Noir Mystery Thriller

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Now, West Africa enters the Noir Series arena, meticulously edited by one of Nigeria's best-known authors. The 13 stories that comprise this volume stretch the boundaries of "noir" fiction, but each one of them fully captures the essence of noir, the unsettled darkness that continues to lurk in the city's streets, alleys, and waterways.

A 20-year-old local mystery that has never been solved. A bone-chilling VHS tape depicting a horrific crime. Neighbours with something to hide. And a sister who is missing. Emily has to find out the truth. But is her sister Madeline the victim...or the one to blame?

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.

Il y a des propositions qui ne se refusent pas. Freya vient de perdre son mari et sa maison. Elle a besoin d'un toit de toute urgence, pour elle et sa fille de cinq ans. La chance lui sourit le jour où elle rencontre le charismatique Dr Marsden, qui cherche à louer un appartement dans un quartier cossu de Londres pour un loyer dérisoire. Mais pas à n'importe qui : les nouveaux locataires devront se faire accepter des autres résidents. Quand Freya emménage à Adder House, quelque chose lui dit que c'est trop beau pour être vrai.

In this first installment in Georges Simenon’s legendary Inspector Maigret series, M. Maigret hunts down an elusive and notorious confidence man, but finds that identifying him is a game of doubles, intrigue, and hidden crimes. When Detective Chief Inspector Maigret receives notice from...

Dans le secret du confessionnal, on confie au père Gabriel une mission. Récupérer à l'asile voisin, sous la jupe d'une femme dont il doit bénir le corps, de mystérieux cahiers. C'est ainsi que sortent de l'ombre les carnets de la jeune Rose, ceux dans lesquels elle a conté son histoire, cherchant à briser le secret dont on voulait couvrir son destin.

Aux États-Unis, de nos jours. Zack Walker a une obsession : la sécurité. Marié et père de deux enfants, cet auteur de science-fiction a préféré quitter un environnement urbain qu'il estime trop dangereux, pour une vie de banlieue bien paisible. Paisible ? A voir. Car Zack, en bon parano, continue de voir le danger partout : ses ados s'obstinent à laisser la porte d'entrée ouverte aux cambrioleurs potentiels et surtout, sa femme Sara laisse son sac à main à disposition de tous.

The Sternwood family, immortalized in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, is in trouble again. Lovely Vivian's psychotic sister, Carmen, has disappeared from the sanitarium, and Vivian herself has once again fallen into the clutches of the shady underworld character Eddie Mars. Enter Philip Marlowe, the original tough-but-tender private eye. He saved the Sternwoods once before. The question is: Can he do it again?

When you’re in trouble, you call 911. When cops are in trouble, they call Nick Ryan. Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. In fact, they don’t talk about him at all. He doesn’t wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York. Nick Ryan can find a criminal who’s vanished. Or he can make a key witness disappear. He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city.

It was meant to be Caitlin's perfect summer, but betrayed by her best friend and her boyfriend, she finds herself hitchhiking home alone, heartbroken, and penniless. When a smiling family pulls up on the roadside to help her on her way, she's relieved at first - they seem friendly, normal. And when they offer her a warm bed in their cottage for the night, she's grateful - it's not safe for young women travelling alone in the dark, and she's in no rush to get home, where she knows a grave secret is due to blow her family apart.

In the bustling streets of New York, a killer is on the loose, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. But this isn't just any ordinary murderer—they're using an explosive rune, a powerful magic that should only exist in the pages of Alex Lockerby's own lore book. As the city descends into chaos and fear, Alex finds himself in a race against time to catch the culprit before they strike again. With his own abilities temporarily gone, he must rely on his wit and determination to solve the case.

"Il y a des nombres sacrés, il en existe aussi de diaboliques." À l'approche du débarquement, dans le Paris sombre de l’occupation, des meurtres étranges portent la signature 669. Le signe de l’apocalypse ? Face à un cercle de satanistes, les héros vont devoir plonger dans les ténèbres… Un nouvel opus lu à la perfection par François Hatt qui s’empare de cette fresque historique saisissante et en propose une lecture énergique et incarnée.

When you think of St. Petersburg noir, some of the greatest literary names immediately spring to mind - Alexander Pushkin, Nikolay Gogol, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Modern day St. Petersburg lavishly offers the scenery and conditions for true noir stories, and the writers in St. Petersburg Noir succeed in concocting their own worlds within this city with stories ranging from mystical to outwardly grotesque.

At the end of the initial novel, Drive, Driver has killed Bernie Rose, “the only one he mourned,” ending his campaign against those who double-crossed him. Now, seven years have passed. Driver has left the old life, become Paul West, and founded a successful business back in Phoenix. Walking down the street one day, he and his fiancée are attacked by two men, and while Driver dispatches both, his fiancée is killed.

When mystery novelist turned private detective, Marius Quin, is invited to speak at a gala dinner by the mysterious Mrs Thistlethwaite he jumps at the chance of a weekend away on the English Riviera. With his sleuthing partner, Lady Bella Montague, in tow, Marius arrives at Torquay’s Grand Hotel. But they soon realise that, behind the shiny exteriors, all is not what it seems. After Thistlethwaite turns Marius’s big night into a character assassination at his expense, he wonders why he was invited in the first place.

Beneath the glitter of Mardi Gras lies the sleaze of Bourbon Street; under the celestial sounds of JazzFest, the nightmare screams of a city once at war within its neighborhoods, but after Hurricane Katrina, seemingly at war with nature and the rest of the country as well. New Orleans is a third world country in itself, a Latin, African, European (and often amoral) culture trapped in a Puritan nation.

My name is Reggie Keane. I have nothing left to lose. The love of my life has been assassinated by my enemies or my government. They might be one and the same. Friends betrayed me. I betrayed myself. I need to focus and find the killer of Holly. Maybe find myself again in the process.

When a homeless man jumps to his death in Old Montreal, the police discover two wallets in his possession: one belonging to a retired psychiatrist who was murdered in a bizarre ritual, the other to a powerful corporate lawyer who has vanished. As Montreal police detective Victor Lessard and his partner, Jacinthe Taillon, work to solve the separate mysteries, a dark conspiracy begins to emerge.

The southwestern-most metropolis in the contiguous United States, resting a mere 40 feet above sea level, tends to garner positive national attention. San Diego is home to the world-famous San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park (with its history reaching back to the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition), temperate climes, and a sunny reputation. It is also the home of shooter Brenda Ann "I Don’t Like Mondays" Spencer, disgraced Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and San Diego County medical examiner-turned-killer Kristin Rossum.

Marlowe is back...and he's married to a rich, beautiful society lady who wants him to settle down in the posh desert community of Poodle Springs. Marlowe may have married rich, but old habits die hard: he's hired to recover a gambling debt and soon finds himself in a case involving bigamy, pornography and murder. The first four chapters of this final Marlowe mystery were written by noir master Raymond Chandler at the end of his life. Robert B. Parker was chosen by Chandler's estate to complete his last work.