Noir Fiction

Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it's dumb and harmless until it's too late to think otherwise. Then there's Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighbourhood wrongs through acts of violence.

So, I have a third mate. No big deal. Except Auric punched my royal—descended from gods—betrothed right in the face. Novak has murder in his eyes, more so than usual. And my body is screaming at me to take all three males and teach them who’s in charge here. Because I believe the truth now. I’m a Noir royal descended from the gods themselves and destined to fix the history my fake-father forged: the one where black-winged angels were the result of sin and scandal instead of the truth.

A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.

In this atmospheric and profoundly moving debut, Cathy and Daniel live with their father, John, in the remote woods of Yorkshire, in a house the three of them built themselves. John is a gentle brute of a man, a former enforcer who fights for money when he has to, but who otherwise just wants to be left alone to raise his children. When a local landowner shows up on their doorstep, their precarious existence is threatened, and a series of actions is set in motion that can only end in violence.

Stories by: Desmond Barry, Ken Bruen, Stewart Home, Barry Adamson, Michael Ward, Sylvie Simmons, Daniel Bennett, Cathi Unsworth, Max Décharné, Martyn Waites, Joolz Denby, John Williams, Jerry Sykes, Mark Pilkington, Joe McNally, Patrick McCabe, and Ken Hollings. Cathi Unsworth moved to Ladbroke Grove in 1987 and has stayed there ever since. She began a career in rock writing with Sounds and Melody Maker, before co-editing the arts journal Purr and then Bizarre magazine. Her first novel, The Not Knowing, was published by Serpent’s Tail in 2005.

Meet Tommy Martini, the monk with an anger management problem. His meditations are interrupted by a legacy from his uncle, a crooked priest. Arriving in a New Age Arizona town to claim his inheritance, Brother Tommy meets a charismatic, smoking-hot cult leader who claims that women are being impregnated by alien beings while they sleep. Tommy’s own sleep is disturbed - by cartel hitmen, Mafia bill collectors, and women intrigued by his vow of chastity.

Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kalfshamarvik. Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop? With winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari Thor Arason discovers that the victim's mother and young sister also lost their lives in this same spot, 25 years earlier....

Rosenmontag 1933: Gereon Rath feiert Karneval in Köln. Der Morgen danach beginnt für ihn mit einem heftigen Kater, der falschen Frau im Bett und einem Anruf aus Berlin: Der Reichstag steht in Flammen! Sofortige Urlaubssperre! Seinen neuen Fall aber erbt Gereon Rath von seinem Vorgesetzten Wilhelm Böhm, der sich unter dem Nazi-Polizeipräsidenten ins politische Abseits manövriert hat: Ein Obdachloser ist erstochen am Nollendorfplatz gefunden worden.

Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett’s tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness. A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Hammett invented the noir crime novel.

First published in 1935, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is Traven's most famous and enduring work, the dark, savagely ironic, and riveting story of three down-and-out Americans hunting for gold in Sonora.

When Amos Walker was a teen, he had a poster of Gail Hope on his wall. A 60s bombshell in the beach-blanket tradition, she has fallen hard since her glory days as one of the dying studio system’s final starlets. But when she calls on Amos Walker she remains as lovely as ever: an elegant beauty with a $750,000 problem.

Un suspense noir intense, parfait pour les fans de B.A. Paris ("Derrière les portes") et de Clare Mckintosh ("Te laisser partir"), sur l'angoisse d'une femme abandonnée, sans explication. Personne ne disparaît jamais complètement. Un jour, vous partez travailler. Un jour comme les autres, jusqu'à ce que vous rentriez.

Pochi romanzi hanno inciso nell'immaginario collettivo come questo. Nel crime, c'è un prima e un dopo American Tabloid . Una rottura che è una sorta di perdita dell'innocenza: con le sue frasi cadenzate come raffiche di mitra, la vastità dell'impianto e la durezza dello sguardo, James Ellroy ha portato il noir nell'età adulta e costretto i suoi lettori a fare i conti con il passato. American Tabloid mette in scena gli uomini e le donne che hanno contribuito all'ascesa e alla caduta di John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

When a man traveling abroad is murdered in his hotel room, Inspector Maigret must sift through the misdirection and betrayal to find the truth hidden beneath. A Monsieur Gallet has been found dead—murdered—in his hotel room, in a small town outside of Paris. In Georges Simenon’s The Late...

En 1979, le lagon bleu était nommé par les Islandais "le champ de lave maléfique". En pleine Guerre froide, la proximité d'une base américaine ne facilite pas les rapports entre Islandais et Américains. C'est dans ce lagon qu'est découvert le cadavre disloqué d'un homme. L'enquête, menée par le tout jeune inspecteur Erlendur et Marion Briem, s'oriente rapidement vers la base où la victime est employée comme ingénieur.

Dans un village côtier de Galice, en 1975, un enfant assiste à l'incendie criminel de sa maison et au meurtre de son père. En 2005, à Barcelone, l'adulte qu'il est devenu semble avoir enfreint toutes les règles éthiques et morales qui avaient présidé à son entrée dans la police. Il a battu (presque) à mort un entrepreneur sans histoire et reste obstinément muet sur les raisons de son acte. Atteint d'une maladie incurable, il revient sur les terres où il est né. Pour déterre le passé et venger sa triste enfance ? Ou pour affronter ses vieux démons et trouver le repos de l'âme ?

Dans la lignée de La Vérité sur l'affaire Harry Quebert, un premier roman noir d'une grande finesse psychologique ; une réflexion grinçante sur la bonne société puritaine américaine, qui, sous la perfection de ses apparences, cache une obsession névrotique pour l'innocence de la jeunesse.

A serial killer in New York’s South Bronx district is targeting clients of local sex workers. The victims, all male, are either burned alive or beaten to death. With the body count mounting and no real leads, the FBI decides to put someone in undercover. Enter rookie agent Shannon Ames. Suited for deep cover work because she is single and without family ties, Shannon is young enough to pass herself off as a working girl. But spending her nights on the streets as she hunts for the killer takes its toll.

Raymundo Betancourt es el ciudadano modelo: profesionista honesto y responsable, solidario y comprometido con el bienestar de su comunidad. Pero como la vida no sólo es trabajo, también se permite dos sencillos placeres cotidianos: los chicles de canela y las niñas que mantiene secuestradas en su sótano. El monstruo pentápodo nos enfrenta sin ambages ni eufemismos con la mente oscura del asesino, del psicópata adorable y manipulador ante cuyos encantos sucumbió Aimeé - otra “pequeña”, pero a su modo - hasta el punto de volverse cómplice a cambio de un poco de amor.

Beneath the surface lie deadly secrets... DI Shona Oliver agreed to move to Dumfries with her ex-banker husband when their teenage daughter got in with a bad crowd in London. As a Glasgow native, she's back on home turf. Living on the shores of the Solway Firth allows Shona to continue as an...