Urban Crime

When John Milton witnesses a suspicious altercation between a young man and two thugs in a car auction parking lot, he can't resist getting involved. Milton came to Kansas City hoping to find a way out of danger. His recent vendetta against a cartel hitman who killed his friend has made him enemies in high places. Now he needs to find the only man who can get him out of this mess. But, like a moth to a flame, Milton is drawn to anyone who needs his help. And this time, he's also drawing the attention of money laundering criminals who really mean business.

In a deserted tenement in an occupied city, two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor as if they have fallen out of the air. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked. One is human, the other isn’t. The city of Ambergris is half ruined, rotten, its population controlled by narcotics, internment camps, and acts of terror. But its new masters want this case closed, urgently. Detective John Finch has just one week to solve it or be sent to the camps. With no ID for the victims, no clues, no leads, and precious little hope, Finch’s fate hangs in the balance.

In the United States today, one in every 31 adults is under some form of penal control, including one in 11 African American men. How did the "land of the free" become the home of the world's largest prison system? Challenging the belief that America's prison problem originated with the Reagan administration's War on Drugs, Elizabeth Hinton traces the rise of mass incarceration to an ironic source: the social welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society at the height of the civil rights era.

La “costa brava” de Madrid es un conjunto de barrios del sur de la capital donde los índices de delincuencia son superiores y la esperanza de vida inferior a la media del resto de la ciudad. Por ellos pululan, entre colillas apagadas, chabolas hiperpobladas y pisos rebosantes de inquilinos desahuciados, los protagonistas de esta novela, Israel Cruz, un perdedor nato con una última misión que cumplir; Fraile, el tipo más espabilado de todo Madrid, jugando a mil bandas, siempre viviendo al filo; Santos, un policía con mil secretos y otros tantos confidentes.

Judi Rifkin is one of the world’s most successful collectors of the weird and unnatural. In a London underworld filled with criminals with very special talents, Judi is a force to be reckoned with. And Gideon Sable—thief, rogue, and chancer—owes her a very large favor. Judi makes him an offer he can’t refuse: steal her the legendary Masque of Ra, kept safe in a Las Vegas casino, and she’ll wipe the slate clean. This isn’t Gideon’s first heist. But with old grudges, an unpredictable crew, and a formidable supernatural security team, this job might be a gamble too far.

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.

Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' 30-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite "better half" against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides.

Malcom Porter had potential. A bright future. A scholarship. But when his older brother is killed, he trades textbooks for territory and becomes a name feared in Harlem. As enemies rise, trust bleeds thin, and betrayals cut deep, Malcom must decide whether he’ll rule the streets like a king—or break the cycle before it buries him.

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!

Badrick is back on his home turf, ready to reclaim the streets of London. Eight years gone, and the city is a whole new beast fresh faces, new power plays, and rivals standing between him and the empire he once ruled. The stakes? Deadly. Lies, betrayal, murder and a new love that could change everything. But Badrick moving solo. He’s got Streetz, a seasoned mentor who schooled him in the U.S. game and plugged him into a powerful network. Now, Badrick’s playing for keeps back in, then out, on his terms. But in this game, nothing stays the same.

After the arrest of Chancellor King and the murder of his eldest son and heir, Ghost, the King family and the streets of New York City are thrown into chaos. Chancellor’s older brother, Chapman, takes the opportunity to usurp the crown, breaking the line of succession and stepping over his nephew Shadow. Chapman’s first act as the new king is to banish what remains of his broken family, branding them enemies of the crown. Stripped of all wealth and power, Maureen King places a seemingly impossible task on the shoulders of Shadow.

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.

The year is 1996, and Los Angeles is a strange and sensuous place. Morgana, a Vampire and fledgling reporter, lives in a world that could only be described as a fantasy; one where Humans, Vampires, Orcs, Elves, and other mythic races coexist in a tumultuous society. Her life is thrown into chaos when the story of a missing teenage girl lands on her desk. Her investigation thrusts her into the dark recesses of the city, finding herself undercover as a sex worker in the macabre and alluring underworld.

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.

The legendary urban lit author returns with a new character, a new city, a new series, as AUWA Books makes its first foray into fiction. Toussaint Batiste is returning home to the City of Brotherly Love hoping he can, for once in his life, outrun his nickname: Trouble. Toussaint has been in...

Promise and her best friend Mouse have fled Newark and are hiding out in New York City, wanted by the police—and the streets—for the death of B-Stone, leader of the Bloods. In the city, Promise has found work as a waitress at a hole-in-the-wall strip club. But one fateful night, she is forced to face her past when an up-and-coming rapper draws several shady characters into her orbit. Meanwhile, Asher has maneuvered himself into a position of great importance after B-Stone’s death, albeit with some help.

Cass is a known high roller in the city, and his reign in the heroin trade has lasted for years. People on the street call his gorgeous estate the "White House" because of his political connections and power. His home is untouchable and off-limits to the local hoodlums. But all this changes the night he meets Draya, an opportunistic beauty queen. She meticulously orchestrates a robbery, which goes smoothly - until the tables turn. Five people walk into the house, but only one walks out.

Detective Jalen Ross knows Auburn Street like the back of his hand — its corners, its hustlers, its ghosts. But when a young gang member is gunned down inside a corner store, Jalen discovers a chilling message left behind just for him: a red envelope containing a photo from his undercover past. The photo forces him back into the shadows of the life he thought he’d escaped — back to Terrell “T-Rex” Martin, a ruthless gang lieutenant who should have been locked away for decades.

Barely out of his 20s, Chester Hines knows the score. He's just another bug crawling through the streets of Detroit, waiting to be squashed under the heel of a system meant to keep a brother down. But with his old lady on his back, his only options are on the wrong side of the law. He didn't need a fortune-teller to tell him that sooner or later he'd end up in a system more brutal than the one that forced him there.

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.