Dark Crime Thrillers

Los Angeles burglar Junior Bender has a rule about never taking a job that pays too well: In the criminal underworld, if you’re offered more money than a job is worth, someone is going to end up dead. But he’s bending his rule this one time because he and his girlfriend, Ronnie, are in desperate need of cash to hire a kidnapper to snatch Ronnie’s two-year-old son back from her ex. The whole thing is pretty complicated and has Junior on edge.

When hordes of people descend on the picturesque village of Nasely for the annual celebration of its most famous resident, murder mystery writer Agnes Crabbe, events take a dark turn as the festival opens with a shocking death. Each year the residents are outnumbered by crowds dressed as Crabbe’s lady detective, Millicent Cutter. The weekend is never a mild-mannered affair as fan club rivalries bubble below the surface, but tensions reach new heights when a second Crabbe devotee is found murdered. Though the police are quick to arrive on the scene, the facts are tricky to ascertain as the witnesses, suspects and victim are all dressed as Miss Cutter.

Riktor doesn’t like the way the policeman comes straight into the house without knocking. He doesn’t like the arrogant way he observes his home. The policeman doesn’t tell him why he’s there, and Riktor doesn’t ask. Because he knows he’s guilty of a terrible crime. But it turns out that the policeman isn’t looking for a missing person. He is accusing Riktor of something totally unexpected. Riktor doesn’t have a clear conscience, but this is a crime he certainly didn’t commit.

Junior Bender, Los Angeles burglar and off-the-books detective to the felonious, is reminded that rock and roll will never die (no matter how fervently he wishes some of it would) when Hollywood’s most dangerous geriatric mobster, Irwin Dressler, retains Junior’s investigative services to solve a rather unharmonious problem. Junior has one weekend to figure out who’s to blame—a weekend that begins with his tires being slashed, threatening notes left on his car, and a theatrical backdrop falling on a drummer during the truly terrible first set of the first concert.

Former FBI special agent Cate Wilde is a new bakery and bookstore owner--and retirement is now complete with a doctor boyfriend. Although she struggles with PTSD, the sweet life she’s living is a far cry from the gruesome work she left behind six months ago. But when skeletal remains turn up on Widow’s Island--and the MO of the killer is too familiar to Cate--the dream abruptly ends. What if the case she solved eight years ago isn’t as closed as she thought? Her hometown needs her, and despite her mental health and her boyfriend’s protests, she has no choice but to return.

William "Kid" Collins was once a respected boxer. Now he's a drifter, on the run after escaping from a mental institution. One afternoon he meets Fay, a beautiful young widow. She is smart and decent - at least when she's sober. Soon Collins finds himself involved in a kidnapping scheme that goes drastically wrong almost before it even begins. Because the kid they've picked up isn't like other kids: He's diabetic and without insulin, he'll die. Not the safest situation for Collins, a man for whom stress and violence have long gone hand-in-hand.

Before he became Shadow, he was just Sean. Though to the media, the FBI, and a hundred police agencies he was The New Jersey Devil, The Steel Samurai, The Saint Louis Slaughter, and dozens more. These stories are the tales of how Sean learned discipline and the martial arts skills that have served him so well: from his time in college, where a series of accidents leads to him finding his sensei, to his life at Boston Implantables as one of their most gifted and inspired engineers, to becoming one of the more successful serial killers of the superhero era.

Amy Wirth is still trying to prove herself to her new colleagues at the FBI. With a reputation of “going rogue,” it doesn’t help that she has her own insecurities, a complicated past, and an ambitious supervisor wary of controversy and eager to shift blame when things go wrong. When her father asks her to investigate one of his own unsolved cases, Amy is reluctant. But how can she say no to his dying request?

Fred Van Lente's brilliant debut is both an homage to the Golden Age of Mystery and a thoroughly contemporary show-business satire. As the story opens, nine comedians of various acclaim are summoned to the island retreat of legendary Hollywood funnyman Dustin Walker. The group includes a former late-night TV host, a washed-up improv instructor, a ridiculously wealthy "blue collar" comic, and a past-her-prime Vegas icon.

When 89-year-old Emyr Isaac is found dead in his home, Drake and his team initially suspect a burglary gone wrong. Isaac was old, and his death was a tragedy, but it’s not a murder case...is it? But as the investigation develops, Drake uncovers more suspicious deaths, but with one connection: Each victim received care from the same healthcare professional. Drake must do all he can to ensure no more lives are lost...even if it means putting members of his own team in harm’s way.

