Urban Mystery

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....

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.

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.

Billy Harney was born to be a cop. The son of Chicago's chief of detectives, whose twin sister is also on the force, Billy plays it by the book. Alongside Detective Kate Fenton, Billy's tempestuous, adrenaline-junkie partner, there's nothing he wouldn't sacrifice for his job. Enter Amy Lentini, a hard-charging assistant state's attorney hell-bent on making a name for herself - who suspects Billy isn't the cop he claims to be. They're about to be linked by more than their careers.

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.

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....

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.

Trick Baby tells the story of White Folks, a blue-eyed, light-haired con artist whose pale skin allows him to pass in the streets as a white man. Folks is tormented early in life, rejected by other children and branded a "trick baby," a child conceived between a hooker and her trick. Refusing to abandon his life in the ghetto and a chance at revenge, Folks is taken under the wing of an older mentor, Blue. What happens next is unbelievable.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Apprentice mage Chance Fortunato just can’t catch a break. His training has gotten even harder, and his mentor, Dr. Corwin, is pushing him to take his mage trials early. Still, it beats his old gig working for a demon. But life takes a turn for the worse when a member of his girlfriend Shade’s werewolf pack is killed by a member of a rogue pack. Adding insult to grief, the pack is forced to let the Conclave send an observer to monitor their investigation.

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.

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.

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.

Amateur ghost hunters Perry Palomino and Dex Foray embark on their most terrifying investigation yet. Now a functioning campground, Perry and Dex spend an isolated weekend on a tiny, fog-shrouded island to investigate potential hauntings - but as the duo quickly find out, there is more to fear on D'Arcy Island than just ghosts. The island quickly pits partner against partner, spiraling the pair into madness that serves to destroy their sanity, their relationship, and their very lives.

It should have been a case like any other: a missing princess, a king willing to pay in gold for her return. But before he realizes it, private investigator Eddie LaCrosse, a slightly shopworn sword jockey with a talent for discretion and detection, is swept up in a web of mystery and deceit involving a brutally murdered royal heir, a queen accused of an unspeakable crime, and the tragic past he thought he'd left behind.