American Detective Fiction

Gay Mexican American lawyer Henry Rios has fought bigotry and prejudice, battled alcoholism, and watched his lover die from AIDS. In The Burning Plain, he's wrongly accused of murder after a male prostitute he spent an evening with is savagely murdered. Rios proves his innocence, but when two more gay men are brutally murdered, he is drawn unwillingly into the hunt for a serial killer and soon finds himself up against an unsympathetic DA, a gay-bashing cop, reluctant witnesses, and a conspiracy among Hollywood's power elite.

Feline P. I. Joe Grey and his friends pounce on three investigations that may connect to one larger mystery—including one case that is very personal—in this hair-raising installment in Shirley Rousseau Murphy’s beloved, award-winning series. Joe Grey and his partner, Dulcie, are frantic...

Detective Jeremy Fisk tracks a serial sniper who has mastered state-of-the-art airborne technology to hunt his prey in this chilling thriller from the New York Times bestselling author and creator of the Law & Order franchise. When a leaker named Verlyn Merritt releases sensitive documents from...

A heart-wrenching yet ultimately uplifting story of psychological suspense in which a parent is forced to confront what he does—and does not—know about his teenage son, in the vein of Reconstructing Amelia, Defending Jacob, and We Need to Talk about Kevin. While his successful wife goes off...

Dr. Bill Brockton, the founder of the world-famous Body Farm, is hard at work on a troubling new case. A young man's battered body has been found in nearby Chattanooga, and it's up to the talented Dr. Brockton to assemble the pieces of the forensic puzzle. Brockton is brought into the case by...

“Road Dogs is terrific, and Elmore Leonard is in a class of one.” —Dennis Lehane, author of Shutter Island and Mystic River “You know from the first sentence that you’re in the hands of the original Daddy Cool....This one’ll kill you.” —Stephen King Elmore Leonard is eternal...

Los Angeles, 1986. A group of right-wing Christians has put an initiative on the November ballot to allow health officials to force people with HIV into quarantine camps - and it looks like it’s going to pass. Rios, now living in LA, agrees to be counsel for a group of young activists who call themselves QUEER. QUEER claims to be committed to peaceful civil disobedience. But when one of its members is implicated in the bombing of an evangelical church that kills its pastor, Rios finds himself with a client suddenly facing the death penalty.

The unforgettable protagonist of Lola returns in a gritty, high-octane thriller about a brilliant woman who will stop at nothing to protect her growing drug empire, even if she has to go to war with a rival cartel...or her own family It took sacrifice, pain, and more than a few dead bodies, but...

From a bright new talent comes a riveting psychological thriller about an American exchange student in France involved in a suspicious accident, and the journalist determined to break the story and uncover the dark secrets a small town is hiding. On a quiet summer morning, seventeen-year-old...

Tinseltown's awards season is in full swing, and everyone is obsessed with dressing up, scoring free swag, and getting invited to the biggest awards shows of the year. But when celebrity publicist Lyla Davis is killed, the festive mood comes to an abrupt halt. Apprentice private eye Dayna Anderson thinks she's uncovered the killer. Unfortunately, what starts as an open-and-shut case turns out to be anything but.

When Howard Moon Deer's girlfriend Aria storms from his cabin in the middle of the night, he just considers it another conflict in their tempestuous relationship. But when he finds her Jeep abandoned down the road with no sign of her nearby, his instincts lead him on an investigation that uncovers the dark underbelly of a trendy southwestern town.

Doug Weaver is a defense attorney who always believes the best of his clients, and Jacob Cohen, on trial for murder, is no exception. Jacob may be homeless and mentally ill, but Doug can't believe that this meek and intensely religious man could have killed and dismembered a woman. Yet Bernard...

In the year 1605, a young, pregnant widow seeks sanctuary at the Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer. After the birth of her daughter, she takes up the veil, and a new name, Soeur Auguste. But the peace she has found is shattered five years later by the events that follow the death of her kind...

Adventurer Ethan Gage travels through the darkest and most superstitious realms of eighteenth century Europe, to the castles and caves of Bohemia to rescue his family and uncover a mysterious medieval device rumored to foretell the future. Having quick-wittedly survived the battle of Trafalgar...

The author of the acclaimed medieval mystery A Burnable Book once again brings fourteenth-century London alive in all its color and detail in this riveting thriller featuring medieval poet and fixer John Gower—a twisty tale rife with intrigue, danger mystery, and murder. Though he is one of...

The New York Times bestselling author of Labor Day and The Good Daughters returns with a haunting novel of sisterhood, sacrifice, and suspense I was always looking for excitement, until I found some . . . Summer, 1979. A dry, hot Northern California school vacation stretches before Rachel and...

Private investigator Dana Cutler must take down a cunning psychopath before he can pull off the perfect crime, in Sleight of Hand, a novel of suspense from Phillip Margolin, New York Times bestselling author of Capitol Murder and Supreme Justice. Charles Benedict – charismatic criminal defense...

“[A] thrill-a-minute novel.” —USA Today Jack Swyteck is back in action in Born to Run—the eighth outing for the danger-prone Miami lawyer in author James Grippando’s New York Times bestselling series. In this timely and spellbinding thriller, Swyteck is embroiled in shady Washington...

The Zero is a groundbreaking novel, a darkly comic snapshot of our times that is already being compared to the works of Franz Kafka and Joseph Heller. From its opening scene—when hero cop Brian Remy wakes up to find he's shot himself in the head—novelist Jess Walter takes us on a harrowing...

From Edgar-nominated author Lyndsay Faye comes what Gillian Flynn calls “a brilliant new mystery.” One of The Wall Street Journal’s Ten Best Mysteries of the Year Six months after the formation of the NYPD, its most reluctant and talented officer, Timothy Wilde, thinks himself well versed...