Noir Fiction

Hailed by Salman Rushdie as a "brilliantly innovative thriller-writer", Philip Kerr is the creator of taut, gripping, noir-tinged mysteries set in Nazi-era Berlin that are nothing short of spellbinding. The first book of the Berlin Noir trilogy, March Violets introduces listeners to Bernie Gunther, an ex-policeman who thought he'd seen everything on the streets of 1930s Berlin - until he turned freelance and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi subculture.

These 12 sweet but raunchy sexual romps are just what you need before bed, or any other time of day for that matter. They tell the stories of women finding passion and excitement in the embrace of other men. They seek it because their marriages have become dull, because they need an encounter with an aggressive alpha male, because they want to get pregnant, because they need to feel what it’s like to have multiple strange men use them at the same time, and because their husbands know that a wife’s pleasure has to come first.

In The Lady in the Lake, hard-boiled crime-fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wives - one a rich man's and one a poor man's - who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo, and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

In the shadowed gutters of a city still reeling from a mob war, a new predator emerges—Ellis Davis. Dressed in mismatched clothes, cloaked in insanity, and carrying the twisted humor of a sadistic showman, Ellis isn't your average contract killer. He’s smarter. Stranger. And far more dangerous.

La croisière promettait d'être sublime. Mais peu après avoir levé l'ancre, le luxueux Queen Charlotte est le théâtre d'un mystérieux assassinat : celui de lady Em, une riche octogénaire. Et son inestimable collier d'émeraudes, censé avoir appartenu à Cléopâtre, a disparu... Le coupable est à bord, sans aucun doute. Mais qui est-ce ? Son assistante apparemment dévouée ? Le jeune avocat qui voulait persuader lady Em de rendre le collier à l'Égypte, son propriétaire légitime ?

Il existe, quelque part en Asie du Sud-Est, entre le tropique du Cancer et la ligne de l'Équateur, une autre ligne. Une ligne noire jalonnée de corps et d'effroi.

In noir master Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, a movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret lure private eye Philip Marlowe into the less than glamorous and more than a little dangerous world of Hollywood fame. Chandler's first foray into the industry that dominates the company town that is Los Angeles.

Tous les novices de la Guilde des magiciens viennent de familles puissantes... sauf Sonea. Mais elle sait bien qu'elle peut se tourner vers ses maîtres Dannyl et Rothen pour leur demander de l'aide. En tout cas, jusqu'à ce que d'infâmes rumeurs commencent à courir sur elle - et qu'Akkarin, le haut seigneur, intervienne.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: The end of the line. Lawless, drug-soaked, forgotten - it's where bad journalists go to die. For once-great war photographer Will Keller, that's kind of a mission statement: he spends his days floating from one score to the next, taking any job that pays; his nights are a haze of sex, drugs, booze, and brawling. But Will's spiral toward oblivion is interrupted by Kara Saito, a beautiful young woman who shows up and begs Will to help find her sister, June, who disappeared during a stint as an intern at the local paper.

Summer has come to Atlantic City but the boardwalk is empty of tourists, the casino lights have dimmed, and two Jane Does are laid out in the marshland behind the Sunset Motel, just west of town. Only one person even knows they’re there. Meanwhile, Clara, a young boardwalk psychic, struggles to attract clients for the tarot readings that pay her rent. When she begins to experience very real and disturbing visions, she suspects they could be related to the recent cases of women gone missing in town.

A wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune - the elements don't quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape, blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation.

Vancouver is the so-called City of Glass. A nice place, in any case, and much too nice for noir. Looked at from afar, Vancouver may seem idyllic. But living here is different - cold and baffling and occasionally hostile. While outsiders focus on high-test BC bud, locals see a heroin crisis: Vancouver is home to the first legalized safe-injection site in North America, now heavily taxed by overdoses resulting from street drugs cut with fentanyl.

Journaliste pour une dépêche locale, David Harwood pensait avoir eu une bonne idée pour le week-end : quoi de mieux, en effet, qu'une journée dans un parc d'attractions avec leur fils de quatre ans, Ethan, pour changer les idées dépressives de son épouse Jan ? Or, à peine sont-ils arrivés que Jan se volatilise. David fait bientôt figure de suspect numéro 1 aux yeux de la police car rien ne semble confirmer l'état dépressif de Jan, que lui seul semble connaître, ni même que la jeune femme était bien avec lui au parc d'attractions.

Liliane, la grand-mère : Ma petite-fille m'observe avec insistance. Je ne dois rien laisser paraître. Je la connais bien, Justine. Quel bout de femme ! Quel tempérament ! Elle a de qui tenir, me direz-vous ! Catherine, la mère : Je n'en peux plus de ces réunions de famille. Elles ont toujours lieu ici, chez nous, et je dois m'occuper de tout. Et Maman qui fait des caprices en plus ! Vivement demain que je retourne travailler. Pierre me manque. Pierre, c'est mon collègue. Je l'aime beaucoup, mais je suis mariée...

For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can't refuse.The 200-year-old godfather of the Budayeen's underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.

They call it Company Town - a city-size oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd. Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bioengineered enhancements. As such, she's the last truly organic person left on the rig - making her doubly an outsider as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire.

There's Bella, stay-at-home mum of Teddy. She suffered postpartum psychosis after Teddy's birth. There's Chrissy, divorce lawyer, married to Russell. They're having some problems with their sex life. There's Electra, mother to twins, who is struggling with her son's behaviour. There's Skye, a single mother, who used a sperm donor to have her baby. Then there's Jen. She was supposed to be a mother, but it hasn't worked out like she expected.

The Pale Criminal brings back Bernie Gunther, an ex-policeman who thought he'd seen everything on the streets of 1930s Berlin - until he turned freelance, and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi subculture. Hard-hitting, fast-paced, and richly detailed, The Pale Criminal is noir writing at its blackest and best.

Private eye Eddie Valiant doesn't like Toons - those cartoon characters who live side-by-side with humans. But Eddie will work for a Toon if his cash supply is low enough. So he reluctantly agrees when Roger Rabbit, a Toon who plays straight man (or should that be straight rabbit) in the Baby Herman cartoon series, asks him to find out who's been trying - unsuccessfully - to buy his contract from the DeGreasy Brothers syndicate. Then Rocco DeGreasy is murdered - and Roger is the prime suspect!

Dans un appartement, un jeune homme gît dans un bain de sang sans qu'il y ait le moindre signe d'effraction ou de lutte. Pas d'arme du crime, rien que cette entaille en travers de la gorge de la victime. Et dans sa poche, des cachets de Rohypnol, connu sous le nom de drogue du viol... Runolfur a-t-il violé une femme qui s'est ensuite vengée ? Un châle trouvé sous le lit va mettre Elinborg, l'inspectrice qui remplace Erlendur, sur la piste d'une jeune femme.