Noir Fiction

Murder isn’t uncommon in a big city, but when young women start turning up dead next to mysterious symbols painted in their blood, the police turn to Alex Lockerby to find the killer. Unfortunately, the bloody symbols aren’t any form of magic Alex knows, leaving him precious little to work with and a nagging feeling that he’d better stop this madman before he finishes whatever spell he’s attempting.

The best noir writers make us feel the heat of the sun, the touch of a lover. Setting can be gritty but can also be sublime, no longer relegated to urban locales and seedy hotel rooms but also mansions and swimming pools. Hence, Palm Springs, which may seem like an odd setting for a collection of dark short stories—it’s so sunny and bright here. The stories in this collection come on like the wicked dust storms common to the area.

Sin City. An artificial oasis of pleasure, spectacle, and entertainment, the gambling capital of America has reinvented itself so many times that it's doubtful that anyone knows for sure what's real and what isn't in the miles of neon and scorching heat. Las Vegas is considered the ultimate player's destination, no matter what your game. Las Vegas is the true city that never sleeps, where fortunes are made and lost every day, and where snake-eyes aren't found just on a pair of dice.

I'm an omega left behind. I’m damaged, forced to hide my nature, with a scent that can turn alphas violent. I was told there would be no normal, no friends, or dream pack waiting in the distance. But I have one last chance at love. Tomorrow, at the academy ball, my scent blockers will fade. My mates—the ones I was told I would never have—will see me.

Rien de tel qu'un séjour au Mitchell's Inn pour se refaire une santé... Le Mitchell's Inn est un hôtel de charme perdu au cœur de la forêt. Ses pensionnaires croient avoir choisi la destination idéale pour se détendre au coin du feu, loin de la frénésie new-yorkaise. Là-bas, pas de portables ni d'Internet. Mais la tempête fait rage et, après une coupure d'électricité, on découvre Dana, venue pour une escapade romantique avec son fiancé, morte au pied de l'escalier. Chute accidentelle ? Drame conjugal ?

Patrick Bird, police academy burnout turned PI, works divorce cases, using his camera to catch the unfaithful and the lonely looking for love in rented rooms. But his easy routine is shattered by a new case involving a missing girl.

"Serre-moi fort." Cela pourrait être un appel au secours désespéré. Du jeune Nick, d'abord. Marqué par la disparition inexpliquée de sa sœur, il est contraint de vivre dans un foyer brisé par l'incertitude et l'absence. Obsédés par leur quête de vérité, ses parents sont sur les traces de l'Origamiste, un tueur en série qui sévit depuis des années en toute impunité. Du lieutenant Adam Gibson, ensuite.

Still reeling from a brutal dismemberment, detective Kline is forcibly recruited to solve a murder inside a religious cult that takes literally the New Testament idea that you should cut off your hand if it offends you. Armed only with his gun, his wits, and a gift for self-preservation, Kline must navigate a gauntlet of lies, threats, and misinformation. All too soon he discovers that the stakes are higher than he thought and that his survival depends on an act of sheer will.

"Ici, on a tous du sang indien et quand ce n'est pas dans les veines, c'est sur les mains." Le 11 juin 1981, trois cents policiers de la sûreté du Québec débarquent sur la réserve de Restigouche pour s'emparer des filets des Indiens mig'maq. Émeutes, répression et crise d'ampleur : le pays découvre son angle mort.

In this intensive, intimate, and anything-but-glamorous behind-the-scenes account, film insider and cinephile Paul M. Sammon explores how Ridley Scott used his creative genius to transform the work of science fiction's most uncompromising author into a critical sensation, a commercial success, and a cult classic that would reinvent the genre.

Noir emerged as a prominent American film genre in the early 1940s, distinguishable by its use of unusual lighting, sinister plots, mysterious characters, and dark themes. From The Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958), films from this classic period reflect an atmosphere of corruption and social decay that attracted such accomplished directors as John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and Orson Welles.

A victim killed with a single, precise stab to the heart appears at first glance to be a robbery gone wrong. A caring, upstanding social worker lost to a senseless act of violence. But for Detective Kim Stone, something doesn't add up. When a local drug addict is found murdered with an identical wound, Kim knows instinctively that she is dealing with the same killer. But with nothing to link the two victims except the cold, calculated nature of their death, this could be her most difficult case yet.

Twenty years ago, student Daisy Harrington went out for the evening and never came home. Her body was found a week later. The killer was caught. Case closed. Now, on what would have been her fortieth birthday, her five university housemates are invited to a weekend gathering. None of them want to go. But none of them can refuse—the invitation makes it clear that if they don’t attend, the past they’ve spent two decades hiding will finally come to light.

Midcentury Los Angeles: A city sold to the world as "the white spot of America", a land of sunshine and orange groves, Midwestern values, and Hollywood stars, protected by the world's most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of "pleasure girls" and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men - one L.A.'s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief - each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city.

“With its tight, staccato chapters and cast of dangerous wraiths lurking everywhere, The Sandman is a nonstop fright.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times The #1 internationally best-selling thriller from the author of The Hypnotist tells the chilling story of a manipulative serial...

Le 7e tome de la saga du Soleil noir! Des commandos secrets nazis et les services secrets britanniques recherchent de manière effrénée un butin inégalable: un livre disparu depuis le Moyen Âge, le Dit des merveilles, un livre maudit, la bible des sorcières. Qui y arrivera en premier?

When two men meet in the gym - the ex-boxer Billy Tully and the novice Ernie Munger - their brief sparring session sets into motion their hidden fates, initiating young Munger into the "company of men" and luring Tully back into training. Fat City tells of their anxieties and hopes, their loves and losses, and the stubborn determination of their manager, Ruben Luna, who knows that even the most promising kid is likely to fall prey to some weakness.

Et si votre nounou était votre pire cauchemar ? Angèle jongle entre un mari infidèle, une fille qu'elle surprotège et un emploi prenant. L'arrivée de Louise, nounou idéale, apaise le quotidien. Mais derrière les baies vitrées de leur maison cossue, une vérité glaçante se terre : mensonges, secrets et manipulations empoisonnent chaque geste, chaque parole, jusqu'à ce qu'on ne sache plus distinguer le mensonge de la vérité. Un thriller psychologique domestique où la paranoïa s'immisce : saurez-vous démêler les fils de la manipulation avant le point de non-retour ?

Son avenir était tout tracé, sa vie était cadrée et millimétrée mais il n’a suffi que d’un instant pour que tout s’évapore... Qui pourra sauver Jaeger et surtout, qui laissera-t-il lui tendre la main ?

Nightmare Alley is American author William Lindsay Gresham’s first and best-known work. The novel - most admired by noir fiction fans - was published in 1946, adapted into a film in 1947 starring Tyrone Power and subsequently printed as a graphic novel by Spain Rodriquez. During the 1940s Gresham worked as an editor for a genuine crime pulp magazine in New York, during which period he wrote this book; characters range from hustlers to Machiavellian femme fatales in a dark world of show business.