Crime & Mystery Books

No one would ever accuse Special Agent Ryan O’Connor of taking the easy way out of anything. At least not successfully. Her attempts to distract herself from her crushing feelings of failing, fear, and fury have inadvertently landed her in hot water that is way over her head. And she forgot to pack her arm floaties.

As much as Ryan hates to admit it, her girlfriend, Allison, is right. She isn’t trained to bring down a domestic terrorist group. None of them are. But the clock is ticking, and lives are on the line. And if she doesn’t figure out a way to remain focused and keep her head in the game, hers will undoubtedly be one of them.

Kirsten Lindquist has enough on her hands juggling the demands of her work as an orchestral music librarian. Substitute horn player Shay Bradley has been hitting on her for years, but Shay is known for being an operator, so Kirsten avoids her advances, until she can’t resist. She is just beginning to get to know the new personnel manager, Stephanie Wellford, when the orchestra is shocked by the sudden deaths of three musicians and a string of suspicious accidents.

Kirsten, Shay, and Stephanie believe that the events are related, but they aren’t certain how to prove it. Things get more complicated when Shay backs off to hide her depression and Stephanie admits her crush on Kirsten, but they need to stick together to figure out who is responsible for murder—before they become the next victims.

After nineteen years as a conservation warden on some of the busiest lakes in Southern Wisconsin, Jordan Pearce is ready for a change of pace in the quiet of the Northwoods on the same lake she used to vacation on with her family. Her wish is granted when a colleague quits without notice. Everything seems to be falling into place.

Hanna Quinn returns to the Northwoods to help care for her aunt Dottie after a cancer diagnosis. Both her aunts have been her saving grace and now it’s her turn to be their strength. There’s plenty to keep her busy, and the new conservation warden is a welcome distraction from her overflowing plate.

Odd occurrences put the community on edge, and the serenity of the Northwoods is rocked when a body is discovered floating in the flowage. Jordan pushes the limits of her authority to keep Hanna and her new town safe, but the truth isn’t always as it seems.

Imma Bruno, a spunky retired librarian in the Pocono vacation town of Garden and founding member of the Tuesday Night Book Club, gets far more than she anticipated when she begins to investigate the curious question of why her reclusive neighbor was spotted at a Fabergé egg exhibit in New York City, and seems to be avoiding the town ladies.

Avery Hutchins was just a little girl when her father died on 9/11. She loved spending time in the Pocono mountain town with her grandparents and their friends growing up. When she travels to her grandparents’ home, she makes a discovery about her father’s death that will force her to face an impossible choice between doing what is right and finally finding a way to regain a part of herself she had lost.

Seventeen-year-old Ella Gatz is alone when the thief enters her father’s mansion on Halloween night. Ella fights the intruder but fails to stop the theft of Her Heart, her mother’s favorite painting. Ella mourns the loss of the only remaining piece of the mother she lost, and when her father, CEO of a security firm, refuses to report the crime for fear of the humiliation he will face at having his security system fail in his own home, Ella determines to hunt down the culprit and reclaim Her Heart.

The only hint to who the thief may be is a long, pink-and-blond hair. Finding her thief will become Ella’s first move in a dangerous game of wits that exposes family secrets and could lead to her family’s financial ruin.

Cain Casey has much to be thankful for—a loving wife in Emma, three beautiful children, and an ever-expanding family. Her business continues to grow, giving her the power to keep it all safe, but is it? Unknown federal agents are not playing by the government’s rules, and the Russian mob comes seeking revenge for the losses Cain’s inflicted. Cain and Emma have agreed to partner with the local feds to root out their rogue agents, but their goals for the endgame are completely different. Cain wants to remove the threat the way she knows is best—permanently. There is also Nicola Antakov, who she plans to handle the same way. 

Cain Casey is the devil you know. She loves her family and will do anything to keep them safe and whole.

When bodies start washing up on the shore in Salem Harbor, Massachusetts, an elite task force of FBI agents, profilers, and detectives join forces in a remote log cabin to decode the clues and stop the killer from targeting another victim.

Agent Tala Marshall overcame a childhood of deep generational wounds to become the country’s best criminal profiler. Now she faces her most challenging case yet, racing against the clock to profile the elusive killer before they strike again. She must partner with Wilder Mason, a local detective convinced that the murders are connected to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, and Tala builds a connection to the task force that helps her come to terms with her tumultuous past. But Wilder wants more and is determined to find the key to both the case and Tala’s guarded heart.

