Crime Mystery Fiction

Ben Ripley may only be in middle school, but he's already pegged his dream job: CIA or bust. Unfortunately for him, his personality doesn't exactly scream "secret agent". In fact Ben is so awkward, he can barely get to school and back without a mishap. Because of his innate nerdiness, Ben is not surprised when he is recruited for a magnet school with a focus on science - but he's entirely shocked to discover that the school is actually a front for a junior CIA academy.

On the tree-lined banks of Surrey's River Wey, a decaying corpse is dug up by workmen in the middle of an Anglo-Saxon burial site. His modern dental fillings show that this is no Dark Age corpse... DCI Craig Gillard is called in, but the body's condition makes identification difficult. One man, however, seems to fit the bill: Ozzy Blanchard, a contractor employed by the same water firm doing the digging who disappeared six months ago, his crashed company car found nearby.

Lexi Sobado is a young woman with a special gift: She's psychic. But even knowing things others don't, Lexi's unable to avoid genuine danger when a stalker focuses his evil on her. As the situation escalates, she must navigate through a sinister web of fear and danger to stay alive.

Never a doubt. Never a mistake. Always for justice. Never for revenge. She's the person you hire when you need something fixed-permanently. With a strict set of criteria, she evaluates every request and chooses only a few. No more than one job per country, per year. She will only step in if it's clear that justice will not be served any other way. Her jobs are completed with skill and precision, and never result in inquiry or police investigation. The Fixer is invisible - and quite deadly.

He's back and better than ever. James Ryker, a veteran intelligence agent now freelancer, working for the secretive Joint Intelligence Agency on an op-by-op basis, finds himself embroiled in a complicated mission that will test him to his limit. When a simple surveillance mission goes awry and the key target is kidnapped in broad daylight in a busy London square, Ryker knows he has his work cut out. Ryker is tasked with figuring out what went wrong. But when his good friend Sam Moreno disappears without a trace, the mission becomes more personal than he could have imagined.

Hoping to put behind him tragedy in his professional life and to resolve the turmoil in his personal life, Reykjavik police officer Guðgeir Fransson has moved as far away from home as he can, marking time in a dead-end job in a small town in eastern Iceland.

Cleveland Noir joins Columbus Noir as the Akashic Noir series continues its tour of Ohio and navigates the dregs of the North Shore.

I've spent years hidden away to protect my father from the shame of having a defective daughter. The head of the Bratva can't be associated with weakness—and to him, that's all I am. That is until a marriage alliance gives him the opportunity to finally be rid of me. As I head down the aisle towards my mysterious husband, I hope I'm moving towards love and freedom. But Matteo makes it clear he wants nothing to do with me. I wish I could return his coldness, but the dangerous Don sets my body ablaze whenever he's near.

With his dying breath, Carl Venable, head of the CIA task force on terrorism and Jude Brandon's final link to terrorist ringleader Max Huber, gives Brandon a mandate: to keep his daughter, Rachel, safe at any cost. But Rachel Venable has a shocking, twisted past of her own, one that comes rushing back after her medical clinic in Guyana is attacked by Huber - the same man who murdered her father and kept her imprisoned for months.

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs. Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna.

When an old man dies a seemingly natural death in a parking lot, only Inspector Michael Green finds it suspicious. Something about the closed case has caught his eye - why did the victim have a mysterious gash on his head, inflicted around the time of his death? Talking to the man's family only increases Green's curiosity. They are obviously hiding something about the old man, who lived in isolation as though avoiding painful memories. A search of his house turns up an old tool box with a hidden compartment containing a German ID card from World War II.

Alex Mercer is no stranger to kidnappings. The emotional scars still run deep from his sister's disappearance years earlier. His daughter Ariana remains safe long after her adoption, and he cherishes the few times a year he gets to see her. The joy is palpable when he takes her on their first one-on-one outing. At least until he pauses to answer a text and Ariana disappears. Wracked with guilt and determined to find answers, Alex teams up with an unlikely ally at the police department.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture.

Harry attacked his commanding officer and is suspended indefinitely, pending a psychiatric evaluation. At first he resists the LAPD shrink, but finally recognizes that something is troubling him and has for a long time. In 1961, when Harry was 12, his mother, a prostitute, was brutally murdered with no one ever accused of the crime.

Following the success of Paris Noir, the Akashic Noir Series has expanded to include the famously diverse and sometimes controversial suburbs of this legendary city.

In a small Scottish university town, what links a spate of murders, a targeted bomb explosion and a lecturer's disappearance? Who is pulling the strings? Having returned to Castletown intending to win back his estranged wife, DCI Jim Carruthers finds himself entrenched in the investigation. DS Andrea Fetcher assists him in the hunt for the perpetrators. They need to work fast. But can they truly rely on Jim's old adversary?

After years of working the streets of Miami, veteran detective Jon Marzett craves a quieter life. Taking a job as sheriff in the sleepy town of Big Pine Key seems like the perfect place to wind down his career. But the town harbors dark secrets, and corruption festers deep below the surface of what seems like paradise. Jon soon finds himself thrust into a battle against a powerful cartel determined to maintain its grip on his new hometown.

Kelly Roth, FBI profiler, returns home to Syracuse to stop a sadistic serial killer. Three murders in three separate jurisdictions in central New York State have the same pattern: women killed by fatal headshots from a hunting rifle. Kelly Roth is sent from Virginia to help the local police. Each victim was found murdered in a remote area or in a quiet park. The media call him “The Park Killer.” But Kelly doesn’t think the killer lurks in the bushes. She thinks he hunts his victims somewhere else.

Adrian Monk is actually doing well lately. He's solving murders as fast as they come, and he's been noticeably less compulsive - he doesn't count his morning Wheat Chex until they're in the bowl. Progress is progress, and Monk knows he owes it all to his therapist, Dr. Kroger. So when Dr. Kroger attends a conference in Germany, Monk ends up in trouble. He can't tie his shoes, forgets how to swallow, and loses track of his blinking. Desperate to regain his footing, Monk follows his shrink to Germany. And that's where Monk sees the man across a crowded town square.

Death is reporter Jack McEvoy's beat: his calling, his obsession. But this time, death brings McEvoy the story he never wanted to write - and the mystery he desperately needs to solve. A serial killer of unprecedented savagery and cunning is at large. His targets: homicide cops, each haunted by a murder case he couldn't crack. The killer's calling card: a quotation from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. His latest victim is McEvoy's own brother. And his last...may be McEvoy himself.