Dark Humor Mystery

Carla Karolac is doing just fine. Having escaped the clutches of her controlling mother and founded a successful writing retreat in which participants are confined to windowless cells until they hit their daily word count, she lives a comfortable, if solitary, existence. If only her therapist, Toonie, would stop going on about Carla's nonexistent love life and start addressing her writer’s block, she might be able to make some progress. But then Carla finds Toonie murdered, and suddenly her unfinished memoir is the least of her concerns.

Welcome to Pay to Stay, Los Angeles’s premier minimum-security facility where the privileged serve time Friday to Monday only. But this New Year’s weekend, seven inmates—including a driven campaign manager, a disgraced nurse, a party girl, and one mysterious male transfer—discover their abusive guard dead, wrapped in an ironic “Community Payback” vest. Now they must solve his murder before their cushy arrangement becomes a permanent stay in maximum security.

Edward was a respectable architect when a disagreement over the wrong shade of Georgian red with Aubyn, a mean-spirited conservation officer, saw the full force of the law applied. Ian had been a successful accountant until he was shafted by dodgy PPI pusher Kevin. Their lives tumble and they end up in prison, where they meet Nelson, banged up after stealing a sapphire and a Bentley from a contessa in Monaco. An early release prompts Edward, Ian, and Nelson to take a road trip in search of a new life, revenge, and adventure. Will the vintage Bentley manage the trip?

Everyone’s heard of Nostradamus. No one’s heard of Philibert Montmorency. One was a legend. The other, not so much.... A newly discovered Nostradamus prophecy has taken the internet by storm thanks to "The Oblivion Doctrine", a group of online conspiracy theorists. Apparently the end is nigh. And in case anyone’s interested, nigh is definitely a Tuesday. Doctor Ally Oldfield, professor of Medieval Languages, is summoned to Lyon for a second opinion. She’s not happy about it. But then again she’s rarely happy about anything.

From Emmy Award-winning author David Quantick, All My Colors is a darkly comic novel about a man who remembers a book that may not exist, with dire consequences. A bizarre, mind-bending story at the intersection of Richard Bachman, Charlie Kaufman, and Franz Kafka.

When a young woman is kidnapped, Donal is brought in to deliver the ransom money. But the tightly planned drop off goes wrong, Julie Draper is discovered dead, and Donal finds his job on the line - a scapegoat for the officers in charge. But when Donal is delivered a cryptic message in the night, he learns that Julie was killed long before the botched rescue mission.

Aspiring actress Elizabeth Smart lands her centre-stage role: her mutilated body is found dumped in North London's red light district. Clasped in her hand is a piece of human hair belonging to an unidentified body of a woman murdered two weeks ago. PC Donal lands himself a place on the murder squad just as his unconventional brother, journalist Finton, unearths the secret double life of Elizabeth. The bodies mount, each clinging to the strands of hair belonging to the previous victim.

Summer 1989: Gunther Fahnstiel, once a tough cop who wasn't averse to taking a little side money from a certain madam, has just escaped the dementia ward of his Wichita nursing home. He's not exactly sure where he wants to go, but wherever it is, it has to do with the bag full of cash belonging to the man he accidentally backed over with his RV in 1979. During his search, Gunther begins to relive the violent fallout of that madam's sex lottery 40 years ago. As Gunther's memories unravel, his past and present will collide in a devastating reckoning.

It was a typical afternoon in Northfield, Minnesota, when a middle-aged, autistic artist named Dutton James revealed to the world his new series of otherworldly, enigmatic sculptures, leaving art critics and the public stunned and intrigued. Then the questions started. What are these bizarre objects? From what planet or nightmare were they hatched? In the weeks that follow, as the mysterious artist’s fame skyrockets, Emma, Dutton's millennial stalker fan, attempts to enter the artist’s dangerous, opaque world in order to uncover the answers.

The body of Edward Rewold is discovered hanged in an abandoned warehouse and has a puzzling cryptic message: Lukas Boston's name is painted on its feet. It begins a bizarre investigation involving the stolen contents of a safe, a seaside markets populated by insane stall owners, and an evil corporation that decides on sending Lukas to the bottom of the harbor as the best solution to stop him poking his nose into its illegal business. For a change, someone is merely trying to drown Lukas, while an old enemy only wants to beat him to death with a pool cue.

Es hätte alles so schön werden können. Dan McEvoy, knallharter Türsteher und Exsoldat, hat soeben neue Haare transplantiert bekommen...