Can they find the undercurrent that connects Salem’s past and present before another victim washes to shore?

Special Liaison to the FBI Louisa Linebach may have defied all odds by identifying the bodies of three missing men in the Kenai Peninsula, but she won’t be satisfied until the man she’s sure is responsible for their murders is behind bars.

Mr. Drew is secretive, smart, rich, and well-connected, and it’s going to take more than regular police procedure to catch him. Louisa has a plan—a stakeout with Kenai Fjords National Park as home base. As Louisa watches Mr. Drew’s crew coming and going, she begins to put together how the operation works with the help of Seward Police Chief Mikey Harper; Louisa’s love-interest, medical examiner Anna Fenway; and National Parks Service ranger Dolly Agapov, who has a very personal reason for wanting the mysteries surrounding Mr. Drew solved.

The case is turned upside down when Dolly’s grandchild, Ryne, goes missing—and it’s not clear whether Ryne’s been ensnared by the crime ring, or if they’re risking their life to help Louisa. Only one thing is for sure. If Louisa doesn’t catch Mr. Drew soon, the body count will rise.

Nicky Sullivan is the resident manager of a sober living home in Chicago. There she rides herd on ten newly sober addicts and alcoholics, trying to point them in the right direction while keeping their chaos to a minimum. But when one of her residents is murdered, Nicky turns to the investigative skills honed during her past career as a homicide detective. She calls on her old police partner who has been assigned the murder investigation along with his new partner, a woman beautiful enough to give Nicky pause. The body count starts to mount as it becomes clear a serial killer is at work, targeting newly relapsed women, all of whom have some connection to Nicky. Each death makes her feel she’s wielded the knife herself. In the midst of the tragedy, she finds herself falling in love.

With the lives of fragile women in the balance, Nicky finds her own sobriety threatened. Can Nicky save her lover and find the killer? How many others must die before she does?

Working with SPEAR is never easy, but it also isn’t boring. Until now.

Evicted from her team, chained to her desk, Danika Karson must instead endure dozens of tedious experiments to diagnose the marks on her back. And no, she may not be part of the ongoing efforts to restore human-edane relations after last month’s Werewolf Riots.

So, when Rayne invites Danika to a wedding in her humdrum hometown, Danika seizes the opportunity to be useful. Not only can she support her vampire girlfriend in coming out to her estranged family, but she can also fulfill one of many debts owed to the nasty little goblin, Shakka.

One mundane favor, a nervous vampire, and an expensive, high-profile wedding. Stressful, perhaps, but given the choice between that and one more biopsy, Danika hurls herself in, feet first.

If only the unnamed creature made of smoke and bad memories would wait one more weekend…

Some choices break hearts. Others leave a body count.

Police detective Cami Lyons is finally doing okay following the devastating breakup of her relationship with crime reporter Alicia Flynn. Her work is mainly petty theft investigations and chasing down vandals, until a body is found in a nearby forest and everything changes. She has no choice but to pivot to homicide detective, and she’s in way over her head.

Alicia made a terrible mistake. When her existential crisis spiraled out of control, she left everything behind—her home, her family, her job, her longtime girlfriend—and ended up on the other side of the world. Time hasn’t healed her wounds and now she’s back. But the truth of all she’s lost may be too much to face.

With the captain, the mayor, the public, and the media breathing down Cami’s neck, her priority is figuring out who’s terrorizing their town, and fast. Sorting out her lingering feelings for Alicia? Definitely not a priority.

Zeddi's cursed with bad luck. A housing shortage in the Bay Area’s Tres Ojos has left Zeddi and her nine-year-old daughter, Olive, living in a van. Working as a housekeeper, trying to save money, Zeddi worries about Olive’s welfare. When she finds her friend and housekeeping client Mags dead—and something about her death doesn’t sit right—she faces her biggest worry of all.

Mags’s longtime lover, Ida, confirms her suspicions of foul play, revealing that Mags served as high priestess to a dwindling coven of old witches—who are positive that Mags was murdered. Zeddi owes it to Mags and Ida to uncover the truth, but the more she digs, the more she fears that Mags’s love for Olive may have unintentionally made Olive the killer’s next target.

