Steel Toes: A Novel


Eddie Little - 2001
    Little writes about the world he used to inhabit, a place filled with drugs, crime and danger at every turn. His electrifying prose brings to life the rough, raw, and seedy life of Boston's underworld where corruption lies at the heart of every deception.Bobbie is a young criminal prodigy. Living in Boston he's approached by a mysterious Greek on behalf of an anonymous shipping tycoon, who wants to commission a theft. The Fogg museum is the target; a collection of ancient Greek coins the score. Everything goes fine with the burglary, but with easy street just around the corner Bobbie's life takes an unexpected twist and his big score evaporates. With his life on the line, Bobbie must learn who he can trust when trusting anyone can make you lose everything. Steel Toes is as close to reality as fiction can get. Little draws you in with his knife sharp writing, his authentic and unflinching characters and plot as tight and strong as the hold of addiction.

The Price


Kerry Kaya - 2020
    Together they work for notorious East End gangster Billy King. Across the water in South London is Billy’s rival George Bannerman and the two firms are locked in a bitter turf war.Amid murder, drug deals, and rival firms, Fletch is harbouring his own secrets and it’s only a matter of time until those secrets are revealed, and when you break the rules you have to pay the price.

The End of Alice


A.M. Homes - 1996
    Here is the incredible story of an imprisoned pedophile who is drawn into an erotically charged correspondence with a nineteen-year-old suburban coed. As the two reveal—and revel in—their obsessive desires, Homes creates in The End of Alice a novel that is part romance, part horror story, at once unnerving and seductive.

A Walk on the Wild Side


Nelson Algren - 1956
    As Algren admitted, it wasn't written until long after it had been walked... I found my way to the streets on the other side of the Southern Pacific station, where the big jukes were singing something called "Walking the Wild Side of Life." I've stayed pretty much on that side of the curb ever since".Perhaps his own words describe the book best: The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind.Cover Photograph: Jason Fulford

Cyberstrike: London


James Barrington - 2020
    7/7/2005: Ben Morgan, a cybersecurity specialist with the Metropolitan police, starts another day at work. It will be the last normal day he ever has.The Present: In Hong Kong, a crime overlord is offered a deal by shadowy agents from Beijing: his life for a new kind of operation in London. Morgan, now a part of an off the books cyber-terrorism prevention unit, must do everything to stop its spread.This is a new kind of war: different goals, tactics, rules, stakes. And Morgan is caught right in the centre... A pulse-pounding thriller rooted in reality, perfect for fans of Frederick Forsyth, Andy McNab and James Deegan.

Saving Sophie


Sam Carrington - 2016
    Is your daughter involved, or is she next?Your daughter is in danger. But can you trust her?When Karen Finch’s seventeen-year-old daughter Sophie arrives home after a night out, drunk and accompanied by police officers, no one is smiling the morning after. But Sophie remembers nothing about how she got into such a state.Twelve hours later, Sophie’s friend Amy has still not returned home. Then the body of a young woman is found.Karen is sure that Sophie knows more than she is letting on. But Karen has her own demons to fight. She struggles to go beyond her own door without a panic attack.As she becomes convinced that Sophie is not only involved but also in danger, Karen must confront her own anxieties to stop whoever killed one young girl moving on to another – Sophie.A taut psychological thriller, perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train and I Let You Go.

Cornbread (Kindle Single)


Sean Hammer - 2012
    Told in the odd and unforgettable voice of its protagonist, "Cornbread" is the tale of a matricidal Arkansas woman bringing about the final days of her marriage. At turns darkly comical and deeply tragic, it's a story that lingers long after it's finished, like the smell of fresh baked cornbread or discharged gunpowder...

A Hillcrest Witch Mystery Collection


Amorette Anderson - 2019
    Her love life is a mess and business is slow. Then one day she inherits a magical book and everything changes… Along with the ladies in her knitting circle, Penny starts to study witchcraft. Just in time, too! Werewolves, vampires, and tennis-playing spirits make their way to Hillcrest, and trouble abounds. Can Penny protect her town? This boxset includes five Hillcrest Witch Mysteries: The Case of the Power Spell The Case of the Banishing Spell The Case of the Desire Spell The Case of the Trust Spell The Case of the Vision Spell

The Other Side of Midnight and Sands of Time


Sidney Sheldon - 2008
    

Deep Water


Patricia Highsmith - 1957
    Vic and Melinda Van Allen's loveless marriage is held together only by a precarious arrangement whereby, in order to avoid the messiness of divorce, Melinda is allowed to take any number of lovers as long as she does not desert her family. Eventually, Vic can no longer suppress his jealousy and tries to win back his wife by asserting himself through a tall tale of murder—one that soon comes true. In this complex portrayal of a dangerous psychosis emerging in the most unlikely of places, Highsmith examines the chilling reality behind the idyllic facade of American suburban life.

Trusted Like the Fox


James Hadley Chase - 1972
    One of them had slain a helpless man to hide the secret of his identity. And he was quite prepared to kill the girl if she tried to double-cross him. But he’d reckoned without that terrible accident — and he was totally unprepared for the insane murderer who made death a ritual with a silver-handled knife.

Trail of the Apache and Other Stories


Elmore Leonard - 2007
    The bitter misunderstandings and brutal clashes of cultures that resulted ultimately shaped the nation we know today. In seven classic western tales, the New York Times-bestselling Grand Master re-creates a world of violence, deception, vengeance, and strange beauty with the same peerless storytelling power that distinguishes his acclaimed suspense fiction.

A Christmas Tail


T.F. Muir - 2013
    But in the season of goodwill to all men, will it take a cat to prove that miracles can still happen?

The Web / Bad Love


Jonathan Kellerman
    

Plender


Ted Lewis - 1971
    Growing up together in the small town of Barton-Upon-Humber in Lincolnshire, England, Peter Knott is everything that Brian Plender wishes he were. Knott is suave, good-looking, an exemplary student and popular. The friendship they maintain is as important to Plender as it is forgettable to Knott, and eventually leads to a lasting humiliation for Brian.Years later Brian Plender is a dangerous man. A private investigator who specializes in extortion, blackmail, and intimidation, Plender is a manipulative psychopath capable of anything should it improve his status. Knott meanwhile is a family man adrift, beholden to his wife for money, which he makes photographing catalogs for her father’s large mail order company. His wandering eye and a taste for younger women, lingerie—something his wife doesn’t altogether go for—and access to a parade of girls looking to break into modeling has led Knott through a series of sordid affairs.When at a bar, which he uses to set up marks, Plender spots Knott with a girl too young to be his wife and he decides to follow the pair and see what happens. At first it's out of curiosity but soon it turns to a darker, more opportunisitic motivation. What follows is an edge-of-your-seat trip into a nightmare that manages to be both incredibly creepy and eerily profound.