Showing titles in Hard-Boiled

A mysterious worldwide epidemic reduces the birthrate of female infants from 50 percent to less than one percent. Medical science and governments around the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but 25 years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than 1000 women. Zoey and some of the surviving young women are housed in a scientific research compound dedicated to determining the cause.

When a local woman tells Sergeant Hamish Macbeth that she doesn't remember what happened the previous evening, he doesn't begin to worry. She had been out drinking, after all, and he'd prefer not to be bothered with such an arrogant and annoying woman. But when her body is discovered, Hamish is forced to investigate a crime that the only known witness - now dead - had forgotten.

Call it Kinsey Millhone in bad company. Call it a mystery without a murder, a treasure hunt without a map, a quest novel with truly mixed-up motives. Call it the return of Kinsey as a bad girl, quick-witted and quicksilvery, poking her nose into everybody's dirty laundry as she joins up with a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde in an Our Gang comedy that will take her halfway across the country and leave her with a major headache and an empty bank balance.

L.A. private eye Elvis Cole is hired by popular television star Jodie Taylor to delve into her past and identify the biological parents who gave her up for adoption thirty-six years before. Cole's assignment is to find out their biological history and report back. It seems all too clear cut. But when he gets to Louisiana and begins his search, he finds that there's something much darker going on. Other people are also looking for Taylor's parents, and some are ending up dead.

Ex-Berlin cop and private detective Bernie Gunther has seen his share of bad guys. But when the worst guys of all are the ones running the show, it's much harder to stay out of their reach. Hired by a wealthy industrialist to investigate the murder of his daughter and her husband in an apparent botched robbery, Bernie soon finds himself drawn into the complex - not to mention lethal - internal politics and corruption of the Nazi party.

No one knows why the district attorney is gunning for Susan Wilson, but Clint Wolf is determined to find out, even if it’ll get him in trouble. While he works to clear Susan’s name, his crusade is sidelined when a bar manager is murdered during an apparent armed robbery. The method of operation is eerily similar to those used by the ruthless gang who killed his family, and Clint might soon have to face down the demons from his past to solve the mystery.

She’s the person I want to be. Sorcha Hannon, survivor of a devastating affair. She’s found the healing and hope I desperately need to find for myself. And now that Sorcha and I are friends, I am no longer alone. Instead of days hiding away from the world, I have someone to talk to. I feel as if I finally belong. There’s just one small catch. Sorcha Hannon isn’t just a new friend to me, and she certainly isn’t a stranger. In fact, I know the ins and outs of her life, and her marriage, almost as well as she does. But if she finds out who I really am, I’ll lose everything.

Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three LAPD detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers.

Edgar Award nominee Robert Crais’ L.A. Requiem is a gritty, harrowing look into the minds of a serial killer and the men determined to stop him. Elvis Cole and former cop Joe Pike have been partners in a detective agency for 12 years. After an ex-girlfriend of Pike’s disappears, the girl’s father asks them to help the police with the search. When the missing persons case turns into a hunt for a killer who has been stalking victims in Los Angeles, Cole and Pike find themselves battling both a hostile police department and a madman.

Now that his mom's gravy train has derailed, gambling, debt-ridden Palm Beach playboy Warren "Chip" Ganz has decided to take somebody rich hostage - with the help of a Bahamian ex-con, a psycho gardener/enforcer, and the beautiful, if underfed, psychic Reverend Dawn. The trouble is, they choose bookmaker Harry Arno as their victim, and Harry can scam with the best.

John Straley brings his storytelling abilities to a new level in this completely original period crime story. It's 1935, and Slip Wilson, rattled by the gruesome accidental death of a coworker, has quit his job at a logging camp, hoping to make a clean start in Seattle. But along the way he rescues a woman and her young niece from their car in a ditch, and his life takes a hard turn. The woman, Ellie Hobbes, is an anarchist with big dreams - but first, she has to take care of that pesky dead body in the trunk of her car.

The only thing worse than being stabbed in the back is being shot in the back. And that’s exactly what happens to local bar owner Mitch Taylor. As Clint Wolf and Susan Wilson investigate, the list of suspects begins to grow, and it includes the victim’s estranged wife. Just when it appears Clint is closing in on the killer, things takes a surprising turn, and the entire complexion of the case is changed.

A year ago Millie lost her legs and her filmmaking career in a failed suicide attempt. Just when she's sure the credits have rolled on her life story, she gets a second chance with the Arcadia Project: a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales. For her first assignment, Millie is tasked with tracking down a missing movie star who also happens to be a nobleman of the Seelie Court.

When Kelsey Hart disappeared three years ago, her older sister, Brit, never gave up hope. But as time passed, and she heard nothing from her sister, she knew she needed help. Enter PI Harry Starke, the man with a reputation for solving the impossible cases. As Harry digs into Kelsey’s disappearance, he quickly realizes that nothing is as it seems. Slowly, he uncovers dark secrets and a web of lies that will shake the Hart family to its core. And with every clue he uncovers, the mystery deepens, and people begin to die.

When a young man washes up on the shore of the Bradshaw River, Detective Madison Knight and her partner are called in to investigate. But the case takes a complicated turn when he’s identified as the son of local business tycoon Marcus Randall. As one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the city, he has a lot of connections, and one of them just happens to be the police chief. Stuck between the chief and one of the most powerful men in the city of Stiles isn’t the ideal place to be, but Madison has no choice but to risk it all - if justice is to be served.

It started with the murder of Kinsey Millhone's sometime drinking buddy, an insurance claims adjuster. But before long Kinsey stumbles onto a massive insurance scam. Going undercover as a wisecracking vamp, Millhone descends into the Los Angeles nether world of machismo and gang hideouts. Her companion, terrified at having crossed the violent crook Raymond Maldonado, is Bibianna Diaz, no Girl Scout herself.

Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away -- until the comic strip ransom note arrives. It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture -- an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with his fists

Could a deep and dark secret be behind the sniper-style killing of a sheriff’s office captain, or is it simply the work of a madman with a rifle? Whatever the case, the killer is taunting the cops with a mysterious message, and police sniper London Carter is determined to decipher the message and capture the murderer. Will London solve the mystery in time, or will more officers die before he can bring the killer to justice?

Commissario Guido Brunetti's career is under threat when his professional and personal lives unexpectedly intersect. In the chill of the Venetian dawn, a sudden act of vandalism shatters the quiet of the deserted city, and Brunetti is shocked to find that the culprit waiting to be apprehended at the scene is a member of his own family. Meanwhile, he is also under pressure from his superiors to solve a daring robbery with connections to a suspicious accidental death. Could the two crimes be connected? And will Brunetti be able to prove his family's innocence before it's too late?

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, “plotting to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff.” Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba “accident,” might be the stiff of Jack’s dreams - if only he can figure out what happened. Standing in the way are (among others) his ambitious young editor, who hasn’t yet fired anyone but plans to “break her cherry” on Jack....