Urban Crime Fiction

Be ready for some action, humor, and mystery in this anthology with short stories. You’ll listen about gangsters, witches, magic potions, interrogations, werewolves, and murder. Several stories have a murder victim, while others are all about theft or robberies. But in many cases, they spark the imagination and make up for a great way to sit back, relax, and read or listen to stories from a completely different world.

Ein Haus voller Geheimnisse – und Geister mit Charme. Als Meg Dawson nach einer gescheiterten Karriere ins charmante und etwas verrückte Morrisey-Gebäude in Seattle zurückkehrt, hofft sie auf Ruhe und Normalität – und vielleicht auf eine Chance mit Laurie, ihrem süßen Nachbarn. Stattdessen findet sie eine Leiche – und muss sich eingestehen, dass ihr Zuhause mehr Geheimnisse verbirgt als gedacht. Zum Glück hat Meg eine besondere Gabe: Sie kann mit Geistern sprechen.

Homicide detective Maxim Dwyer is tired of small-town secrets. The residents of Sanctuary, Arizona, whisper of creatures in the woods of Sycamore, a sprawling wildlife area undisturbed by the progress of the modern world. Diego de la Torre is the latest stranger drawn to the mountain town. The brash biker is used to skirting the law, but his clashes with the local motorcycle club might make his stay a short one.

Caleb Moon is a young idealistic journalist reporting on everyday racial injustices, but when he is arrested at a police brutality protest he meets a racist white cop. The interactions indicate the lengths to which racism is systemic and pushes Caleb’s approach to injustice from theory into practice. Convinced that journalism isn’t how he will change the world, Caleb chooses to help a black candidate run for mayor against the white incumbent. The experience exposes him to the machinations of voter suppression and the lengths to which those at the top will go to maintain the status quo.

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.

Dee Dee is as laid back, sassy, and cute as they come, but having two overprotective brothers like Jay and Bee, who have clout in the Memphis streets, makes finding and building a relationship seriously hazardous to a brother's health. Things move fast for Jay and Bee after hooking up with a new contact. All of the training that Jay was secretly putting Dee Dee through comes into play as Jay and Bee are locked up in the county jail for selling to an informant. The game is dominated by thugs until Dee Dee hits the scene.

Meet Kara, a young detective on a dubious mission to locate the person that assassinated her father when she was a child. No child should witness a parent violently murdered before their eyes. This horrific tragedy she suffered has caused Kara to become permanently scarred and emotionally distant as an adult. The psychological issues she now has run deep.

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.

Crime is usually straightforward in sleepy Midwest communities like Mt. Pleasant. That is, unless you have an ancient god or two passing through town. For thousands of years, they’ve been hiding in plain sight, with powers and motivations that are incomprehensible to most mortals. Recently fired from a super-secret government agency, Detective Jake Wuntz knows a few things about keeping these specially powered individuals under control.

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.

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.

Nine months have passed since psychic Mira Tejedor last walked the halls of Anthony Faircloth's adolescent mind. All but family now, Mira is relocating to Charlotte, NC, not only for a much-needed change of scenery, but to further her burgeoning relationship with Dr. Thomas Archer. On the eve of her move, however, a new threat emerges. Young girls from every corner of Charlotte are falling catatonic, a condition eerily similar to the illness from which Mira rescued Anthony the previous fall.

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.

After eight years spent locked up, Max has gotten very good at being a prisoner. He knows the guards, the inmates, and how to survive. But the parole board has decided that he has sufficiently reformed, and it’s time for him to say goodbye. When Max reaches the outside world, he finds that freedom doesn’t make anything easier.

That was the last time any of them saw Minnie Bright: It was 48 hours before her crack-addicted mother reported her missing, and a few hours more before the police entered the house and found her small, twisted body hidden under the bed. Fifteen years ago, a little girl was murdered. Now journalist Jess Vaughan and detective Harry Lind are asking questions about what really happened that day. Questions that someone will kill to keep hidden. No one knows crime like Roberta Kray.

"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.