Urban Crime Fiction

Annabelle Décor is a woman betrayed who is on a mission to punish infidelity, marking her victims with the makeup of those they have deceived. From his position of power, Death watches the story unfold before his eyes. Is this merely a woman driven crazy or a possession by an old and vengeful god?

Here, in Lynne Truss' first novel, we meet Osborne Lonsdale, a down-at-heel journalist, mysteriously attractive to women, who writes a regular celebrity interview for Come into the Garden. This week his "Me and My Shed" column will be based on the charming garden outhouse owned by TV sitcom star Angela Farmer. Unbeknownst to Osborne, driving down to Devon to interview Angela in her country retreat, the sleepy magazine has been taken over by new management.

His mother tragically dies of cancer, his once perfect world is turned upside down, and the coldhearted streets of Detroit couldn’t care less. Now, Lonnie McKay, homeless and alone, is caught up in the system at the mercy of others. Faced with women who could possibly help him but refuse to do so, he soon develops a vindictive dislike for every female with whom he comes in contact. Under the influence of anything he can take to get high, a delusional Lonnie sets no limits to what he’ll do to make these women pay - including murder.

When the police kill her husband in the presence of their young son, Shy McGee becomes a single mother trying to raise boys to men. Her 17-year-old son, Prince, channels his anger into an effort to become king of the streets. Seeing her son try to step up and take his father’s place, Shy has his back. Cherise is Shy’s best friend, but she doesn’t like what she’s seeing lately. Cherise has taught her son, Raequan, only one life lesson: how to run hustles. Now Cherise and Raequan are tired of watching the McGee family prosper while they remain at a standstill.

Growing up on the cold, mean, inner-city streets of Baltimore is Netta, leader of an all-girl clique called the Pussy Pound. With no father and a dope fiend for a mother, Netta learns at an early age how to use her beauty and her body to get the things she wants: money, cars, and jewelry. Chasing the almighty dollar, she meets Black, a local drug dealer with a deep-seated hatred for New Yorkers who falls head over heels in love with her. With a broken heart, Black discovers that Netta is only after his money and seeks the ultimate revenge against her life.

Nasty and Soulja were ruthless kingpins on the streets of Baltimore. Now in prison, nothing has changed. They are still running things from behind the penitentiary walls. Even though they are still getting large amounts of money, it cannot solve all of their problems. Daily, they deal with the reality that they left loved ones behind.

At last the untold story behind one of Hollywood's long-lost classics can be told! And Pro Se gets to bring it to you! From the casebook of the mysterious Black Centipede, the true story of his adventures in Hollywood while filming the 1930s classic Blood of the Centipede!

Meet Leander: lover, fighter, liar. He learnt a long time ago that nothing is as intoxicating as blood. And these days, whether it's his or someone else's, he frequently finds himself covered in it. Up to now, it's been his secret. But it's hard to remain invisible when you leave a trail of destruction everywhere you do go. And when he comes to the attention of one of London's most infamous criminals, Leander decides to put his appetite for violence to the ultimate test.

They say blood is thicker than water. That's not going to stop it being spilled. Life hasn't been easy for the Miller family. Finally mum Babs has had one bit of luck. She plans to share the profits with her daughters. She thought they'd be pleased.... But money always causes trouble, especially when it's desperately needed. Jen wants to make a better life for her kids. Tiff owes a lot of bad men a lot of money. And Dee is worried that her husband is getting back into the criminal life.

Lily King has spent years behind bars. Convicted of murdering her husband, London villain Leo King, she hasn't been missed. Everyone believes she got what she deserved, but Lily knows she was fitted up. Now she's out, and she doesn't do forgiveness. In her absence things have moved on, and the old order has changed. But now she's ready to reclaim her position as head of the King family. Fuelled by vengeance, Lily King is back, and some people aren't going to know what's hit them.

When India falls to her death from a bridge over a railway, her sister, Poppy, returns home to Brighton for the first time in years. Unconvinced by official explanations, Poppy begins her own investigation into India's death. But the deeper she digs, the closer she comes to uncovering deeply buried secrets. Could Matthew Temple, the boyfriend she abandoned, be involved? And what of his powerful and wealthy parents and his twin sister, Ana?

