Dark Crime Fiction

She’d been running for so long, it felt like her legs were on fire. Her heart was pounding so hard, she was sure it would give out. Around her, the snow was falling, casting an eerie silence over the town. A crack behind her, a foot snapping a branch, it warned her that he was still coming. She whipped around and saw the knife gleaming in his hand....

She thought her life had changed in the blink of an eye the moment she came home to see her father strapped to a chair, a gun being held to his head. It was my life that changed that day, not hers. The blood of my enemy ran through her veins, and no matter how much she wanted to save me, she never would have. I am a monster. I can't be saved. I would consume the world in a blaze of fire before my need for vengeance was ever fulfilled.

A wave of apparent suicides hits a string of seaside resorts, but when a police officer is named as the latest to die, DI Amy Winter suspects there may be more than mere coincidence to these tragic deaths. But what dark motive could cause someone to throw themselves into the cold depths of the North Sea? Someone in the community knows more, but Amy’s questions are met with resistance. A group of mysterious teenagers might hold the key, but why are they so afraid to talk? Meanwhile, after the release from prison of her serial killer mother, Amy is fighting her own demons.

Through violence and sin, he will reign again. Dante Damiani. A man whose legacy was violently and ruthlessly ripped away from him as a young boy. Mia Leonetti, the woman whose life is not her own. As a prominent Chicago lawyer, Dante spends his days defending clients whether they’re guilty or not. He’s made billions doing it, all in an effort to take back his rightful place at the head of his slain father’s mafia empire. By any means necessary.

She thinks I'm seducing her, but this isn't romance. It's something much more shameful. Eden tried to leave the mafia behind, but someone far more dangerous has set his sights on her. Me.

When movie producer Cody Ziegler goes missing from The Homestead’s Millionaires’ Row, his wife, retired actress Olivia, immediately claims there’s foul play afoot. A million-dollar ransom demand soon follows, with clear instructions not to involve the cops. In desperation she enlists the help of Moira, Rick, Philip and Lizzie, aka the Retired Detectives Club. Racing against the clock, the four retirees set to work.

When his brother dies stepping out in front of a car, Detective Jack Laidlaw is determined to find out what really happened. With corrosive wit, Laidlaw relates an emotional quest through Glasgow's underworld, and into the past. He discovers as much about himself as the loved brother he has lost in a search that leads to a shattering climax.

Amelia Ashley shares everything with her followers—her favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants, her best fashion tips, and her European trip of a lifetime with her hot boyfriend. Josh has no choice but to return home without Amelia after she abandons him in Rome. He has no clue where she went or how her blood got in his suitcase. Why won't anyone believe him? To Harper Delgado, Amelia Ashley is just another missing white girl whipping up a media frenzy. But with each digital knot she untangles about the influencer, Harper wonders: who is Amelia Ashley?

At the start of another pitiless winter, the wolves have come for the children of Keelut. Three children have been taken from this isolated Alaskan village, including the six-year-old son of Medora and Vernon Slone. Saken with grief and seeking consolation, Medora contacts nature writer and wolf expert Russell Core. Sixty years old, ailing in both body and spirit, and estranged from his daughter and wife, Core arrives in Keelut to investigate the killings.

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjörður, the northernmost town in Iceland. Ari Thór Arason is now a police inspector, but he’s separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air. Three days before Easter, a 19-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident.

Nada Alic's women—the perverts, nobodies, reality TV stars, poetic hopefuls, shameless party girls, and self-help addicts of Los Angeles and its environs—are all wrestling with a shared stark reality: the modern world. To cope, they live in their baddest thoughts: the lush, strange landscape of female make-believe.

She was a shy little virgin, looking to rebel. I was a bad accident waiting to happen. I’m the bad boy your parents warn you about. I’ve been to prison, killed for someone I love, and now I’m suffering through college. Then I see her…sweet, so naïve it hurts, and of course beautiful. She’s scared of me the moment we lock eyes, but beneath that fear is curiosity. From that moment on I’m consumed with a need to make her mine, to claim her...but when my past collides with my future, will I risk the chance of going back to prison to protect yet another person I love?

They call me a playboy. Society’s pretty pet. What they don’t know is I’m so much more. My only directive was to keep her hidden, and safe. After everything she’s been through I’m the last person to offer comfort and care. I have little experience with either. Both of us have been broken by our pasts. But mine is catching up to me, and I would deal with it as I usually do: with total decimation. But that puts her in the crosshairs, and that’s unacceptable.

DI Nathaniel Caslin has earned the freedom to run his case load as he sees fit, bypassing the hierarchical constraints with his specialist unit. Little does he know a deadly adversary is walking the streets of York. One who will push the team to their psychological limits. Reluctantly agreeing to a joint investigation alongside a detective from the Drug Squad, Caslin is perplexed by the multiple homicides of a number of addicts. Poisoned by their own supply with no apparent motive, the killings appear gang related.

Bobby Gold is a lovable criminal. After nearly 10 years in prison, he's no sooner out than he's back to work breaking bones for tough guys. His turf: the club scene and restaurant business. It's not that he enjoys the job - Bobby has real heart - but he's good at it, and a guy has to make a living. Things change when he meets Nikki, the cook at a club most definitely not in his territory. Smitten, he can't stay away. Bobby Gold has known trouble before, but with Nikki the sauté bitch in his life, things take a turn for life or death.

Seth would follow Domenico to the depths of hell. He promised to always be at Domenico’s side. But hell becomes all too real when they infiltrate the world of Toro—a notoriously security-obsessed arms dealer, who has eyes and ears everywhere. Seth becomes unable to steal even a moment of intimacy with Domenico, and the tension grinds them down each day. Beyond the deceptive paradise of Toro’s villa, violence is an everyday occurrence, and the swimming pool could just as well be filled with blood.

It's the score of a lifetime: easy access to a lavish New York City apartment, hordes of valuables, and an absentee owner avoiding the lawyers of his unhappy ex-wives. But before they pull the job, Dortmunder's crew is startled to find their beloved gin joint, the OJ, in the clutches of the Mafia--who consider it perfect for a little fraud, courtesy of a nice big fire. For tactical and highly superstitious reasons, the fate of the OJ is even more important to the crew than the enormous score.

When Tilly Edgely lands a position working at Ashton’s bookshop in Cambridge, she thinks she’s found her perfect job. But one winter’s morning, when she arrives to open up, she discovers the body of her boss suspended from the ceiling, hanging by a rope around his neck. DCI Barrett and DI Palmer are called to the scene and quickly find themselves searching for a twisted killer whose identity and motive are nearly impossible to trace. But just when they think they have the murderer in their sights, another body shows up throwing the case wide open....

It is four years since the death of King Edward I, but his reign of terror has cast long shadows over the kingdom. At Holyrood Abbey, sheltered in the depths of the Welsh march, the old king's former bodyguards protect his secret relics and watch over a mysterious prisoner who is kept in the abbey's dungeon. But their peaceful existence is shattered when Abbot Henry is poisoned. Summoned to Holyrood, Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the Secret Seal, finds the fortress in chaos. Brothers Anselm and Richard have been brutally slain by nails driven deep into their skulls.

From the moment Dex saw Hammer smash a man’s head open like it was a watermelon, he was obsessed. No, really, obsessed. He is thrilled when life offers him the opportunity to introduce himself to the bloodthirsty biker god. So maybe it’s not so perfect that Hammer is his prisoner, but beggars can’t be choosers. Standing guard at a secret junkyard prison is serious business, but Dex’s horny brain still gets the best of him.