Crime Suspense

On the eve of the global lockdown, Don Barlow opens the door of his old beachside cottage to find a pretty girl with pink-tipped hair, claiming to have nowhere to go. He allows her entry, and so begins a mystery set in unprecedented times: with the virus raging outside their home, the girl cannot be asked to leave, but what does he risk by having her stay?

Big-band frontman Johnny Favorite was singing for the troops when a Luftwaffe fighter squadron strafed the bandstand, killing the crowd and leaving the singer near death. The army returned him to a private hospital in upstate New York, leaving him to live out his days as a vegetable while the world forgot him. But Louis Cyphre never forgets. Cyphre had a contract with the singer, stipulating payment upon Johnny's death—payment that will be denied as long as Johnny clings to life. When Cyphre hires Harry Angel to find Johnny at the hospital, Angel learns that the singer has disappeared.

Intrepid Mountie Jack Taggart is hurled into a world where morality, justice, and the legal system are pitted against one another. Taggart investigates the murder of someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wiretap information identifies a shadowy gang member known only as Cocktail as being responsible. Taggart and his partner go undercover to join one of a coalition of gangs who are at war in British Columbia. Their mission is to identify Cocktail and gain evidence to convict him of murder.

Can an idealist from the city stop his estranged friend in the country from exposing a grim and damning secret from their past? On the surface, Greg Simmons seems an utterly improbable informant. He's an idealistic, Cascadia independence proponent from the city of Portland. When the FBI calls on Greg to go undercover to investigate a dangerous militia movement out in rural Oregon, he knows exactly why: his long-estranged friend from the country, Donny Wilkie, could have deep ties to the militia.

Suzuki is an ordinary man until his wife is murdered. To get answers and his revenge, Suzuki abandons his law-abiding lifestyle and takes a low-level job with a front company operated by the crime gang Maiden, who are responsible for his wife’s death. Before long, Suzuki finds himself caught up in a network of quirky and highly effective assassins.

Bryson Wilde, investigator for hire, lives in an edgy world where the dames are dangerous, cigarettes dangle from ruby-red lips, and the nights are hotter than whiskey-soaked jazz. In R. J. Jagger’s riveting noir thriller, A Way with Murder, Wilde finds himself entangled in two deadly assignments, one for a young, raven-haired attorney on the run after visiting an archeological site in Mexico, and the other for a pretty, little doll-face, who is too mysterious to trust and too hypnotic to resist.

While working one afternoon on the Northern Divide, a young tree-marker makes a grisly discovery: in a squatter's cabin near an old mill town, a family has been murdered. An army vet coming off a successful turn leading a task force that took down infamous biker criminals, Detective Frank Yakabuski arrives in Ragged Lake, a nearly abandoned village, to solve the family's murder. But no one is willing to talk. With a winter storm coming, Yakabuski sequesters the locals in a fishing lodge as he investigates the area with his two junior officers.

Max - an elderly Paris bookstall owner - is abducted at gunpoint. His friend Hugo Marston, head of security at the U.S. embassy, launches a search. His investigation reveals that Max was a Holocaust survivor and later became a Nazi hunter. Is his disappearance somehow tied to his grim history, or even to the mysterious old books he sold? Before long, other booksellers start to disappear, their bodies found floating in the Seine. Then Marston himself becomes a target of the unknown assassins.

On the day before his twenty-first wedding anniversary, David Sullinger buried an ax in his wife’s skull. Now, eight jurors must retire to the deliberation room and decide whether David committed premeditated murder—or whether he was a battered spouse who killed his wife in self-defense.

How much can you trust your closest friend? Beth Montgomery seems to have the perfect life: a beautiful house in the hills above Los Angeles, a handsome, ambitious husband, and plans of starting a family. So it doesn't occur to her to worry when the news breaks of a quadruple homicide across...

On a sunny winter afternoon, Jarvis is doing nothing special when a new case walks into his life in the form of a beautiful blonde with flashing eyes. Jarvis doesn’t know it yet, but this new client is about to turn his life inside out. Audrey Lambert and her grandfather need Jarvis’ special brand of hardboiled help, and they need it fast.

Thomas Tallis, inspector of provenance, has just arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland, to authenticate The Goldenacre, a masterpiece by iconic Scottish architect and painter Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Still dealing with a miserable divorce and the fallout from a disastrous job in London, Tallis is eager to sign off on the painting and leave. It should be simple, as the painting has been owned by one noble family since the ’20s. But then a horrifying parcel arrives on Tallis’ desk, and the threatening message is clear: Someone doesn’t want him inspecting the painting.

The men in the secret society known as the Lords think they rule the world. And in a way, they do. Each has sold their soul to the devil at a young age in exchange for power and wealth. Like anything else, they have different levels of success. The more they’re willing to serve, the more power they have. Among them are the Spade brothers, who run Carnage. It’s where the Lords who have not held up their oath go to live out the rest of their lives in shackles. Tucked away from the world as if they never existed.

As Christmas descends on Mistletoe, Maine, Holly White has an extra gift for the season: a new baby on the way. Her husband, Sheriff Evan Gray, has been worried about her elevated blood pressure, and Holly has agreed to take this year easy. Being idle has never been one of Holly’s gifts, so when Evan surprises her with tickets to the town-wide dinner, she and her many cravings thank him. But when a thief tries and fails to steal an antique ornament from the dinner’s holiday display, it’s clear that someone is on the naughty list.

Nina can never forgive Maggie for what she did. And she can never let her leave. They say every house has its secrets, and the house that Maggie and Nina have shared for so long is no different. Except that these secrets are not buried in the past. Every other night, Maggie and Nina have dinner together. When they are finished, Nina helps Maggie back to her room in the attic, and into the heavy chain that keeps her there.

Houston Homicide Detective Jack West is back at work. A fresh case he's working might be connected to a murder case fellow detectives Chang and Severson are working. The medical examiner's report shows some similarities to each murder, but the victims are strangers with nothing in common. A third murder victim found under a bridge on the Buffalo Bayou confirms Houston has a serial killer on the loose. Three very diverse people are dead—are these hate crimes, and if so, how many more will die? The clock is ticking; Jack and his team need to catch this killer before another body shows up.

In Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories, Andrea Camilleri has selected 21 short stories, written with his trademark wit and humor, that follow Italy's famous detective through highlight cases of his career. From the title story, featuring a young Deputy Montalbano newly assigned to Vigàta, to "Montalbano Says No", in which the inspector makes a late-night call to Camilleri himself to refuse an outlandish case, this volume is an essential addition to any fan's collection and a wonderful way to introduce listeners to the internationally best-selling series.

Clem knows every inch of Watersmeet like the back of his hand. After all, he’s controlled crime here for most of his career. But after a shock murder, he meets jaundiced yellow eyes shining out of the darkness beyond the houses on the village’s eerie southern slopes, and everything he thought he knew about the place is thrown into question. Clem’s grown up with local legends, just like everyone else. But could the River Man be real, and might this creature be behind the recent mysterious killings?

The body of a tourist turns up frozen in Patagonia's largest glacier, killed by a gunshot to the belly thirty years ago. Of course, you have no idea that this will change your life. You’ve lived all of it in Barcelona, on the other side of the world. To grasp what’s happening, you first need to know a few things: Your father had a brother he never told you about. This brother has just died, leaving you as the sole heir to a mysterious property in El Chaltén, an idyllic town in Patagonia.

Jack's a retired ex-cop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but quiet as the two team up to solve Cherringham's criminal mysteries. This compilation contains episodes 1 - 3: MURDER ON THAMES, MYSTERY AT THE MANOR and MURDER BY MOONLIGHT.