Under the Harrow


Flynn Berry - 2016
    But when she walks into Rachel’s familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder. Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can’t return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can’t trust them to find her sister’s killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As Nora’s fear turns to obsession, she becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers. A riveting psychological thriller and a haunting exploration of the fierce love between two sisters, the distortions of grief, and the terrifying power of the past, Under the Harrow marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.

The Night Guest


Fiona McFarlane - 2013
    Her routines are few and small. One day a stranger arrives at her door, looking as if she has been blown in from the sea. This woman—Frida—claims to be a care worker sent by the government. Ruth lets her in.Now that Frida is in her house, is Ruth right to fear the tiger she hears on the prowl at night, far from its jungle habitat? Why do memories of childhood in Fiji press upon her with increasing urgency? How far can she trust this mysterious woman, Frida, who seems to carry with her, her own troubled past? And how far can Ruth trust herself?

Indian Country Noir


Sarah CortezJean Rae Baxter - 2010
    Enter the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas, where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent.Features brand-new stories by: Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martínez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg, and Melissa Yi.Sarah Cortez, a law enforcement officer, is the award-winning author of the poetry collection How to Undress a Cop. She brings her heritage as a Tejana with Mexican, French, Comanche, and Spanish blood to the written page.Liz Martínez’s stories have appeared in Manhattan Noir, Queens Noir, and Cop Tales 2000. She is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and she lives in New York.

The Midnight Promise


Zane Lovitt - 2012
    John Dorn is a classic gumshoe. His woman has left him, he lives in his office, and he drinks too much. His one friend, a lawyer named Demetri, hands Dorn an infinite supply of hopeless cases and lost causes, to which Dorn, ever the champion of the underdog and the oppressed, is drawn to “as a sledgehammer is to a kneecap.” A superlative work of hardboiled literary detective fiction, The Midnight Promise wonderfully evokes the underbelly of contemporary Melbourne, its battlers, its hard men, its victims, and its ill-fated heroes.

Grist Mill Road


Christopher J. Yates - 2018
    Now she wants justice. But is she blind to the truth?Christopher J. Yates’s cult hit Black Chalk introduced that rare writerly talent: a literary writer who could write a plot with the intricacy of a brilliant mental puzzle, and with characters so absorbing that readers are immediately gripped. Yates’s new book does not disappoint. Grist Mill Road is a dark, twisted, and expertly plotted Rashomon-style tale. The year is 1982; the setting, an Edenic hamlet some ninety miles north of New York City. There, among the craggy rock cliffs and glacial ponds of timeworn mountains, three friends—Patrick, Matthew, and Hannah—are bound together by a terrible and seemingly senseless crime. Twenty-six years later, in New York City, living lives their younger selves never could have predicted, the three meet again—with even more devastating results.

Bangkok 8


John Burdett - 2003
    Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep—a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I.—is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones and captures her heart in the process. In a city fueled by illicit drugs and infinite corruption, prostitution and priceless art, Sonchai’s quest for vengeance takes him into a world much more sinister than he could have ever imagined.

The Shepherd's Hut


Tim Winton - 2018
    Short-listed twice for the Booker Prize and the winner of a record four Miles Franklin Literary Awards for Best Australian Novel, he has a gift for language virtually unrivaled among writers in English. His work is both tough and tender, primordial and new - always revealing the raw, instinctual drives that lure us together and rend us apart. In The Shepherd's Hut, Winton crafts the story of Jaxie Clackton, a brutalized rural youth who flees from the scene of his father's violent death and strikes out for the vast wilds of Western Australia. All he carries with him is a rifle and a waterjug. All he wants is peace and freedom. But surviving in the harsh saltlands alone is a savage business. And once he discovers he's not alone out there, all Jaxie's plans go awry. He meets a fellow exile, the ruined priest Fintan MacGillis, a man he's never certain he can trust, but on whom his life will soon depend. The Shepherd's Hut is a thrilling tale of unlikely friendship and yearning, at once brutal and lyrical, from one of our finest storytellers.

Blacktop Wasteland


S.A. Cosby - 2020
    But he was once known - from North Carolina to the beaches of Florida - as the best getaway driver on the East Coast. Just like his father, who disappeared many years ago.After a series of financial calamities (worsened by the racial prejudices of the small town he lives in) Bug reluctantly takes part in a daring diamond heist to solve his money troubles - and to go straight once and for all. However, when it goes horrifically wrong, he's sucked into a grimy underworld which threatens everything, and everyone, he holds dear . . .

