Urban Mystery Thrillers

At the Great New York Cookie Swap, pastry chefs bake up their very best for charity. Clare is in charge of the beverage service, and her famous Fa-la-la-la Lattes make the gathering even merrier. But her high spirits come crashing down when she discovers the battered body of a hard-working baker's assistant. Police suspect a serial attacker whose escalating crimes have become known as "the Christmas Stalkings". Clare'sboyfriend, NYPD detective Mike Quinn, finds reason to believe even more sinister forces are involved.

Robyn and Aries are "The Murder Mamas", contract killers from Los Angeles who take no prisoners. It doesn't take them long to link up with Hollywood's biggest drug kingpin, who hires them to take out a snitch and a judge. But the plans backfire, and they complete only half the job. Robyn is caught and put on death row, and Aries goes on the run. She winds up in the islands, where she takes up a new life as a mother and wife and tries to forget who she once was.

The Movie Town Theater is holding its first ever Film Noir Festival, with Pen handling book sales for the guest speakers, including screen actress Hedda Geist. The legendary femme fatale has been out of the spotlight for decades. Unfortunately, the moment she steps back into it, she's nearly killed. Then other guests start to die, and Penelope wants to know why her little town's Film Noir weekend has taken a truly dark turn.

In The Accomplice, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and award-winning mystery writer Aaron Philip Clark introduce listeners to New York-born and Texas-bred Nia Adams, who always dreamt of becoming a Texas Ranger. She knows the dangers of the job, and as the first Black female ranger, she knows the politics, but she’s never encountered a criminal like Desmond Bell.

Something weird is happening to the Los Angeles freeways - phantom cars, lanes from nowhere, and sometimes unmarked off-ramps that give glimpses of a desolate desert highway - and Sebastian Vickery, disgraced ex-Secret Service agent, is a driver for a covert supernatural-evasion car service. But another government agency is using and perhaps causing the freeway anomalies, and their chief is determined to have Vickery killed because of something he learned years ago at a halted Presidential motorcade. Reluctantly aided by Ingrid Castine, a member of that agency, and a homeless Mexican boy....

How to Be a Badass Detective is the latest addition to the How to Be a Badass series collection.

This bundle includes books seven, eight, and nine in the Nine Lives Magic Mysteries: Stray Spells, Mystic Meow, and Catnip Charms. Mystic Meow: It’s the dog days of summer and Winterspell is going through town psychics faster than a werewolf sheds its fur after a full moon. Catnip Charms: Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something … cursed? Catnip Charms: Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something … cursed?

Turmoil, sickness, and destruction are sweeping through Europe - and its effects are being felt all the way across the world in Seattle. Harper Blaine and her lover, Quinton, suspect that Quinton’s father, James Purlis - and his terrifying Ghost Division - are involved. Following a dark trail of grotesque crimes and black magic across the Old World, the pair slowly draws closer to their quarry. But finding and dismantling the Ghost Division won’t be enough to stop the horror that Purlis has unwittingly set in motion.

When roguish playboy Adam Kingsley meets the stunning Tantra instructor Kathryn Delcour, he falls hard. An intense sexual chemistry sizzles between them from their first shared glance to the soul-cleansing Tantra session they experience together. While Adam recovers from injuries after saving Kathryn's life, she instructs him in the sensual practice of Tantra. He becomes her willing student as their tantric lovemaking brings Adam to sexual highs he never dreamed were possible.

New York Times best-selling authors Ashley and JaQuavis follow up their smash hit Carter Diamond with part two in the prequel series to The Cartel. Picking up right where the last installment ended, this action-packed street tale tells the story of the man who started it all. Before the Cartel - he stood alone.

Blair Wilkes is having a trying week. Her best friend stands accused of murdering a vampire, and dead bodies are showing up in the forest. She knows Alissa is innocent, but with the vampires out for blood - more than usual - tensions in the small town of Fairy Falls are at a tipping point. As if that's not enough, Blair's witchcraft lessons aren't going well, with her wand gaining a life of its own - not to mention her familiar. And then she discovers something startling about her family that puts her burgeoning relationship with former paranormal hunter Nathan under pressure.

