Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide

Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide
Author: Barry Forshaw
Publisher: Oldcastle Books Ltd
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2020-01-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0857303368

Are you a lover of crime fiction looking for new discoveries or hoping to rediscover old favourites? Then look no further. There are few contemporary crime fiction guides that cover everything from the golden age to current bestselling writers from America, Britain and all across the world, but the award-winning Barry Forshaw, one of the UK's leading experts in the field, has provided a truly comprehensive survey with definitive coverage in this expanded new edition of the much admired Rough Guide to Crime Fiction. Every major writer is included, along with many other more esoteric choices. Focusing on a key book (or books) by each writer, and with essays on key crime genres, Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide (with a foreword by Ian Rankin) is designed to be both a crime fan's shopping list and a pithy, opinionated but unstuffy reference tool and history. Most judgements are generous (though not uncritical), and there is a host of entertaining, informed entries on related films and TV. 'Most comprehensive, accessible and readable guides to noir crime fiction' - Times 'An essential volume for the crime and thriller aficionado' - Shots Magazine 'Exemplary tour of the crime landscape... supremely readable' - Independent

Smokescreen

Smokescreen
Author: Iris Johansen
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2019-07-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1538762978

In this pulse-pounding thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan journeys to Africa to help families torn apart by a violent attack deep in the jungle--but she may be putting herself in more danger than she knows. A journalist shows up on Eve Duncan's doorstep with a plea for help. Jill Cassidy has just come from a small African village with a heart wrenching story: half the villagers--many of them children--have been killed in a horrific attack by guerilla soldiers, the bodies burned beyond recognition. Now, the families desperately need Eve's help to get closure and begin to heal. But when Eve arrives in the remote jungle, she begins to suspect that Jill's plea may have been a cover story for a deeper, more sinister plot. Isolated and unsure who she can trust, Eve finds herself stranded in an unstable country where violence threatens to break out again at any moment and with only her own instincts to rely on if she hopes to get home to her family alive . . . #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen is back with one of her most exhilarating and dangerous adventures yet in this "riveting" high-stakes thriller (Publishers Weekly).

Conviction

Conviction
Author: Denise Mina
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2019-06-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 031652848X

A true crime podcast sets a trophy wife's present life on a collision course with her secret past in this "blazingly intense" Reese Witherspoon book club pick and New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year (A. J. Finn). The day Anna McDonald's quiet, respectable life exploded started off like all the days before: Packing up the kids for school, making breakfast, listening to yet another true crime podcast. Then her husband comes downstairs with an announcement, and Anna is suddenly, shockingly alone. Reeling, desperate for distraction, Anna returns to the podcast. Other people's problems are much better than one's own -- a sunken yacht, a murdered family, a hint of international conspiracy. But this case actually is Anna's problem. She knows one of the victims from an earlier life, a life she's taken great pains to leave behind. And she is convinced that she knows what really happened. Then an unexpected visitor arrives on her front stoop, a meddling neighbor intervenes, and life as Anna knows it is well and truly over. The devils of her past are awakened -- and they're in hot pursuit. Convinced she has no other options, Anna goes on the run, and in pursuit of the truth, with a washed-up musician at her side and the podcast as her guide. Conviction is "daredevil storytelling at its finest" (NPR's Fresh Air), a breathtaking thriller from one of the most "superbly talented" writers of our time (Hank Phillippi Ryan, bestselling author of Trust Me).

UNSUB

UNSUB
Author: Meg Gardiner
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2017-06-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101985534

From award-winning author Meg Gardiner, co-author of Michael Mann’s Heat 2--A riveting psychological thriller inspired by the never-caught Zodiac Killer, about a young detective determined to apprehend the serial murderer who destroyed her family and terrorized a city twenty years earlier. Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case. The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career. Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession. Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?