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.

In the secret heart of London, under the cover of endless darkness, is the Nightside. But enter at your own risk. The party animals who live here may be as inhuman as their appetites. My name is John Taylor. The Nightside is my home, and I've got a brand new full-time job there (in addition to my private eye work) as Walker—the Voice of the Authorities. I'm also marrying the love of my life, Suzie Shooter, the Nightside's most fearsome bounty-hunter. But nothing comes easy here. Not life. Not death. And for certain, not happily-ever-after.

A decade after leaving prison, Shea Stevens has put her criminal past in her rearview. But when someone abducts her eight-year-old niece, the tough-as-nails ex-con doesn't trust the police to find her. Instead, Shea forms an uneasy alliance with her estranged family’s drug-dealing biker gang to locate the missing girl and rain hell on those who took her. But the motorcycle club's violence and treachery only puts Shea and her niece in further danger.

In number-one New York Times best-selling author Charlaine Harris’s "Dahlia Underground,” venerable vampire Dahlia Lynley-Chivers survives an attack by an anti-vampire terrorist group, only to show them they tried to blow up the wrong bloodsucker. Bailey Ruth Raeburn, a ghost assigned to assist humans in trouble, steps into the middle of a marital dispute with surprising twists in Carolyn Hart’s “Riding High”....

Baby’s heart is in the right place, but she’s got problems—namely, a fierce taste for booze and an on-again-off-again boyfriend who can't commit. She’s living and working at Oakwood Hills, a crumbling lakeside resort, with her friends, Crystal Nugget and DJ Overalls, reeling since her adoptive mother died of a stroke. And now, the return of local drug kingpin Bad Mike is about to throw her already unstable summer into full-blown chaos. To make matters worse, the owner of Oakwood Hills announces plans to sell the resort to Amelia, her boyfriend's wealthy twin sister.

Zayn, the relentless investigator, plunges into the depths of darkness to unravel the twisted saga of Lazarus Landucci—a notorious mafia boss, drug lord, and gun trafficker. The case takes a personal turn as Zayn discovers Lazarus's horrifying involvement in the human trafficking trade, a malevolent scheme that tore apart Zayn's life by selling off the love of his life, Lily, to the sinister Vladimir Potter.

In Cells Leben geht es nicht immer lustig zu. Als Profikiller hat er seine lieben Sorgen mit den Klienten. Solche Probleme wie die mit der unscheinbaren Sally hat er allerdings sonst nie. Ob Killer, Ermittler oder der Tod höchstpersönlich – sie alle enthüllen in DARK NEWS – Crime ihre Geheimnisse und die ureigenen Ängste, aus denen sie geboren wurden. Inhalt: Cell, KoB Killa – Ein Kriminalstück in vier Akten, Revierkonflikt, Venusfliegenfalle, Feuerwache, Warteschleife, Bindungsängste, Todsache. Weitere Teile der Reihe DARK NEWS: DARK NEWS - Mystery, Mystische Kurzgeschichten.

Björn Diemel will reden: sowohl über die Einschulung seiner Tochter als auch über das Tantra-Seminar, das er aus Versehen mit seiner Ex-Frau besucht hat. Leider hat ein Unbekannter Björns Achtsamkeitstrainer, Joschka Breitner, krankenhausreif geprügelt – bei dem Versuch, dessen Tagebuch an sich zu bringen. Björn entwendet kurzerhand selbst die Aufzeichnungen seines Therapeuten und macht sich auf die Suche nach dem Täter.

My acts are vicious and cruel, vile and life-taking. My demands are unquestioned no matter how depraved. There’s a monster inside me, and the wounds that scar my soul are dark and deep. I’m Dante Simone. Underboss of the Chicago Outfit. She walks into the audition, eyes snapping with a fire that could cost her life - if she were to unleash it. Piper Tate crawls beneath my skin on our first encounter. Her audition, a condition of employment I’ve sat through a thousand times, is like no other. It’s magnetic, cementing my traitorous eyes to her lithe form.

The Casting Director is a black comedy crime thriller about Lee Hamill whose specialty is finding unknowns on the streets of Dublin for low-budget Irish movies. He's the middleman, matchmaker, and awkward buffer zone between performer and producer. Lee is HR for actors, but one of them wants him dead.