It’s just another day on the job for state trooper Louisa Linebach. Hundreds of young men go missing from Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula every year, so when Lee Stanton and Branden Halifax both disappear within days of each other, Louisa doesn’t think much of it. One appears to be a simple suicide, but the other defies all explanation, with the victim’s footprints literally vanishing along an abandoned mountain runway.

As Louisa and her partner investigate, they encounter alien conspiracy theories, a town where all the inhabitants live in one building, and signs of a drug trade that’s inextricably mingled with the tourist industry around Seward. Their investigation is further complicated by a police chief who’s unwilling to let his friend be investigated and Louisa’s feelings for Anna Fenway, the local medical examiner.

When a body is identified and buried, Louisa thinks the case is coming to a close. She’s wrong.

A body count is never a good vacation selling point.

In a world of luxury and relaxation, the Ocean Summit stands out during its inaugural cruise, but not for reasons the cruise director would like. 

Forced by her agent and publisher to take a much-needed cruise vacation, investigative journalist Claire Mills finds work harder to forget than she anticipated when the cleaning staff discover her neighbor dead on the first day of sailing. The ship’s authorities have ruled it a suicide, but Claire suspects murder. With the help of the delightful assistant cruise director Moira, Claire conducts her own investigation. 

But the deeper they get, the more clues they collect, and the danger escalates. With the killer on their trail, Claire and Moira must decide what’s more important, finding the killer or surviving eight days together at sea.

Detective Jo Shaw has it all worked out. She’s good at her job, she has loads of mates, and she likes being single. She doesn’t need complications, but an emergency call to the stabbing of a young woman brings plenty of those. Jo has to risk her career to save the woman’s life, and a bad night gets worse when the trauma surgeon turns out to be Isla Munro, Jo’s only real love, who walked out on her fifteen years ago and never came back.

With the victim’s children missing and the husband the prime suspect, Jo’s investigation is stonewalled by a community living in fear. As one dead end leads to another, she and Isla are forced to put their differences aside and work together. But the case is far more dangerous than Jo realizes, and her determination to sort the truth from the lies may put her own life on the line.

Forty years ago, Sydney Hansen’s best friend was murdered. His killer left her a menacing note. Now the man Syd suspected was behind the killing has died—and she receives another threat, attached to a photo of her thirteen-year-old great-niece. Terrified but angry, she turns to the NYPD and Detective Gale Sterling to reopen the case.

Gale has been handling cold cases for over a decade, burying herself in her work and caring for her elderly father, a former detective himself. But this case isn’t like the others. Maybe it’s Sydney Hansen—she finds her beauty captivating. Or maybe it’s the bullet she takes for Syd one night when their date turns into an impromptu stakeout.

Syd and Gayle just want to protect the innocent and bring a killer to justice, but as their feelings for each other grow the once cold case turns dangerously hot.

Ghosts are rising at Oak Springs farm, and supernatural detective Tony Carson is facing her deepest mystery yet. Tony and her Trinidadian best friend, Jade, unravel clues searching for a woman who doesn’t want to be found.

Red and Chris are the last two lesbians living on what was once a women’s land farm, oblivious to the secrets buried around them. If the developers start digging before Tony finds the ghost’s accomplice, then Red and Chris are in trouble. When an old enemy returns to the village, will the rural community of Wooly Mill side with Oak Springs, or will homophobic history repeat itself?

And while Tony and Jade are rallying the women’s group, a devious plan is spinning around them. The supernatural detective needs to watch her step. The past has long fingernails, and they’re clawing at the ground beneath Tony’s feet.

The cops blow it off, another Black transgender woman who surprised a customer with what was under the dress—bad luck she was pushed out of the car and then hit by another vehicle. But Micky Knight witnessed it, crossing the street at the right—or wrong—time, only yards away from what didn’t look at all like an accident to her. The woman was dressed more like a librarian than a sex worker. It’s not her case, she was just walking home from a local bar. No ID was found on the victim, and the only clue is an appointment card with cryptic initials, CJ at CC. Micky has a good idea what they mean—Cordelia James at CrescentCare, a local health clinic that sees many transgender clients. Cordelia, a doctor and her ex. Micky doesn’t want to get involved, but there will be no justice if she doesn’t. As she investigates, she uncovers a family in turmoil and ugly secrets—ones people will kill for.