Urban Crime

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.

Jerry has a traumatic past that leaves him subject to psychotic hallucinations and depressive episodes. When he stands accused of stealing a priceless Van Gogh painting, he goes underground, where he develops an unwilling relationship with a woman who believes that the voices she hears are from God.

Meet Leander: lover, fighter, liar. He learnt a long time ago that nothing is as intoxicating as blood. And these days, whether it's his or someone else's, he frequently finds himself covered in it. Up to now, it's been his secret. But it's hard to remain invisible when you leave a trail of destruction everywhere you do go. And when he comes to the attention of one of London's most infamous criminals, Leander decides to put his appetite for violence to the ultimate test.

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.

Seth Morgan’s frenzied, addictive walk on the wild side of 1980s San Francisco. When strip-joint barker Joe Speaker unwittingly steals a 69-carat blue diamond, he becomes enmeshed in a blackmail-and-murder conspiracy that begins with the savage slaying of high-priced call girl Gloria Monday. Suddenly Joe’s a wanted man. Hunted by a murderous pimp known as Baby Jewels Moses and a relentless homicide cop named Tarzon, Joe ends up taking the rap and getting sentenced to three years.

The building was once home to families, friends, children, couples, love, life. Now almost every flat is empty, the inhabitants forced out by developers. Only a few of the inhabitants have fought back. And they have been joined by passionate student protestor and would-be journalist Ella, who is leading a high-profile media campaign to protect those who refuse to leave. But Ella is in trouble. Because now there are more than six people in the building, but one of them is lying in a lift shaft with a broken neck....

Magic has been franchised. Magical conveniences are sold everywhere like designer coffee. Everyday life is filled with technical and magical wonders. Only, the magic is murdering people. Thoth Corp's hot new spell is turning people into ravening monsters. Their only hope to quietly rectify the situation before the epidemic spreads is the spell architect they framed and sent to prison. El's response to his former partners wasn't polite. Homeless, forbidden to use government-regulated magic, and barely surviving out of dumpsters, Eli struggles to rebuild his life.

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.

Mumbai is a city that thrives on extravagant spectacles and larger-than-life characters. But as Chopra is about to discover, even in the city of dreams, there is no guarantee of a happy ending.

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.

The Beladors finally have a fierce leader in Daegan, their new dragon king, but life is far from secure now that they've inherited his enemies. Quinn, Evalle, Storm, and friends race to stop a group of vigilantes killing nonhumans before the preternatural world erupts into war - if they can't prove Beladors aren't guilty of the crimes. The team soon discovers someone is trying to turn the entire VIPER preternatural coalition against the Beladors, but who? Or is this all about setting an elaborate trap for Daegan?

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.

Matt Helm is puzzled. He’s been sent to Mexico to investigate the sighting of a flying saucer, but Helm doesn’t believe in little green men. Then his Russian opposite number is shot in her hotel, but who did it? And why are the Mexican cops acting so tough? Time to track down the redhead who called in the sighting and get to the bottom of the case.

It's been a while since Sadie Fuller has lived a normal life. Her obsessive compulsions make even daily life a constant struggle. Living in New Los Angeles doesn't help either. A haven for Descendants, gods and goddesses that suddenly woke up in mortal bodies, the city is ripe with the mysterious and macabre. But now Sadie is witness to a Descendant murder and thrown into an investigation that will test her in ways she could never have imagined. Soon, she herself becomes the hunted. Who is serially killing the Descendants and why do they want to kill her?

Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it's dumb and harmless until it's too late to think otherwise. Then there's Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighbourhood wrongs through acts of violence.

Social scientists have long argued over the links between crime and place. The authors of Communities and Crime provide an intellectual history that traces how varying images of community have evolved over time and influenced criminological thinking and criminal justice policy.

They call them halfheads: convicted criminals, surgically mutilated and lobotomized by the State, then sent out to do menial jobs in the community so everyone will know what happens when you break the law. There are no appeals, no reprieves, and no one ever comes back. Until now. Dr Fiona Westfield, one of the most prolific serial killers Glasgow has ever seen, is waking up. Surrounded by blood and death and darkness. William Hunter has risen through the ranks since putting Westfield away; now he’s Assistant Network Director, in charge of police actions.

The bayou is burning, the battle is just beginning - and Luce Boudreau is smack in the middle of no-man's land.... Life as a cop in Canton Town, Mississippi, is never dull - particularly when hiding deep within you is a demon bent on the apocalypse. Luce is doing her best to pretend her two worlds aren't crashing into each other, but what should be a routine arson investigation takes a shocking turn when Luce discovers a link between the suspects and her own dark secrets. There's no turning back, even though her search for the truth threatens to burn her old life down around her.

For centuries, the Koh-i-Noor diamond has set man against man and king against king. Now part of the British Crown Jewels, the priceless gem is a prize that many have killed to possess. So when the Crown Jewels go on display in Mumbai, security is everyone's principal concern. And yet on the very day Inspector Chopra visits the exhibition, the diamond is stolen from under his nose. The heist was daring and seemingly impossible. The hunt is on for the culprits.

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.