New Crime Thrillers

Joyce Carol Oates, a queenpin of the noir genre, has brought her keen and discerning eye to the curation of an outstanding anthology of brand-new top-shelf short stories (and poems by Margaret Atwood!). While bad men are not always the victims in these tales, they get their due often enough to satisfy listeners who are sick of the gendered status quo, or who just want to have a little bit of fun at the expense of a crumbling patriarchal society. This stylistically diverse collection will make you squirm in your seat, stay up at night, laugh out loud, and inevitably wish for more.

Monreith, Massachusetts, was once a small community of whalers and farmers. These days it’s a well-to-do town filled with commuters drawn to its rugged coastline and country roads. A peaceful, predictable place—until popular restaurateur Laurel Thibodeau is found brutally murdered in her own home. Suspicion naturally falls on Laurel’s husband, Simon, who had gambling debts that only her life insurance policy could fix. But there are other rumors too. Among the group of six friends gathered for Alice Stone’s fortieth birthday, theories abound concerning Laurel’s death.

"Beschütze sie” steht auf dem Zettel, den Hannah eines Vormittags von einer Unbekannten in die Hand gedrückt bekommt. Er stammt von ihrem Ehemann Owen, der am Morgen wie jeden Tag, zur Arbeit gegangen ist. Oder? Hannah kann ihn nicht erreichen, er ist spurlos verschwunden – und von einer Sekunde auf die andere verändert sich Hannahs Leben für immer. Denn ab heute hat sie nur noch zwei Aufgaben: Die Liebe ihres Lebens wiederzufinden. Und Owens Tochter Bailey zu beschützen.

Sophie Duguet—young, successful, and happily married—thought at first she was becoming absentminded when she started misplacing her mail and forgetting where she'd parked her car the night before. But then, as her husband and colleagues pointed out with increasing frustration, she began forgetting things she'd said and done, too. And when she was detained by the police for shoplifting, a crime she didn't remember committing, the confusion and blackouts that had begun to plague her took on a more sinister cast.

A&E doctor Kate North has been knocked out of her orbit by a personal tragedy. So when she's offered the chance to be an emergency replacement at the UN research station in Antarctica, she jumps at the chance. The previous doctor, Jean-Luc, died in a tragic accident while out on the ice. The move seems an ideal solution for Kate: no one knows about her past; no one is checking up on her. But as total darkness descends for the winter, she begins to suspect that Jean-Luc's death wasn't accidental at all. And the more questions she asks, the more dangerous it becomes for them all.

Twenty years ago, Mari vanished while backpacking through Thailand with her boyfriend, Luke. He was accused of murder, but has always insisted he's innocent. Besides, her body was never found. Now, he's finally ready to talk. And filmmaker Cassidy Chambers wants to be the one to uncover what really happened, back then, in the dark of the jungle. But as she delves deeper into the past, Cassidy begins to fear what lies ahead, and the secrets buried along the way.

When Bradon Riggston decides to write his family history, he is shocked to find that many of his relatives and their friends have died by unfortunate accidents. Are Riggston family members and their close associates just unlucky, or is there some sinister power working behind the scenes? Holmes and Watson are called in to investigate, only to uncover a deadly saga of revenge for long-hidden crimes.

Private Investigator Charlie Cameron is searching for a man who disappeared after his son’s suicide. When an unidentified body turns up at the morgue, Cameron is sure it’s another case closed. But the body laid out on the slab isn’t the man he’s looking for. And it isn’t a stranger. Suddenly, a routine investigation becomes a desperate fight for survival.

A new twist to a decades old mystery. 1990. A young woman goes missing while backpacking in Thailand. She is never seen again. 2016. Her bones are discovered 6000 miles away in an English field and, within hours, the boyfriend who reported her disappearance all those years ago is dead. So begins a hunt to solve her murder that will take DI Ray Mason and PI Tina Boyd into a dark and terrifying world of corruption and deadly secrets, where murder is commonplace, and nothing and nobody is safe....