Thirteen-year-old Anthony Faircloth hasn't spoken a word in almost a month, and with each passing day his near-catatonic state worsens. No doctor, test, or scan can tell Anthony's distraught mother what has happened to her already troubled son. In desperation she turns to Mira for answers, hoping her unique abilities might succeed where science has failed. At their first encounter, Mira is pulled into Anthony's mind and finds the child's psyche shattered into the various movements of Modest Mussorgsky's classical music suite Pictures at an Exhibition.

In Shadow People, national best-selling author James Swain’s brilliant follow-up to Dark Magic, magician Peter Warlock has a dark secret. He’s a psychic who peers into the future, using the information to alert the authorities to pending trouble. During a séance, Peter is confronted by a group of evil spirits called shadow people, beings who have the power to kidnap a person’s soul. Peter is taken to another plane, where he confronts a serial killer about to claim his next victim. It’s a harrowing encounter that Peter only barely manages to survive.

Reeling from the attempts on his life and the lives of his family, Police Inspector Robert Finlay returns to work. His first job - to investigate the Eastern European sex-slave industry, just as a key witness is murdered. Finlay, along with his new partner, Nina Brasov, finds himself facing a ruthless criminal gang determined to keep control at all costs. Finlay's efforts to protect his wife and child may have been in vain, though, as an MI5 protection officer uncovers a covert secret service operation that threatens them all....

Even for a techno-shaman, a kachina in the bedroom isn't exactly part of the drill. When Olivia Lawson wakes to find one towering over her, she panics. A Hopi god visiting the real world isn't just wrong - it's impossible. Or is it? Soon Olivia learns that the kachina is the least of her worries. As she struggles to save her clients, clashes with other shamans, and fends off the attacks of real-world vigilantes, Olivia finds herself in the destructive path of a malevolent ancient force intent on leaving the spiritual realm to conquer this one.

The special relationship between London and Washington is in tatters. Salim Dhar, the world’s most wanted terrorist, has disappeared after an audacious attack on an American target in the UK. The CIA believes Daniel Marchant, renegade MI6 officer, was involved. But Marchant has a bigger secret: Dhar has agreed to work for MI6. In return Marchant must help him with a final strike against America. Should Britain sign up to this Faustian pact or hunt them both down? Intelligence chiefs are divided.

"I’m being followed,” she said. “I think he wants to kill me.” When a panicked young woman slips her hand into his in 1960s Chinatown, just before a knife-wielding stalker attacks, private eye Alex Novalis finds his cherished hard-boiled persona threatened by a romantic streak that has a habit of getting him into trouble. Sandy Smollett is triple trouble - a stripper who comes on like the girl next door and has a way of bending the truth to suit any occasion. Novalis finds her irresistible.

Helen West is coming to terms with her husband's death and trying to cope with her six-year-old son's grief. Jake suffers from nightmares, and visions of what he calls his 'other' life. He talks about a boy called Jacob and a place known only as 'the island'. Helen's journey to find the source of Jake's torment leads them to North Wales, where the university town of Bangor is in lockdown following a series of student abductions.

Hope Randall has lived a quiet life. But that peace is about to be broken. When a stranger turns up on her doorstep telling Hope she has a half-sister, her instinct is to turn him away. But Michael Flint won’t give up that easily - he believes Hope’s sister, Connie, is in serious trouble. Connie’s childhood was a world away from Hope’s comfortable upbringing - she’s endured poverty, hardship and abandonment. Connie’s future doesn’t look much brighter.

Thinking that she has been summoned by German immigrant Agnes Otto to usher a new life into the world, midwife Sarah Brandt is greeted by the news of an untimely death instead. It seems that Agnes' beautiful younger sister, Gerda, had fallen into the life of a "charity girl". Caught up in the false glamour of the city's nightlife, she would trade her company and her favors for lavish gifts. And now she was dead - victim, no doubt, of one of her "gentlemen friends".