Crime City

New York's most elite police force chases a ruthless murderer with an uncontrollable lust for money and blood. It's another glamorous night in the heart of Manhattan: At a glitzy movie premiere, a gorgeous starlet, dressed to the nines and dripping in millions of dollars' worth of jewelry on loan, makes her way past a horde of fans and paparazzi. But then there's a sudden loud noise, an even louder scream, and a vicious crime with millions of witnesses and no suspect - and now NYPD Red has a new case on its hands.

In the early 1900s, prior to World War I, New York City was a vortex of vice and corruption. On the Lower East Side, then the most crowded ghetto on earth, Eastern European Jews formed a dense web of crime syndicates. Gangs of horse poisoners and casino owners, pimps and prostitutes, thieves and thugs, jockeyed for dominance while their family members and neighbors toiled in the unregulated garment industry. But when the notorious murder of a gambler attracted global attention, a coterie of affluent German-Jewish uptowners decided to take matters into their own hands.

It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Speakeasies thrived, gang war shootings announced Al Capone's rise to underworld domination, Chicago's corrupt political leaders fraternized with gangsters, and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people (who should have known better) to invest as much as $30 million.

On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California’s shiniest stars—Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who’d long done battle with USC and its almost impenetrable culture of silence, knew reporting the story wouldn’t be a walk in the park. USC is the largest private employer in the city of L.A., and it casts a long shadow.

A man is found murdered in his Reykjavik flat. There are no obvious clues apart from a cryptic note left on the body and a photograph of a young girl's grave. Delving into the dead man's life Detective Erlendur discovers that 40 years ago he was accused of an appalling crime, but never convicted. Had his past come back to haunt him? As Erlendur struggles to build a relationship with his unhappy daughter, his investigation takes him to Iceland's Genetic Research Centre, where he uncovers disturbing secrets that are even darker than the murder of an old man.

In fall 1967, friends Linda Tomaszewski and Christine Rothschild are freshmen at the University of Wisconsin. The students in the hippie college town of Madison are letting down their hair - and their guards. But amid the peace rallies lurks a killer. When Christine's body is found, her murder sends shockwaves across college campuses, and the Age of Aquarius gives way to a decade of terror. Linda knows the killer, but when police ignore her pleas, he slips away. For the next forty years, Linda embarks on a cross-country quest to find him.

"This was no suicide," says Detective Michael Bennett. A man plunges to his death from the roof of a Manhattan hotel. It looks like a suicide - except the victim has someone else's fingerprints and $10,000 in cash. Enter Detective Michael Bennett. BookShots - lightning-fast stories by James Patterson. Novels you can devour in a few hours, impossible to stop listening, and all original content from James Patterson.

Acclaimed journalist Randall Sullivan follows Russell Poole, a highly decorated LAPD detective who in 1997 was called to investigate a controversial cop-on-cop shooting, eventually to discover that the officer killed was tied to Marion “Suge” Knight’s notorious gangsta rap label, Death Row Records. During his investigation, Poole came to realize that a growing cadre of black officers were allied not only with Death Row, but with the murderous Bloods street gang. And incredibly, Poole began to uncover evidence that at least some of these “gangsta cops” may have been involved in the murders of rap superstars Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur.

Stone Barrington is nearing his New York City abode when he stumbles into trouble. As it turns out, a new client is in danger - and with both business and the safety of the city at stake, Stone has no choice but to get involved. It’s soon clear that a complicated scheme is being hatched, and the source remains enigmatic...but it’s only a matter of time before he and Stone must each show their hands.

Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men - employees at the resort - are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved. For Claire and her parents, there is only the return home to broken lives.

Seldom has the netherworld of the Mafia been revealed with such fascinating detail and sheer suspense. Featuring eccentric, larger-than-life New York characters and an undercover cop on the brink of being discovered - and murdered - at every step, Takedown is a riveting real-life procedural and one of the most important investigative books of its time.

A real-life thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut, Death in the Air, is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. In winter 1952, London automobiles and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December fifth of 1952 was different; it was a type that held the city hostage for five long days.

The firefighting crew of Engine 99 has spent years rushing fearlessly into the hot zone of major fires across New York City. This tight-knit four-person unit has worked together to save countless lives and stop out of control fires before they cause major destruction. They've also stolen millions from banks, jewelry stores, and art galleries. Under the cover of saving the city, they've used their knowledge and specialist equipment to become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast.

It's a profile, like all the others on the online dating site. But as NYPD Detective Kat Donovan focuses on the accompanying picture, she feels her whole world explode, as emotions she’s ignored for decades come crashing down on her. Staring back at her is her ex-fiancé Jeff, the man who shattered her heart - and who she hasn’t seen in 18 years. Kat feels a spark, wondering if this might be the moment when past tragedies recede and a new world opens up to her.

Married life for Tap and Pepper isn't turning out quite the way they planned. The ranch is gone and they've moved to Cheyenne where Tap finds himself a job as acting marshal in a town that has little regard for the law. And it's not a pretty sight!

Hired to prove infidelity in an heiress' marriage, Stone Barrington goes undercover. But the work turns dirty - and catastrophic - when the errant husband is found dead, and the other woman disappears without a trace. Now Stone must clear his own good name and find a killer hiding among the glitterati of New York's high society.

Marla Bernstein is a pretty, dark-haired teenager who also happens to be the ward of Ben Morningstar - a semi-retired mobster who prefers to keep family business out of the newspapers. When Marla suddenly disappears, the gang boss is forced to call in private eve Amos Walker, who quickly learns his new employer doesn't take "no" for an answer when he offers a job opportunity. Unfortunately, the only clue to Marla's whereabouts is a pornographic photograph that clearly proves that she's become part of a world that disgusts even her criminal guardian....

In the Carnival days leading up Mardi Gras, Detective Caleb Rooney comes under investigation for a murder he is accused of committing in the line of duty - as a major crimes detective for the New Orleans Police Department. Has his sideline at the Killer Chef food truck given him a taste for murder? While fighting the charges against him, Rooney makes a pair of unthinkable discoveries. His beloved city is under threat of attack. And these would-be terrorists may be local.

After inheriting a farm on New Zealand’s South Island, Lewis Harding tries his best to keep it running. The financially strapped farmer is forced to forage his new land for implements, eliciting the help of his son Gary. But when they go too close to the entrance of an old deserted gold mine, catastrophe strikes in more ways then one. When Gary’s older brother, Dr. Cecil Harding, shows up at the farm, Nekenhalle, he discovers that his brother and father had gone missing.

Meet Michael D. Blutrich, founder of Scores, the hottest strip club in New York history. A resourceful lawyer at one of the city's most respected firms, Blutrich fell into the skin trade almost by accident, but it was his legal savvy that made Scores the first club in Manhattan to feature lap dances and enabled him to neatly sidestep a law requiring dancers to wear pasties by instead covering their nipples with latex paint. Soon Scores was a home away from home for everyone from sports superstars and Oscar-winning actors to pop singers and political notables alike.