Goodwood


Holly Throsby - 2016
    Two very different people. They were there, and then they were gone, as if through a crack in the sky. After that, in a small town like Goodwood, where we had what Nan called 'a high density of acquaintanceship', everything stopped. Or at least it felt that way. The normal feeling of things stopped.Goodwood is a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. It's a place where it's impossible to keep a secret.In 1992, when Jean Brown is seventeen, a terrible thing happens. Two terrible things. Rosie White, the coolest girl in town, vanishes overnight. One week later, Goodwood's most popular resident, Bart McDonald, sets off on a fishing trip and never comes home.People die in Goodwood, of course, but never like this. They don't just disappear.As the intensity of speculation about the fates of Rosie and Bart heightens, Jean, who is keeping secrets of her own, and the rest of Goodwood are left reeling.Rich in character and complexity, its humour both droll and tender, Goodwood is a compelling ride into a small community, torn apart by dark rumours and mystery.

The Burglar


Thomas Perry - 2019
    But Elle is no petty thief--with just the right combination of smarts, looks, and skills, she can easily stroll through ritzy Bel Air neighborhoods and pick out the perfect home for plucking the most valuable items. This is how Elle has always gotten by--she is good at it, and she thrives on the thrill. But after stumbling upon a grisly triple homicide while stealing from the home of a wealthy art dealer, Elle discovers that she is no longer the only one sneaking around. Somebody is searching for her.As Elle realizes that her knowledge of the high-profile murder has made her a target, she races to solve the case before becoming the next casualty, using her breaking-and-entering skills to uncover the truth about exactly who the victims were and why someone might have wanted them dead. With high-stakes action and shocking revelations, The Burglar will keep readers on the edge of their seats as they barrel towards the heart-racing conclusion.

Angle of Investigation


Michael Connelly - 2011
    In "Father's Day," Bosch investigates a young boy's seemingly accidental death and confronts his own fears as a father. In "Angle of Investigation," Bosch delves into one of the first homicides he ever worked back as a uniformed rookie patrolman, a case that was left unsolved for decades.Together, these gripping stories span Bosch's controversial career at the LAPD, and show the evolution of the haunted, legendary investigator he would become. Utterly unputdownable, they are proof that "Connelly never stops doling out the suspense....Once it grabs you in those first few pages, it won't let go of you" (Boston Globe).

She Lies in Wait


Gytha Lodge - 2019
    Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and the youngest of the group—Aurora Jackson—is delighted to be allowed to tag along. The evening starts like any other—they drink, they dance, they fight, they kiss. Some of them slip off into the woods in pairs, others are left jealous and heartbroken. But by morning, Aurora has disappeared. Her friends claim that she was safe the last time they saw her, right before she went to sleep. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found.Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. Back in 1983, as a young cop in their small town, he had known the teenagers—including Aurora—personally, even before taking part in the search. Now he’s determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. Sheens’s investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead, and all of them profoundly changed forever.

The Other Girl


Erica Spindler - 2017
    One witness—a fifteen year old girl from the wrong side of the tracks, one known for lying and her own brushes with the law.Is it any surprise no one believed her?Officer Miranda Rader of the Harmony, Louisiana PD is known for her honesty, integrity, and steady hand in a crisis—but that wasn’t always so. Miranda comes from the town of Jasper, a place about the size of a good spit on a hot day, and her side of the tracks was the wrong one. She’s worked hard to earn the respect of her coworkers and the community.When Miranda and her partner are called to investigate the murder of one of the town’s most beloved college professors, they’re unprepared for the brutality of the scene. This murder is unlike any they’ve ever investigated, and just when Miranda thinks she’s seen the worst of it, she finds a piece of evidence that chills her to the core: a faded newspaper clipping about that terrible night fifteen years ago. The night she’d buried, along with her past and the girl she’d been back then. Until now that grave had stayed sealed…except for those times, in the deepest part of the night, when the nightmares came: of a crime no one believed happened and the screams of the girl they believed didn’t exist.Then another man turns up dead, this one a retired cop. Not just any cop—the one who took her statement that night. Two murders, two very different men, two killings that on the surface had nothing in common—except Miranda.

Dodgers


Bill Beverly - 2016
    Salinger. It is the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East's hothead younger brother—to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become.   Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.

The Hunted


Gabriel Bergmoser - 2020
    . .and the nightmare begin?Frank owns a service station on a little-used highway. His granddaughter, Allie, is sent to stay with him for the summer, but they don't talk a lot.Simon is a dreamer and an idealist, in thrall to the romance of the open road and desperately in search of something.Maggie is the woman who will bring them together, someone whose own personal journey will visit unimaginable terror on them all. . .'With echoes of Deliverance and Battle Royale, the Australian outback-set The Hunted is a truly terrifying, breathlessly exciting novel. It gut-punches you in the first few pages and doesn't let you recover until the final, thrilling climax. An extraordinary book.' M. W. CRAVEN What readers are saying: 'A high octane roller-coaster of a novel, brilliantly written with strong characters to cheer for. Just don't read it before going to sleep like I did.''This type of horror/action thriller isn't my usual thing but boy, did I love this book.''This entire book was just pure, fast-paced tension and I loved every insane page of it.''I'd say it's a hard book to put down, but a couple of times I found the suspense heightened enough that I needed a break. That's how good it was.''Even the squeamish would find it difficult to put this book down for very long.'