Noir Fiction

Seth Loveless has been my weakness since I was sixteen years old. Two years ago, I moved back to my hometown. I started a business, bought a house, took up yoga, and went on hiatus from dating. Life is good. If I never had to see Seth, it would be perfect. After all, my history with my ex-boyfriend is anything but simple. It’s taken us years, but we’ve finally learned to live in the same town without killing each other. Is there an elaborate set of rules governing our every casual interaction? Yes.

On her sixtieth birthday, a woman commits suicide. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck’s desk, he can’t imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold cases division since the cause of death seems to be clear. But his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is not in fact a suicide, but a murder related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.

Eddie Gato Wolfe is a young, impetuous member of the Wolfe clan of Texas outlaws, gun-runners, and bootleggers, which goes back generations. Increasingly unfulfilled by his minor role in the family's operations and eager to strike out on his own, Eddie crosses the border to work security for a major Mexican drug cartel run by the ruthless La Navaja. At a party thrown by La Navaja, Eddie falls for a beautiful woman named Miranda, whom he learns too late is the girlfriend of El Segundo, La Navaja's only living brother. When El Segundo finds Eddie and Miranda together, Eddie is forced to kill El Segundo, forcing the two young lovers to escape the cartel.

The Lost Country centers on Edgewater, who's recently been discharged from the navy, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish who takes him under his wing as they both search desperately for a forgotten past and a future that may never come. The Lost Country cements Gay as one of the strongest voices in Southern literature, alongside Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner.

Few know the city of Los Angeles the way number one best-selling author and acclaimed suspense master Jonathan Kellerman does. His thrilling novels of psychological drama and criminal detection make the capital of dreams a living, breathing character in all its glamour and infamy. That storied history of fame, seduction, scandal, and murder looms large in Mystery, as Alex Delaware finds himself drawn into a twisting, shadowy whodunit that’s pure LA noir - and vintage Kellerman.

Faussement accusé de conspiration, le sympathique Cornélius Van Baerle est en prison. Grand amateur de tulipes, il pense avoir découvert le secret de cette merveille : "la tulipe noire". Mais un rival sans scrupules essaie de lui voler sa découverte : heureusement, Rosa, sa jolie geôlière, intervient.

Everyone in the small town of Central City, Texas loves Lou Ford. A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers - the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between - as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday. But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen.

Do you have any idea what the people you know are capable of? Best-selling author of All My Lies Are True, Dorothy Koomson, asks how well you can really know your neighbours.

Detective Easy Rawlins returns in a mystery set in 1961 Los Angeles as Easy accepts a job searching for a beautiful woman nicknamed Black Betty who works as a housekeeper in Beverly Hills.

The eighth book of this dark urban fantasy series follows necromancer Eric Carter through a world of vengeful gods and goddesses, mysterious murders, and restless ghosts.

Spenser's out to make war, not love, as he goes after Boston's entire X-rated industry. Pretty teenager April Kyle has disappeared into the city's darkest underworld, and to rescue her, Spencer pits muscle and wit against bullets and bullies.

A chilling note predicting the deaths of six people is found in a school's time capsule, 10 years after it was buried. But surely, if a 13-year-old wrote it, it can't be a real threat.... Detective Huldar suspects he's been given the investigation simply to keep him away from real police work. He turns to psychologist Freyja to help understand the child who hid the message. Soon, however, they find themselves at the heart of another shocking case.

Boy Genius is a powerful identity satire, the picaresque odyssey of a child seeking to avenge the wrongs perpetrated on his parents. Park's genius, born into the turmoil of post-war Korea, is used as a puppet by the South Korean government - before being banished to America. From a remote New York city ghetto, the boy wages a clandestine guerilla war against all symbols of authority.

April Lavery has vanished. A junior doctor at a local hospital, she is something of a trail-blazer in the deeply conservative and highly patriarchal society of 1950s Dublin. Though her family is one of the most respected in the city, she is known for being independent-minded; her taste in men, for instance, is decidedly unconventional, as evidenced by her current boyfriend, a handsome and charismatic medical student from Nigeria.

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjörður, the northernmost town in Iceland. Ari Thór Arason is now a police inspector, but he’s separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air. Three days before Easter, a 19-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident.

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.

While on special assignment to the bank fraud unit, Texas Ranger Faith McClellan accidentally stumbles upon a raging fire consuming the back of a nearby house. When partially cremated remains are pulled from the ruins, she finds herself back on homicide - and on the trail of a ruthless killer. As she races to identify the victims, the sadistic murderer strikes again - this time against state politicians with ties to Faith’s father, a former governor of Texas.

Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep - a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. - is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones....

Nile Nightingale is on the run. Fleeing across the border to rural Quebec, he seeks refuge at an abandoned church when his junked-up, overstimulated mind takes in that he has just witnessed a body drop - in a bloody sack tied with Christmas ribbon. The contents, unconscious but still alive, turn out to be 15-year-old Cleste Jonqures, who has been beaten and slashed, like wild game, to slowly bleed out. From his hideout, as he nurses his patient back from the brink and begins to face his own life, he pieces together what he has stumbled into.

None of us ever agreed on the exact beginning. Was it when we started drawing the chalk figures, or when they started to appear on their own? Was it the terrible accident? Or when they found the first body?