American Detective Mysteries

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.

A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.

Shortly after private eye Howard Moon Deer decides to settle down with his latest lady love, he accepts a new case that takes him away from the home front and introduces him to the dangerous passions that drive San Geronimo's thriving art scene. Howard and ex-police commander Jack Wilder have been hired to investigate Sherman Stone, a man notorious for his torrid liaisons and low-life friends. Rumor has it that he's planning to have his wealthy wife killed. But before Howard can separate fact from fiction, a local hobo is murdered, and then Sherman himself meets an untimely end.

An archeological team is excavating on the banks of the Betwa River near Jahnsi. A place where, legend has it, a couple forbidden to marry had run away to be together — forever cursing anyone who dares set foot on the island. When the head of the expedition defies the myth, the fallout is swift and deadly, the body found exactly as the ancient stories describe. Is the death a result of the ancient curse, or is it a down-to-earth case of murder?

Melchor, the son of a prostitute, went to prison as a teenager, convicted of working for a Colombian drug cartel. Behind bars, he read a book that changed his life: Les Misérables. Then his mother was murdered. He decided to become a cop. This new case, in Terra Alta, a remote region of rural Catalonia—the murder of a wealthy local man and his wife—will turn Melchor’s life upside down yet again.

Cops can make mistakes, even when they're not rookies. Deeply traumatized by a shooting incident, Cass Raines resigned from the Chicago PD, leaving one less female African-American on the force. Now she's the head of a one-woman private investigation agency. She also plays chess with the only father figure she's ever known, Father Ray Heaton. When Father Ray asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she readily agrees to handle the case. But only hours later she's horrified to discover his murdered body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby.

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.

In Parson, Texas, a small town ravaged by a devastating hurricane and the Vietnam War, twenty-nine-year-old Lou is diligently renovating a decaying old mansion for Miss Kate, the elderly neighbor who has always been like a mother to her. Mourning her brother’s death in Vietnam, Lou dreams of enjoying a more peaceful future in Parson. But those hopes are crushed when Miss Kate is murdered, and no one but Lou seems to care about finding the killer.

Charmaine Joliet gets an offer she wants to refuse but can't. Someone from the old neighborhood knows a dark secret, one that could make Charmaine and her younger sister Jessi homicide suspects. But she'll keep quiet a price. The client "hires" Charmaine to help rid her of an unwanted rich husband. Meanwhile, troubled Jessi is in jail again for assault. The police would believe Jessi is capable of murder and that Charmaine is willing to be an accessory to protect her.

Dr. John H. Watson could not anticipate that a favour for the noted American mystery writer and forensic dentist, Rodrigues Ottolengui, would result in the discovery of a heinous murder. But that is what happens when in helping the American, Watson finds himself at a shooting match in a London villa that ultimately leads him to a charred corpse lying face down in a fireplace. With the members of a shooters club as suspects, Watson and Scotland Yard are quick to welcome Sherlock Holmes to the investigation.

His Fifth Precinct cases have taken him to West Coast Chinatowns and back, and along the way NYPD detective Jack Yu has processed a dozen dead bodies, been beaten by Triad thugs, been mauled by a pit bull, and been shot twice.

He's also killed two men. He is en route to an appointment with the department shrink when an Asian body turns up in the Harlem River. Quickly assigned to the case, Jack finds a corpse with no identification and faces questions as to how - and why - the dead man wound up in the water.

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.

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.

In the fifth Leonid McGill novel, Leonid finds himself in an unusual pickle of trying to balance his cases with his chaotic personal life. Leonid is approached by an unemployed office manager named Hiram Stent to track down the whereabouts of his cousin, Celia, who is about to inherit millions of dollars from her father's side of the family. Leonid declines the case, but after his office is broken into and Hiram is found dead, he gets reeled into the underbelly of Celia's wealthy old-money family.

Aaron and Grace Templeton will never forget the 1998 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The day their daughter Kiera got lost in the crowd. Investigative journalist Miren Triggs has spent years trying to help the Templetons find her. But with no leads, Miren fears there's nothing more she can do. Until Kiera's 8th birthday, when a video arrives showing Kiera alive and well, playing in a bedroom. Miren can't believe it - finally, a lead she can follow. Until another video arrives. It's the same bedroom. But Kiera is gone.

A child’s birthday party ends in chaos when one of the parents is found brutally beaten to death. With no way for anyone to leave unnoticed, it’s clear the killer must be another guest, but with 20 high-spirited children as a distraction, anyone might have had the opportunity to slip away from the rest of the party. Detective Meredith Somerset soon discovers the victim had no shortage of enemies, and everyone has a potential motive. Fractured marriages, jealousy and betrayals all come to light, but Meredith can’t seem to cut through the lies and find the truth.

In Calico Springs, Willie’s life has been defined by two powerful forces: God and the river. The “miracle boy” died for five minutes as a young child, and ever since, Willie is certain he survived for a reason, but that purpose didn’t become clear until he found the Game. The Game is called Manifest Atlas, and the concept is simple: enter an intention and the Game provides a target—a blinking blue dot on the map. Willie’s second time playing Manifest Atlas, his intention takes him to an ominous target: three empty graves. Willie is sure the Game is telling him he’s going to die.

Métis journalist Leo Desroches has just been released from jail. Fortunately for him, he is re-hired at the paper to write a popular column about crime. It’s summer; the city is hot and buzzing with mosquitoes, and it’s on track for a record number of homicides. Called to the scene of an apparent overdose of a young Native man in the inner city, Leo witnesses some rocks falling out of the body bag, and he picks them up. At first he believes they are crack cocaine but discovers that the rocks are really rough diamonds.

An electrifying new voice in crime fiction: Allison LaMothe’s debut is a gritty, fast-paced mystery about a reporter running down two huge stories at once “Allison LaMothe is a wildly talented writer with an exacting eye for detail and her tenacious tabloid reporter, Parker Snow, is gutsy...

Someone wants Morgan Shaw dead—or so the beautiful, brilliant, and hugely popular evening news anchor of top-rated Chicago TV station WLTV believes. Fearing for her safety, she turns to P. I. Ashe Cayne for protection. Though he sympathizes, Ashe turns her down—he’s not a bodyguard. But when Morgan’s car tires are slashed and she’s threatened again, Ashe agrees to help her.