Urban Crime Fiction

Be ready for some action, humor, and mystery in this anthology with short stories. You’ll listen about gangsters, witches, magic potions, interrogations, werewolves, and murder. Several stories have a murder victim, while others are all about theft or robberies. But in many cases, they spark the imagination and make up for a great way to sit back, relax, and read or listen to stories from a completely different world.

A young journalism student named Coffee is granted the opportunity of a lifetime. During her spring break, she has to follow Mickey Royal around day and night in order to do a report on The Pimp Game. As Coffee accompanies Mickey Royal throughout his daily life, she embarks on an adventure like no other. She immerses herself into the underbelly of the shadow world and learns lessons she won't soon forget.

Almena Guillory, better known as the Grizzly Queen of the West, has plenty to recommend her for the noose, but US Marshal Apostle Richardson enforces the law, he doesn't decide it. When a posse tries to lynch Almena ahead of her trial, Apostle refuses their form of expedited justice - and receives a bullet for his trouble. Before escaping, however, Almena unexpectedly saves his life by absorbing his wound through the use of dangerous flesh magic.

A 29-year-old man lives alone in his Glasgow flat. The telephone rings; a casual conversation, but behind this a job offer. The clues are there if you know to look for them. He is an expert. A loner. Freelance. Another job is another job, but what if this organisation wants more? A meeting at a club. An offer. A brief. A target: Lewis Winter. It’s hard to kill a man well. People who do it well know this. People who do it badly find out the hard way. The hard way has consequences.

In working-class Bay Ridge, Michael drives for a car service and gives lifts to his father, a former sanitation worker and current small-time bookie. He has a friend with a heroin habit, and a longtime girlfriend who expects they’ll get married one of these days. Michael spends most of his time on the familiar streets where he grew up, but now he’s crossing the bridge into Manhattan for some college classes—where he meets a seductive female classmate who seems to come from a whole different world.

Summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn, an isolated blue-collar neighborhood where hipster gourmet supermarkets push against tired housing projects and the East River opens into the bay. Bored and listless, 15-year-olds June and Val are looking for fun. Forget the boys, the bottles, the coded whistles. Val wants to do something wild and a little crazy: take a raft out onto the bay. But on the water during the humid night, the girls disappear. Only Val survives, washing ashore in the weeds, bruised and unconscious.

When India falls to her death from a bridge over a railway, her sister, Poppy, returns home to Brighton for the first time in years. Unconvinced by official explanations, Poppy begins her own investigation into India's death. But the deeper she digs, the closer she comes to uncovering deeply buried secrets. Could Matthew Temple, the boyfriend she abandoned, be involved? And what of his powerful and wealthy parents and his twin sister, Ana?

It's easy to kill a man. It's hard to kill a man well. A 29-year-old man lives alone in his Glasgow flat. The telephone rings; a casual conversation, but behind this a job offer. The clues are there if you know to look for them. He is an expert. A loner. Freelance. Another job is another job, but what if this organization wants more? A meeting at a club. An offer. A target: Lewis Winter, a necessary sacrifice that will be only the first step in an all-out war between crime syndicates the likes of which hasn't been seen for decades. It's easy to kill a man.

New York is sweltering in the summer heat, and Harlem is close to the boiling point. To Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, at times it seems as if the whole world has gone mad. Trying, as always, to keep some kind of peace - their legendary nickel-plated Colts very much in evidence - Coffin Ed and Grave Digger find themselves pursuing two completely different cases through a maze of knifings, beatings, and riots that threatens to tear Harlem apart.

Dawn and Reese Spencer just can't get ahead. Between her desperate desire to start a family and his gambling debts, they barely keep afloat, even with well-paying Norfolk International port jobs. But their calculating co-worker has the perfect plan: help him smuggle containers of precious, illegal - human - cargo past US Customs. Reese persuades Dawn that no one will get hurt. Then several immigrants turn up dead on arrival. Now the Feds and cold-blooded loan sharks are closing in, as the real brains behind the operation start killing off loose ends.

Un meurtre a eu lieu à Joigny-les-deuxbouts, petite ville de grande banlieue. Joel Morvier, le patron du Balto, le bar du centre-ville, est retrouvé un matin gisant dans son sang. Un drame ? Pas pour les clients tant ce bistrotier raciste et acariâtre était détesté. Et même pas pour la victime qui, d'outre-tombe, s'amuse de la publicité faite autour de ce fait divers.

The number one priority for Bradley Reynolds of Maryland's Organized Crime Taskforce is Andre Hector Federico. The mob boss is old school - a devoted family man, treacherous as hell, and paranoid enough to have escaped Reynolds's sting. Now Reynolds has a new plan: enlist prize-winning crime novelist Alan Seybold to concoct a foolproof chapter-by-chapter scenario on how to lure Federico out of his safe zone and collar him. There's just one condition: Seybold has to play by the rules of real life.

Doug Martin always has everyone's back. But the no-nonsense cop's world plunges into turmoil after chasing two drug dealers with his long-time partner ends in flying bullets that kill his buddy and leave him with a chunk of lead on his brain. And the seasoned investigator nearly jumps out of his skin when his recently deceased partner's ghost appears, inviting him to carry on with business as usual.

Before he was trying to save the world, he just wanted to save his own ass. Bill Ryder has a problem: the vampires under his rule don't respect him. Unfortunately, in the world of the supernatural, that makes him as good as dead.

Raphael Waters grew up accustomed to being in a constant state of survival. When he becomes the muscle for known street figure, Rah, he believes his life has taken a turn for the better. That is until a string of unfortunate circumstances leave Rah missing and Raphael grasping for answers in the streets of the concrete jungle—once again. A chance encounter with the intriguing Alex Gatts promises to be the life-changing turnaround he needs.

Chicago Sun-Times reporter Paul Crawford is asked to investigate a series of recent murders he eventually calls the "Houdini Victims". He begins with the investigation of a corporate executive who vanishes from a parking garage in the Chicago Loop without a trace.

Master Forger David Henty has a problem: a forgery he painted is rejected and suddenly he owes a murderous, blind, female Japanese gangster £5 million.

With his once thriving casino business now in ruins, Seb Stoker is certain about two things: One – he will rebuild bigger and better than ever. And two – someone will pay for torching his club. But until that day comes, Seb has bigger things to worry about and a business deal that could make or break them all. Sam Reynold knows Seb is out for revenge, and she’ll do anything she can to help him. But Sam has her own enemies and battles to fight – ones much closer to home. With pressure mounting for both of them, tensions run high.

When Fauzia's brother turns up with a dead body, her perfect life is shattered. She'll protect him to the ends of the earth, but who is he running from? Keisha knows all too well that family comes first. Reeling from rejection, she's determined to make Malton pay. And she'll hurt him in the worst way imaginable. Craig Malton is on the hunt for a violent drug lord who's wreaking havoc and destruction in Manchester. Little does he know what's coming for him.

Detective Joe Lazarus works for the Dying Squad, solving crimes the living police can't. When the Generation Killer starts wiping out Manchester's innocents, Joe and his new partner Bits have mere hours to catch the murderer. A young woman's life depends on it. Joe's former partner Daisy-May has her own problems. Children are going missing in the afterlife, and she's the only one who seems to care. Her investigation uncovers a conspiracy so vast, it threatens both the living and the dead.