Crime Fiction

Crime Fiction
Author: Martin Priestman
Publisher: Writers and Their Work
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2013
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0746312172

This brief study surveys British and American crime fiction from the first detective stories of Edgar Allan Poe to the present day, exploring the ways in which Poe's basic form has intertwined with more suspense-driven elements to produce fiction featuring spies, private-eyes and serial killers, as well as the classic whodunnit.

The Complete Hard Case Crime Stephen King Collection

The Complete Hard Case Crime Stephen King Collection
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1789097568

The Complete Hard Case Crime Stephen King Collection, featuring the bestselling titles The Colorado Kid, Joyland, and his newest novel, Later, plus exclusive art cards. Collecting Stephen King's three homages to the classic crime pulp paperbacks, published by Hard Case Crime. This includes The Colorado Kid (2005), Joyland (2013) and Later (2021). It will also feature three exclusive art cards with alternate cover artwork for the three novels. Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work in a fairground and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever. A rookie newspaperwoman learns the true meaning of mystery when she investigates a 25-year-old unsolved and very strange case involving a dead man found on an island off the coast of Maine. The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability, Jamie can see things no one else can. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine - as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.

The April Dead

The April Dead
Author: Alan Parks
Publisher: Canongate Books
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2021-03-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1786897210

SHORTLISTED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE FOR SCOTTISH CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR 'One of the great Scottish crime writers' The Times 'Brilliant' Sunday Times Crime Club NO ONE WILL FORGET In a grimy flat in Glasgow, a homemade bomb explodes, leaving few remains to identify its maker. Detective Harry McCoy knows in his gut that there’ll be more to follow. The hunt for a missing sailor from the local US naval base leads him to the secretive group behind the bomb, and their disturbing, dominating leader. If the city is to survive the next explosion, it’ll take everything McCoy’s got . . .

This Is How It Ends

This Is How It Ends
Author: Eva Dolan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2018-01-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1408886626

Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month The Times Crime Book of the Month Mail on Sunday Thriller of the Week 'Elegantly crafted, humane and thought-provoking. She's top drawer' Ian Rankin This is how it begins. With a near-empty building, the inhabitants forced out of their homes by property developers. With two women: idealistic, impassioned blogger Ella and seasoned campaigner, Molly. With a body hidden in a lift shaft. But how will it end?

The Temptation of Forgiveness

The Temptation of Forgiveness
Author: Donna Leon
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802165613

The New York Times–bestselling series transports us to “Donna Leon’s enticing, troubled and beautiful Venice . . . Her latest mystery is one of her best” (Providence Journal). A New York Times Book Review Best Crime Book of the Year • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A Financial Times Summer Book Pick • A Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine Most Anticipated Mystery of the Year Commissario Guido Brunetti is surprised by the appearance of a friend of his wife’s, fearful that her son is using drugs and hopeful Brunetti can somehow intervene. When the woman’s husband is found unconscious with a serious brain injury at the foot of a bridge in Venice after midnight, Brunetti is drawn to pursue a possible connection to the boy’s behavior. But the truth, as Brunetti has experienced so often, is not straightforward. While Brunetti pursues several false and contradictory leads, he becomes exasperated by the petty bureaucracy that constantly bedevils him and threatens to expose Signorina Elettra, his superior’s secretary. But steadied by the embrace of his own family and by his passion for the classics, he reads Sophocles’s Antigone, and, in its light, considers the terrible consequences to which the actions of a tender heart can lead. “It’s the living, bleeding humanity of the characters that makes Donna Leon’s police procedurals so engaging. . . . Tagging along after this sleuth is a wonderful way to see Venice like a native.” ―The New York Times Book Review “[A] droll and intelligent series.” ―The Wall Street Journal “[A] richly rewarding series . . . from a master of character-rich crime fiction.” ―Booklist

The Empty Beach

The Empty Beach
Author: Peter Corris
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2003-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1741769361

While investigating a supposed drowning, Cliff Hardy finds himself fighting for his life in Bondi.