Noir Mystery Thriller

Manila provides the ideal, torrid setting for an Akashic Noir series volume. It's where the rich rub shoulders with the poor, where five-star hotels coexist with informal settlements, where religious zeal coexists with superstition, and where politics is often synonymous with celebrity and corruption.

This wry collection of Hanukkah noir features eleven stories by critically acclaimed authors that run the gamut from hardboiled to heartfelt, curated by New York Times bestselling author Tod Goldberg. Across eleven stories, award-winning authors spin tales of family, corruption, buried treasure and delightful yet twisted capers that will entertain listeners through all eight nights of the Festival of Lights.

Who is Claire Gravesend? So wonders PI Lee Crowe when he finds her dead, in a fine cocktail dress, on top of a Rolls Royce, in the most dangerous neighborhood in San Francisco. Claire's mother, Olivia, is one of the richest people in California. She doesn't believe the coroner: her daughter did not kill herself. Olivia hires Crowe, who - having just foiled a federal case against a cartel kingpin - is eager for distraction. But the questions about the Gravesend family pile up fast.

Pittsburgh, 1995. The son of a black father he’s never known and a white mother he sometimes wishes he didn’t, 22-year-old Bobby Saraceno is passing for white. Raised by his bigoted maternal grandfather, Bobby has hidden his truth from everyone, even his best friend and fellow comic-book geek, Aaron, who has just returned home from prison a hardened racist.

When Hedda Hellberg fails to return from a retreat in Italy where she has recently been grieving for her dead father, her husband discovers that her life is tangled in mystery. Hedda never left Oslo, the retreat has no record of her and, what's more, she appears to be connected to the murder of an old man gunned down on the first day of the hunting season in the depths of the Swedish forests....

Hoke Moseley has had enough. Tired of struggling against alimony payments, two teenage daughters, a very pregnant and very single partner, and a low-paying job as a Miami homicide detective, Hoke moves to Singer Island and vows never to set foot on the mainland again. But on the street, career criminal Troy Louden is hatching plans of his own with a gang that includes a disfigured hooker, a talentless artist, and a clueless retiree.

"- Alors qu'est-ce que vous faites dans la région, dites-moi un peu, s'inquiète le commandant Parker. - Disons que c'est pour un film que je suis en train de tourner, indique Robert. Comme vous voyez. - On ne m'en avait pas averti, regrette le commandant, mais voilà qui m'intéresse beaucoup. Et quel genre de film, au juste ? - Toujours pareil, expose Robert, l'amour et l'aventure. Avec l'Afrique et ses mystères, vous voyez le genre. - Ah oui, soupire le commandant Parker, je vois en effet très bien le genre. Et pour votre histoire d'amour, vous avez pris quelle actrice ? - Céleste, dit Robert.

When the police are unable to find a body, they are forced to dismiss a homeless veteran’s claim that he witnessed a homicide. But after he is found murdered in the same spot two days later, DI Bliss and the Major Crime Unit set their sights on catching a ruthless killer. Elsewhere, when the daughter of a cuckooed family is reported to have attempted suicide, Jimmy Bliss and DC Penny Chandler have their doubts and vow to uncover the truth. But the situation is about to get much worse, and violence is certain to erupt on the city streets.

It’s Midsummer’s Eve, the celebration of the longest day of the year, and on Sandhamn it’s the longest party of the year. But the fun comes to a dead halt when a young reveler is murdered, a teenage girl is found drugged and dazed on the beach, and other young women vanish. So far, what links the victims is a mystery. For Nora Linde and her new boyfriend, Jonas Sköld, the crimes are personal: one of the missing girls is Wilma, Jonas’s daughter. And her disappearance could test Nora and Jonas’s relationship in ways they never expected.

Jan Nyman, the ace detective of the covert operations unit of the National Central Police, is sent to a sleepy seaside town to investigate a mysterious death. Nyman arrives in the town dominated by a bizarre holiday village - the ‘hottest beach in Finland’. The suspect: Olivia Koski, who has only recently returned to her old hometown. The mission: find out what happened, by any means necessary.

Lazarus is careful, calculated, but most notably, a terrifyingly sadistic individual. He doesn't have a type, he doesn't make mistakes; the murders are violent, and no one is safe. Scarlett Madden has it all, the perfect life, a loving husband, a beautiful son, and what most others take for granted: her safety. But nothing good can last forever. Now, everything has changed; Scarlett is terrified. Terrified of the man stalking her, the man making her feel like a prisoner in her own home.

Kristi D. Steels is the daughter of the once legendary Police Special Division Crime Busters. There're lots of things that can be said about the young lovely foxy detective. But one thing that must be brought to the forefront is that Kristi is a "DIVA".

Is someone systematically killing the judges called to the British Columbian bar? At least one has been murdered and several have disappeared. Arthur Beauchamp returns from retirement once again to take on the case, this time defending his former nemesis, backwoods poet Cudworth Brown. He finds himself chasing all kinds of leads, including tracking down a mystery novel that Brown’s unreliable former lawyer has been writing, just as Beauchamp’s own wife, Margaret, has announced her candidacy for the Green Party.

A woman flees from the city and seeks refuge in the tiny, sleepy, beach village of Tomakin (not Tomahawk). Her new life consists of daily seaside walks, getting to know the local characters, solitary cocktails, dogs and dreams. Seclusion with a stunning ocean view. Her old life was a relationship built on control, isolation and jealousy taken to the extreme. Now, hiding in Tomakin, she must live on cash and stay totally off the grid.

It's been six weeks since Jack McBride's life went to hell: The resolution of his first case as chief sparked a county-wide drug war, his brother Eddie rode into town with a pocket full of cocaine and trouble on his mind, his estranged wife returned from her one-year sabbatical determined to win him back, and Ellie Martin ended their brief affair.

When Rudd, a troubled teenager, embarks on a school research project, he runs across the secret Mormon ritual of blood sacrifice and its role in a 1902 murder committed by the grandson of Brigham Young. Along with his newly discovered half brother, Rudd becomes swept up in the psychological and atavistic effects of this violent, antique ritual. As the past and the present become an increasingly tangled knot, Rudd is found—with minor injuries and few memories—at the scene of a multiple murder on a remote campsite.

The streets are about to explode…and Puyallup’s local paranormal investigator Jimmy Kincaid is caught right in the middle of it. The neighborhood’s criminal syndicates are on the brink of all-out war, and if they go at it, the streets will run red—literally. But Jimmy’s got more problems. Someone’s sending him a particular message by sending him severed limbs. And then there’s the hitmen coming after him. Last but not least, he’s got to broker a deal between the biggest elven street gang in Seattle and a vicious Triad gang—and not get himself killed in the bargain.

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the North Carolina mountains to create a timber empire, vowing to let no one stand in their way, especially those newly rallying around Teddy Roosevelt's nascent environmental movement.

Step into Indian Country. Enter the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas, where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent. Features brand-new stories by: Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martnez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg, and Melissa Yi.

La collection «Asphalte Noir» revient en France et, après Paris, explore Marseille, de l'Estaque au Vieux-Port, de la Joliette à la Plaine, de la Belle de Mai au stade Vélodrome, en passant par le Panier ou les îles du Frioul... Marseille dans toute sa diversité, toutes ses communautés, toutes ses contradictions. Des nouvelles noires inédites, écrites spécialement pour ce recueil, par des auteurs marseillais de naissance ou d'adoption, œuvrant aussi bien dans le polar que la littérature générale.