Urban Crime Fiction

Seven years ago, Zella Grisham came home to find her man, Harry Tangelo, in bed with her friend. The weekend before, $6.8 million had been stolen from Rutgers Assurance Corp., whose offices are across the street from where Zella worked. Zella didn't remember shooting Harry, but she didn't deny it either. The district attorney was inclined to call it temporary insanity - until the police found $80,000 from the Rutgers heist hidden in her storage space. For reasons of his own, Leonid McGill is convinced of Zella's innocence. But as he begins his investigation, his life begins to unravel.

Here, in Lynne Truss' first novel, we meet Osborne Lonsdale, a down-at-heel journalist, mysteriously attractive to women, who writes a regular celebrity interview for Come into the Garden. This week his "Me and My Shed" column will be based on the charming garden outhouse owned by TV sitcom star Angela Farmer. Unbeknownst to Osborne, driving down to Devon to interview Angela in her country retreat, the sleepy magazine has been taken over by new management.

A high-speed crash leaves a man and woman clinging to life. Neither of them carries ID. Their car has fake number plates. In their luggage: a huge amount of cash. Who are they? What are they hiding? And what were they running from? DS Lynda Hagen, once a brilliant detective, gave it all up to raise her family. But something about this case reignites a spark in her. What begins as an investigation soon becomes an obsession. And it will lead her to a secret so dangerous that soon there will be nowhere left to hide.

Lucas Rurik is no stranger to navigating the tricky territory between humans and those touched by the rift. After all, as the last surviving member of the Raven Guild, protecting the peace is his job. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. As much as Lucas would like to be out hunting for Dr. Callie Mitchell—a deranged scientist with a bad habit of experimenting on the rift-fused—his friends at the Rift-Crime Unit require his expertise on a perilous case.

Harmony Black is much more than your average FBI special agent. In addition to being a practicing witch, she's also an operative for Vigilant Lock, an off-the-books program created to battle occult threats - by any means necessary. Despite her dedication to fighting the monsters threatening society, Harmony has become deeply conflicted about her job. Her last investigation resulted in a pile of dead bodies, and she suspects the wrong people are being punished for it.

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.

Detroit hustlers Free and Six have been together seven years, but their relationship has been nothing but drama. Free hasn't been faithful, and Six has taken out her hurt by physically hurting the other women. Free ends up in jail for three years, and when he's sprung, he's not happy to learn that Six has been living the high life on his dime and has blown through $100,000! Then Six gets entangled in one of Free's schemes and finds herself in a role almost too good to be true.

Life couldn't get better for the Crescent Crew. With an exclusive Mexican pipeline, they've got the Southern drug trade on lock. Former founder Qwess is leveraging rap superstardom to break the music industry's commercial stranglehold. And former leader Reece is fresh off a five-year prison bid - and out to forever secure the Crew's dominance. But as Reece is working a brutal vendetta, a Crew mutiny will drag him back into all-out street war. Now, between the ambitious young Crew and ruthless OG Reece, only one can live to reign....

Gideon Sable—master thief, con artist and self-proclaimed vigilante—faces a challenge he can't refuse. His client, the former Head of the British Rocketry Group, Professor Neil Sharpe, wants him to break into the Preserve. Once inside, Gideon and his crew of supernatural misfits can get any mystical artefact they desire out of the Preserve's collection. The catch? To reach it, they must go through the treacherous Box Tunnel complex and not only face trained guards and booby traps but steal something that can't normally be stolen—a ghost!

When Angel Ramos, one of Jon Reznick’s oldest buddies from special forces, is found brutally slain in a Los Angeles dumpster, Reznick races to California to hunt down his killers. Angel always had Reznick’s back when they were on missions together, but recently his demons had caught up with him. Angel was a recovering junkie and his teenage daughter had vanished into the dark corners of Hollywood’s seedy underbelly. Reznick’s old friend had been desperately trying to get his little girl back when he was viciously tortured and murdered.

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.

ín Chaparro is a retired detective still obsessed by the brutal, decades-old rape and murder of a young married woman in her own bedroom. While attempting to write a book about the case, he revisits the details of the investigation. As he reaches into the past, Chaparro also recalls the beginning of his long, unrequited love for Irene Hornos, then just an intern, now a respected judge. Set in the Buenos Aires of the 1970s, Sacheri’s tale reveals the underpinnings of Argentina’s Dirty War and takes on the question of justice - what it really means and in whose hands it belongs.

Ingrid will never forget what John did. The people he hurt. The way he lied about it so easily. The way she defended him. Now he’s back. He says a murderer is after her. He says only he can protect her. Would you trust him? The clock is ticking for Ingrid to decide. Because the killer is ready to strike again.

The body of an elderly woman has been found in the bowels of a derelict asylum on the banks of the Thames. As Detective Lew Kirby and his partner begin their investigation, another body is discovered in the river nearby. How are the two murders connected? Before long, the secrets of Blackwater Asylum begin to reveal themselves. There are rumours about underground bunkers and secret rooms, unspeakable psychological experimentation, and a dark force that haunts the ruins, trying to pull back in all those who attempt to escape.

Was haben ein Filmproduzent, Feen und ein Magier gemeinsam? Aillard Blackwood, Berater für das New Scotland Yard und Vollzeitmagier stellt sich genau dieser Frage. Nachdem seine Partnerin, Sergeant Paxton, ihn in Londons bekannteste Filmstudios zitiert, gerät er in ein ebenfalls filmreifes Netz von Lügen, Gewalt und Intrigen. Blackwood muss sich ohne seine Magie durch dieses undurchschaubare Gewirr, das eher einer Telenovela als einem gewöhnlichen Fall gleicht, kämpfen.

Those dark and terrible things from your nightmares are very real. They walk among us, masquerading as your neighbor, your lover, even your friend. You see, Empire City is full of them...if you only know where to look. How do I know this? Well, for starters the name is Detective Tom Holliday. I work homicide for Special Crimes. My friends, what few I have, call me Doc. And the other reason? I’ve got magic of my own. Welcome to Empire City, where magic and technology co-exist, and humanity endures behind walls of stone and spell-forged steel.

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?

Trouble is brewing in New Orleans. Shifters are moving in, and vampires are being picked off in record numbers. And vampire hunter Phoebe Kilsen is right in the middle of the war. When Phoebe's best friend goes missing along with the consort of the most powerful vampire in New Orleans, Phoebe betrays her heart and her shifter partner by teaming up with the one vampire she's never trusted.

Homicide detective Maxim Dwyer is tired of small-town secrets. The residents of Sanctuary, Arizona, whisper of creatures in the woods of Sycamore, a sprawling wildlife area undisturbed by the progress of the modern world. Diego de la Torre is the latest stranger drawn to the mountain town. The brash biker is used to skirting the law, but his clashes with the local motorcycle club might make his stay a short one.

The night world of Old Town, Portland, Oregon, has gone mad in the grip of gentrification, and at the center of it all is Lucky Supreme, a seedy tattoo parlor, whose proprietor is a street-bred artist with a unique approach to problem solving. Darby Holland has enough on his radar, but when some flash (tattoo artwork) stolen from him resurfaces in California, he can't help himself. His efforts to reclaim it set him on a dangerous path, dragging along his delightfully eccentric colleagues.