Urban Crime Fiction

The LaCroixs are four beautiful Haitian American women bound by money and blood. On the surface, the LaCroix Group is a venture capitalist company, but underneath, it’s so much more. The four sisters run long cons, targeting wealthy, prominent business figures. They have a system: Find the perfect mark, create the problem, then present the solution. For a cost....

In number-one New York Times best-selling author Charlaine Harris’s "Dahlia Underground,” venerable vampire Dahlia Lynley-Chivers survives an attack by an anti-vampire terrorist group, only to show them they tried to blow up the wrong bloodsucker. Bailey Ruth Raeburn, a ghost assigned to assist humans in trouble, steps into the middle of a marital dispute with surprising twists in Carolyn Hart’s “Riding High”....

Twenty years ago, a barmaid in a harbor town fell for a young sailor who turned pirate to make his fortune. But what truly became of Black Edward Tew remains a mystery, one that has just fallen into the lap of freelance sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse. For years, Eddie has kept his office above Angelina’s tavern, so when Angelina herself asks him to find out what happened to the dashing pirate who stole her heart years ago, he can hardly say no—even though the trail is two decades old. Some say Black Edward and his ship, The Bloody Angel, went to bottom of the sea, taking with it a king’s ransom in treasure.

After eight years spent locked up, Max has gotten very good at being a prisoner. He knows the guards, the inmates, and how to survive. But the parole board has decided that he has sufficiently reformed, and it’s time for him to say goodbye. When Max reaches the outside world, he finds that freedom doesn’t make anything easier.

In the days of yore, he flew the skies and scorched angry mobs - now he hides from swamp tour boats and rises only with the greatest reluctance from his La-Z-Boy recliner. Laying low in the bayou, this once-magnificent fire breather has been reduced to lighting Marlboros with nose sparks, swilling Absolut in a Flashdance T-shirt, and binging Netflix in a fishing shack. For centuries, he struck fear in hearts far and wide as Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie - now he goes by Vern.

Another nightmare, in the woods this time. Different: She was running. Trying to escape. But the same ending. Always the same ending. Another dead girl…. Emma Rayburn was born and raised in Baron Hollow, North Carolina. It was a quiet life, then came the accident … and the nightmares - each filled with unshakable visions of darkness, blind panic, and desperate women chased toward inevitable death. With no reports of local women missing or found dead, Emma has written it off to troubled imaginings - night after dreaded night. Until her sister arrives.

Niamh and Conor Ryan are the perfect power couple: smart, successful and beautiful, they have an enviable relationship and an idyllic family life. But then the unthinkable happens. Their oldest son, Tom, is the victim of a hit-and-run. What was Tom doing out walking so late at night? Did he really have problems sleeping, or was he secretly meeting someone? Is it a coincidence that his friend, Lauren, committed suicide nearby - or is there something more sinister going on?

The two parts of being a paranormal private investigator I could really do without are being forced to eat bananas by an animated statue with a potassium fixation, and being put on trial for murder by a self-appointed council of vampire oligarchs. To be fair, I did kind of do it (the murder, not the bananas). But I was kind of saving my girlfriend, who is kind of one of them. On top of this, I've also wound up with a primordial queen of the damned trying to strangle me in my dreams.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and Caesar King feels weighted to the ground. The Five Families are in complete disarray, and Caesar realizes too late that stepping down was the wrong thing to do. It’s up to him to make the puzzle whole again. But when another war comes to their doorsteps and a past mistake comes back for blood, death rips through the boroughs like a tornado. In the end, there might not be any pieces left to put back together.

After he fails to save a stranger from being mauled to death by a bear, a young mercenary is saddled with the baby girl the man died to protect. Now, 16 years later, that young mercenary has grown up to become cynical sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse. When his vacation travels bring him back to that same part of the world, he can't resist trying to discover what has become of the mysterious infant. He finds that the child, now a lovely young teenager named Isadora, is at the center of a complicated web of intrigue.

Pascha, the snarky ghost of a deceased 25-year-old, finds himself stuck between this world and the next with no one to talk to aside from Martin, a coroner with the dubious gift of being able to hear the dead. Since Martin prefers his girlfriend's company to Pascha’s, Pascha is stuck haunting hospital rooms and accident sites hoping to meet a spirit who will stay a while and keep him company.

As a painter travels the world and creates his art, he also mourns the death of his queen, his wife. He is secluded from the world and finds an escape through the drawings in his work. Not until he gets an unexpected knock at his door does his life take a drastic turn. The guest presents a problem that traps them inside of a home for 72 hours and this quiet suburban estate becomes the devil’s playground. The painter is then thrown into a psychological game that has twists and turns, which leads to an unforeseeable ending.

Alastair Stone needs a break. He’d gladly trade a big chunk of his newly-acquired fortune for a few uninterrupted weeks of rest, but that’s not going to happen. On top of dealing with his new magical status and a relationship heading in unexpected directions, he soon learns the bombshell revelations about his family aren’t even close to over yet. As if all that weren’t enough, an ancient and malevolent set of magical game pieces has resurfaced, leaving a trail of murder and mayhem in its wake.

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.

USA Today best-selling author Jaye Wells pens paranormal thrillers brimming with nonstop action and wit. There's a blue moon rising in Babylon, putting Detective Kate Prospero and the rest of the city on edge. When she learns a rogue wizard stole deadly potions to build a dirty magic bomb, Kate must locate him and defuse the bomb - before the city surrenders to chaos.

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.

Beau Bond hates fiercely and loves hard. He’ll do anything to protect his twin Brett, and his girlfriend Jolene. Brett is a survivor. He’s always followed his brother’s lead, even if it means he's lived to regret it. As Beau and Jolene get hitched, their feuding families must put their differences aside. But the brothers have a dark secret that could cause a war between both sides … and what better place to reveal all than at a wedding… When their past sins resurface to threaten those closest to them, will the brothers still have each other’s backs?

Acapulco, 1974: Rina Walker is on assignment. Just another quick, clean kill. She wakes to discover her employer's severed head on her bedside table and a man with an AK-47 coming through the door of her hotel room. She needs all her skills to neutralise her attacker and escape. After a car chase, she is captured by a Mexican drug boss who exploits her radiant beauty and ruthless expertise to eliminate an inconvenient member of the government.

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.

Carl Weber brings the best of urban street lit authors together, all telling their own dramatic tales of life in the streets in known cities across the USA. The second installment continues with Treasure Hernandez telling the tale of the Dirty South.