Delia Spark is caught in a maelstrom. Her former life as a London theatre director is on the brink of implosion amid a scandalous divorce, a tarnished reputation, and, for reasons she cannot fathom, things keep spontaneously combusting around her. Her sixties were supposed to be peaceful, but now even her grown daughter won't return her calls. Escape is the only option.

I never signed up to be a private investigator with a snarky, talking cat for a partner, but there's no backing down now. Especially considering a prominent politician was murdered pretty much right in my backyard. The only witnesses were the senator's two hairless cats, Jacques and Jillianne. Normally pets want to help us solve their owner's murders, but this time it seems the two devious felines might actually be the ones who committed it....

Ellie Jordan's job is to catch and remove unwanted ghosts. Part detective, part paranormal exterminator, Ellie operates out of Savannah, Georgia - the most haunted city in the United States. When a family contacts her to deal with a disturbing presence in the old mansion they've recently purchased, Ellie first believes it to be a typical, by-the-book specter, a residual haunting by a restless spirit. Instead she finds herself confronting an evil that is older and more powerful than she'd ever expected.

Marnie Baranuik is back, and this time, the Great White Shark of psychic investigations has "people skills" and a new assistant who seems to harbor an unhealthy curiosity about Harry, her revenant companion. Together, they've got a whole lot of questions that need answering. Is an ancient vampire hunting in Denver? Who is stalking Lord Dreppenstedt? How do you cure a slipper-humping bat, ditch an ogre, or give a demon king the slip? And what the hell was she thinking swearing off cookies?

I was burned at the stake at 14...I was drowned in a lake when I was 24...at 27, I was stoned in a public square. I have died a hundred times in a hundred different ways, usually at the hands of the humans I've tried to save. But when a pregnant young woman finds her way into my tattoo shop with a demon on her tail, things go from bad to worse. Being a centuries-old witch isn't going to help me—nothing will. This time I might just die in a way that sticks...permanently.

The Diamond family has survived murder, deceit, and betrayal. Through it all, they’re still standing tall, and a new era has begun. After surviving an attempt on her life, Breeze has moved into the queen’s position by Zyir’s side. Zyir has taken over the empire and locked down Miami’s streets; the world is in his hands. But there is always new blood ready to overthrow the throne. Young Carter has retired and moved away from the madness - that is, until he gets an unexpected visitor at his home. This person shakes up the whole family, causing chaos that threatens to bring down the Cartel for good.

Astra has returned to Chicago and the everyday life of a cape: getting kittens out of trees, training, aiding the city's emergency first-responders, training, doing public relations events, training, and the occasional superhero v. supervillain fight that threatens to level neighborhoods or at least set them on fire. Then Astra takes a hard hit during a fight and very briefly finds herself somewhere else, somewhere she's only been before in dreams and in the company of Kitsune, a shape-shifting trickster fox.

When I was invited to the secretive castle DuMoir, I knew I'd end up dead. The guests might be excited by the exclusive tour around the estate, and the ending ball that concludes it, but I know better. The castle's inhabitants are vampires. And they want our blood. I must find a way to survive their feast, because I'm not here as a clueless visitor. I'm here for a reason. Undercover work can be hard, but I've been through worse. That is, until I unwillingly become a blood slave to Drake, a mysterious, brooding vampire prince.

James Stark is back from Hell, trailing more trouble in his wake. To return to LA, he had to make a deal with the evil power brokers, Wormwood - an arrangement that came with a catch. While he may be home, Stark isn’t quite himself...because he’s only partially alive. There’s a time limit on his reanimated body, and unless Stark can find the people targeting Wormwood, he will die again - and this time there will be no coming back. Stark knows he can’t find Wormwood’s enemies alone. To succeed, he’s got to enlist the help of new friends.