about to marry.

What started out as a favor and a leisurely trip into the mountains, soon turns State Trooper Gabriel Hawke’s life upside down. The snowstorm they were trying to beat comes early, a horse accident breaks Dani Singer’s leg, and Hawke finds a body in the barn at Charlie’s Lodge.

His Fifth Precinct cases have taken him to West Coast Chinatowns and back, and along the way NYPD detective Jack Yu has processed a dozen dead bodies, been beaten by Triad thugs, been mauled by a pit bull, and been shot twice.

He's also killed two men. He is en route to an appointment with the department shrink when an Asian body turns up in the Harlem River. Quickly assigned to the case, Jack finds a corpse with no identification and faces questions as to how - and why - the dead man wound up in the water.

Less than 12 hours after arriving at a remote hunting lodge for their honeymoon, Shandra Higheagle and Detective Ryan Greer find a body. Shandra’s cousin had quarreled with the man earlier, and the clues point to her as being the murderer. Fish and Wildlife State Trooper Gabriel Hawke arrives and immediately takes a dislike to Shandra’s cousin. But he is willing to work with Shandra and Ryan to discover the truth. For a remote hunting lodge, the place becomes overrun with suspicious guests.

Detective Jack Yu returns in a pulse-pounding fifth investigation in New York's Chinatown - can he save an old gangster friend from a ruthless killer? Chinatown gang leader "Lucky" Louie was shot outside of a Chinatown off track betting establishment on the 13th of January and lay in a coma for 88 days, waking on Easter Sunday. The number 88 is a double-helix double-lucky Chinese number; religion and superstition all lean Lucky's way. But Detective Jack Yu, Lucky's boyhood blood brother, fears his friend's luck is about to run out.

Argentina is in the grip of a brutal military dictatorship. Inspector Joaqun Alzada's work in the Buenos Aires police force exposes him to the many realities of life under a repressive regime: desperate people, terrified people and - worst of all - missing people. Personally, he prefers to stay out of politics, enjoying a simple life with his wife, Paula. But when his revolutionary brother, Jorge, is disappeared, Alzada will stop at nothing to rescue him.

When the local authorities tell State Trooper Gabriel Hawke’s mother to wait 72 hours before reporting a missing Umatilla woman, she calls her son and rallies members of the community to search. Hawke arrives at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation and learns the single mother of a boy his mom watches would never leave her son. Angered over how the local officials respond to his investigating, Hawke teams up with a security guard at the Indian casino and an FBI agent.

"Buicks gibt es überall..." Eines Morgens taucht an einer Tankstelle ein alter Buick auf. Der geheimnisvolle Fahrer verschwindet, und schließlich zeigt sich, dass der Straßenkreuzer genauso wenig ein Buick ist, wie der schwarzgekleidete Fahrer ein Mensch. Der Wagen entwickelt ein ungewöhnliches Eigenleben.

A tribe will do anything to protect their own. Described as a modern day Dances with Wolves, Cold River Rising is unlike any novel you've heard before. While on spring break from college, Native American Tara Eagle is kidnapped in a foreign land. Her tribe closes its borders, declares war, and sends an unlikely team to rescue her. They are joined by others.

A world-class scientist goes missing while consulting on a high-stakes project, the construction of an electric storage battery in the deserted pits of the old Kaiser Iron mines. Did this eccentric world-renown hydrologist simply wander off? Or was his fate more ominous? FBI Supervisory Agent Janice Hooper assigns Zack Tolliver, FBI, to the investigation. When someone plants a bomb in his Jeep the day he arrives, Zack realizes there is more at stake than anyone knew. Soon, he finds himself in a desperate duel with an unknown assassin who may very well be more than his match.

On a frigid, January night, a blond, blue-eyed high school girl walks out of an English class she tutors for immigrants - and vanishes. Suspicion quickly falls on the men she was teaching, many of whom are undocumented. As disturbing evidence trickles in, news of the incident spreads beyond the scenic town of Lake Holly, New York, unearthing deep-seated fears and enflaming cultural tensions. For county police detective Jimmy Vega, the situation is personal.

When a young woman linked to a list of missing Fire-Sky tribal members commits suicide, Pueblo Police Sergeant Nicky Matthews is assigned to the case. As the investigation unfolds, she uncovers a threat that strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Fire-Sky Native: victims chosen and murdered because of their genetic makeup. But these deaths are not just about a life taken. In a vengeful twist, the killer ensures the spirits of those targeted will wander forever, lost to their family, their people, and their ancestors.

P.I. Bill Smith is sent on a high-stakes chase when an electronically modified voice on his cell phone informs him that Lydia Chin, his occasional partner, has been kidnapped. Now, if Bill wants to keep Lydia alive, he'll have to play an elaborate game of the kidnapper's devising. The first move sends him to an abandoned building, where Bill finds the corpse of a small Chinese woman dressed like Lydia and the building being rapidly surrounded by police. Now he's on the run....

From Kirk Mitchell comes a riveting suspense thriller in the tradition of Tony Hillerman and Joseph Wambaugh, featuring Bureau of Indian Affairs Criminal Investigator Emmett Quanah Parker and FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed, two Native American cops searching for justice between their heritage and the law.

It's frustrating for local law enforcement to come up against a piece of scum like Newton Glover. He's dirty as hell, everyone knows that - breaks into and vandalizes his neighbors' homes; cheats and steals from everyone; folks suspect he deals drugs and porn. He's even killed a man and gotten away with it. He gets away with all of it, hinting that he has a secret government background and that he's "protected" by the Powers That Be. Glover may finally have gone too far.