It’s 1997 at the dawn of the digital age in San Francisco. Ex-journalist and struggling alcoholic David “Itchy” Crane’s fledgling “information consultancy” business is getting slowly buried by bad luck, bad decisions, and the growing presence of the Internet. Before he can completely self-destruct, a private investigator offers him 50 grand to find a missing girl named Ashley. Crane takes the job because the money’s right and because the only clue to her disappearance is a dead-on oil portrait of Crane himself - painted by the mysterious missing girl he has never met.

Despite being son to Don Allesandro Fugue, AKA Big Al, AKA The Al Mighty, AKA King of the Denver streets, Tommy Fugue has never had much interest in the family business. But when his father assigns him the “summer job” of mastering digital money laundering, Tommy figures he can list some fake projects on FunFunder, pledge them with zombie accounts, and clean a dirty $20,000 in time for college in the fall.

Between her regular job in Afterlife Arrivals, training for her second job with IA, her community service on The Bus of Death, GA meetings, taking care of her housemates, and every other ghostly commitment in between, Bridget Sway is already stretched pretty thin. Then, her best friend, Sabrina, drops a bombshell. Sabrina thinks she was murdered. And, in the afterlife, murdered dead people usually turn into homicidal maniac dead people. Despite that, Sabrina thinks if they can work out who killed her, then she might be able to get the closure she needs.

Wentworth is at his wit’s end. He has no money, his cat’s been kidnapped, and every time he tries to kill himself, he fails. Worst of all, he lives in Kidderminster. But sometimes you’re given a lifeline. For some it’s a lottery win, for others a promotion. For Wentworth, it’s an out-of-shape 50-something named Norman wearing an "I was on Naked Attraction" t-shirt and scuffed Reeboks. Wentworth thinks he’s in luck but makes a series of progressively worse decisions and soon finds himself on the run from a gang of criminal reprobates.

Excuse me if I'm feeling sentimental. I might die tonight. My name is Candy Tran. Before I was hunting down serial killers and feeding men to alligators, I was a normal, church-going, tax-paying citizen. Before all of this. I've been given a chance to tell my story, so please, listen closely. This is going to take a while.

נל ליישון, מחברת רב המכר ״צבע החלב״, מכניסה אותנו ברומן זה לראשו של גארי – כייס, פורץ, גנב. במונולוג כובש, שזור הומור עדין, לוקח אותנו גארי לטיול במשעול חייו, החל מילדותו המקופחת, המוזנחת, בלונדון, שם נולד לאם אלכוהוליסטית ול׳אב במשרה חלקית׳ שמתפרנס מעבירות קטנות. לילה אחד הוא לוקח את גארי איתו ומכיר לו את עולם הפשע. במהרה מתברר כי לגארי יש כישרון מיוחד, ויכולותיו של הבן עולות על אלה של האב. לגארי יש חושים כמעט על-אנושיים; בעזרת אינטליגנציה יוצאת דופן ועיניים כחולות בלתי נשכחות, גארי מצליח לצלול לראשם של אנשים סביבו ולהתל בהם כרצונו.

El circo y La Mariposa es una novela colectiva escrita por 13 autores de Rosario, en pandemia, “encerrados con un solo juguete”, como diría Juan Marsé. Al producirse el 20 de marzo de 2020 el primer confinamiento nacional dispuesto por el gobierno con motivo de la pandemia Covid-19, quedaron varados en el territorio argentino, cuarenta (40) circos, situación que no se ha modificado mucho en el momento que escribo estas líneas, un año y medio después.

When Agatha Benedict plucked Kelly off the city streets to replace her dead cat Poopsie, she neglected to inform him of some very important house traditions. The history of the Benedict Estate prescribes that once the estate owner passes on, a will reading is to take place. However, the reading is more than passing on a loved one's final wishes: it's a figurative gunshot into the air, an alert to all in attendance that a playful game of anything-goes murder has begun. The prize? The inheritance, of course.

Henry, a New Yorker left destitute by circumstance and obsession, is plucked from vagrancy by a shadowy outfit whose primary business is arranging for staged murders of anxiety-ridden clients unhinged by the “events downtown” and seeking to experience - and live through - their own carefully executed assassinations. When Henry joins this nefarious crew, which includes a beautiful blonde tattooist named Tulip, contortionist twins, and a woman referred to only as “the knockout”, he becomes inextricably linked to its ringleader, the mysterious herring connoisseur Mr. Kindt.