On a Dublin city street, packed with afternoon Christmas shoppers, a young woman appears, naked, traumatised and bearing burn marks. Tom Reynolds, now chief superintendent, is no longer head of the murder squad. But when it transpires the woman escaped from a house fire started deliberately and that there are more victims, including a baby, Tom is sucked in. What begins as a straightforward case of arson, soon becomes something much more sinister. The people in that house never wanted to be there in the first place. Now more of them are missing.

When Rachel moves into the spare room in Mary’s flat, everyone is quick to jump to the conclusion that there’s something strange about her. Everyone apart from Mary. And when Rachel starts sleepwalking, the flatmates’ fears grow. But there’s something about the new girl that Mary can’t help but trust, and having recently escaped a toxic relationship, she needs the support. Rachel becomes a friend and an ally, and Mary soon discovers that they have more in common than she ever could have imagined. In fact, Rachel seems to know more about Mary than she knows about herself....

Fifteen years after the Painter case had been closed, someone wants the case re-examined, history changed, and Wexford proved wrong.

Ava had known Brandy since they were kids. She had a gift for knowing when people lied to her. Brandy never did. When her FBI-trained friend transferred back from New York to the New Orleans office, her first call was to her old friend. The ad for the apartment looked promising, so off they went. It wasn’t the best neighborhood. They could tell by the two gun shots. And just like that, there was a murder to solve.

After an easy day studying coral in the Bahamian ocean, Amanda Blayne returns to shore looking forward to a cool drink and a lazy afternoon. But the tranquil waters turn dark and treacherous when Amanda is ruthlessly abducted in broad daylight. Sean Ramiro, an undercover cop from Miami, is tasked to covertly observe the safe arrival of the senator. Instead, he witnesses Amanda's abduction and immediately throws himself into danger, pretending to be Amanda's lover to try to protect her. The two are playing a perilous game, but find it easy to play along when irresistible tension builds.

From esteemed crime fiction writer George Pelecanos comes four blistering novellas, drawn together by themes of strife, violence, and humanity. When the son of the Carusos is involved in a hold up, the family home comes under siege in the form of a no-knock warrant. Months after the cops destroyed their home, the Carusos struggle to return to normal. Elsewhere, two former inmates reunite by chance on the set of a TV production. Both have found their way on the straight and narrow path, that is, until one sees the potential for an easy grift.

Alex encounters a tragic loss and near-deadly run-in with a ruthless crime syndicate. As Hanna helps him search for a dangerous killer, the surprise return of a lover from her past sends all hope of her future with Alex into a tailspin.

Bram Stoker portrayed Dracula as a terrifying creature of the night: heartless, soulless, preying on the pure and innocent. Fred Saberhagen, bestselling coauthor of the official movie tie-in for Bram Stoker's Dracula, shows another side to Dracula as the vampire is summoned by Dr. Watson to rescue Sherlock Holmes.

In the sultry shadows of 1918 New Orleans, death has a rhythm all its own. When a string of brutal, axe-wielding murders shatters the city’s uneasy peace, Detective Louis Beaulieu is thrust into a chilling hunt for a phantom whose only calling cards are shattered skulls and bloodstained jazz notes. As fear grips the streets, the elusive Axeman sends a nightmarish ultimatum to the public: play jazz through the night—or face the blade.

Michael Shayne, "the reckless, redheaded Irishman", was a popular hard-boiled detective created by crime novelist Brett Halliday. In the novels, Michael Shayne settled in Miami just after WWII, making crime pay by fighting it with a license and an attitude. Like Mike Hammer and Philip Marlowe, Shayne was a loner. The backstory on Mike is that he was happily married, but it hit him hard when his wife was tragically murdered. Grief stricken, Shayne loses himself in his work as a private eye, prowling the dark streets of the city.

Teagan is successful in her own right but she's not the crusader journalist she aspired to be back in college. She desperately needs a personal distraction and decides to make a difference in the world. When a foreign news story shocks her to the core, she takes matters into her own hands and starts a special project to help others. But not everybody is happy about her illegally funded venture: Project Rebound. When Teagan travels to Paris to deal with a project setback, she wakes up in the middle of a terrorist siege. Or is it a planned attack on her life?