London Large - Bound by Blood (Detective Hawkins #2)


Roy Robson - 2016
    Inspector Harry ‘H’ Hawkins, only just back at work after a mental and physical breakdown, investigates the crime in the only way he knows how; he embarks on a full-blooded search for the truth. But the truth can be brutal As the murder investigation gathers pace H discovers his own son has been sucked into the dark world of organised crime. A traumatized young man; and a traumatized father H's hard-boiled instinct is to fight, to protect the things he loves. But when his son becomes his enemy his world view is shattered. How can son be turned against father? H’s gripping mission is no longer a search for a killer; but a quest to save his boy, and exact a terrible vengeance against the man who has corrupted him. And his search is a search for a deeper truth, a truth that will stretch family loyalty - and the love of a father for his son - to its very limits. Blood Is Thicker than Water…Or Is It?

The Posthumous Man


Jake Hinkson - 2012
    Then the ER doctors revived him. It’s infatuation at first sight when he meets his nurse, Felicia Vogan, a strange young woman with a weakness for sad sacks and losers. After she helps Elliot escape from the hospital, she takes him back to her place. He’s happy to go with her, even when she leads him straight to a gang planning a million dollar heist. Does Felicia just want Elliot to protect her from the outfit’s psychotic leader, Stan the Man? Or is Elliot being set up to take the hard fall? One thing’s for sure: if he’s going to survive this long night of deceit and murder, Elliot will have to finally face himself and his own dark past.

What We Reckon


Eryk Pruitt - 2017
    Pruitt is one of our best Southern fiction writers." —BookreporterMeet Jack Jordan. He’s a smooth-talking con artist with a penchant for the fast life. He’s snuck into Lufkin, Texas, in the dead of night with little more than a beat-up Honda, a hollowed-out King James Bible full of cocaine, and enough emotional baggage to sink a steam ship. He’s charming, dedicated, and extremely paranoid. Summer Ashton, his partner-in-crime. She’s stuck by him through thick and thin, but lately her mind has begun to slip. They’ve told their fair share of lies and she’s having a devil of a time remembering what’s the truth. And recently, she’s been hearing voices. Unfortunately for both of them, she’s the brains of the operation. Furthermore, they have begun to tire of one another. For these two career grifters, the sleepy East Texas countryside is but another pit stop on their rampage across the American South.Will it be their last? In WHAT WE RECKON, Eryk Pruitt explores themes of identity, loyalty, and purpose with psycho-delic, transgressive, chicken-fried twists that read like Trainspotting cut with a couple grams of Helter Skelter.

Drive


James Sallis - 2005
    Sallis combines murder, treachery and payback in a sinister plot with resonances of 1940s pulp fiction and film noir. Told through a cinematic narrative that weaves back and forth through time and place, the story explores Driver's near existential moral foundations, intercut with moments of bloody violence.

Two-Way Split


Allan Guthrie - 2004
    Robin plans the ultimate revenge, but things go from bad to worse when the gang bungles a post office robbery, leaving carnage in their wake. Suddenly they are stalked by the police, sleazy private eyes, and a cold-blooded killer who may be the only one not looking for a cut of the money.

Old Anger (Colt Harper Book 2)


Phillip Thompson - 2020
    Sheriff Colt Harper believes he's colorblind in his enforcement of the law. But is he? When a black man is murdered, it ignites age-old anger in the African-American community over the injustices they've endured and forces Harper to confront his own personal demons. Harper's single-minded pursuit of justice for the dead man thrusts him between two volatile groups -- furious blacks who don't know if they can trust him and racist whites who want to use the controversy to spark a bloody race war."Old Anger has some sweet echoes of the past while being something modern at the same time. Pacing is outstanding and the story is engaging. It has a western rash under it's skin. Recommended." Joe R. Lansdale""Phillip Thompson combines the visceral verbal skills of Craig Johnson with the white knuckle tension of Stephen Hunter. Old Anger will leave you soaked in sweat and gasping for air" S.A. Cosby author of Blacktop Wasteland."Old Anger is a modern Southern novel in the best sense-exploring issues of race, privilege, and generational mistrust with candor and grace. It's also a fiercely engaging mystery. Thompson's lawman, Colt Harper, is a man of honor in a world that could use more of 'em. Consider me a fan." Chris Holm, Anthony Award winning author of The Killing Kind"In Thompson's well-wrought third crime novel featuring Mississippi sheriff Colt Harper. Thoughtful prose is matched by solid characterizations. Thompson delivers a timely tale of racial violence." Publishers Weekly

File Under Fear


Geraldine wall - 2014
    As she discovers more about each one she is at first amused and then alarmed and finally horrified and saddened as she realises the true nature of her task. But when her own family are drawn into a scenario of crime and violence that she had never suspected existed on the streets of Birmingham and the quiet fields and farms of Warwickshire she must dredge up every ounce of courage and resourcefulness that she possesses to expose the horror of what she finds and save the people she loves. At the same time she is fighting a different battle, one which she cannot tell anyone about, one she can barely admit to herself. As her beloved husband Harry fades deeper into his illness she struggles to control her growing passion for Steve. He is always in her life as a neighbour and a colleague but they can never speak or touch as they long to do. Throughout it all her family, quirky, argumentative and demanding as they can be, also give her the strength and determination to fight for what she loves and believes in.

If You Can't Stand the Heat


Lawrence Block - 2013
    

Killing Suki Flood


Robert Leininger - 1991
    The moment Frank Limosin sees gorgeous eighteen-year-old Suki Flood sitting on the rear deck of the red Trans Am in the hot empty desert, he feels trouble in the air. The Trans Am has a flat tire. They're over ten miles from the nearest highway. And Suki, dressed in short shorts and a tiny halter top, doesn't know how to change a tire. Against Suki's will, Frank gives her a lesson in tire changing, then he thinks that's it, he'll never see her again. How wrong can one man be? Because Suki turns out to be fifty times more trouble than Frank ever dreamed possible. He saved her once. Now he has to save her again and again and again . . .

Lethal Injection


Jim Nisbet - 1987
    In a bleak Texas prison Royce, an alcoholic doctor administers Bobby Mencken's last "high," convinced that the convicted killer was innocent. When Royce's marriage crumbles he takes off for Dallas to search for the real killer.Of Nisbet, Germany's Die Welt wrote, "Neither Norman Mailer nor Truman Capote has in their writing been able to produce such an intensity as Nisbet has achieved."With sharp humor and a poet's ear for language, Nisbet's world may be bleak, but it is frighteningly real. Overlook is proud to bring him to a new generation of readers.

The Hackman Blues


Ken Bruen - 1997
    Find a white girl in Brixton. Piece of cake. What I should have done is doubled my medication and lit a candle to St Jude - maybe a lot of candles. Add in a lethal ex-con, an Irish builder obsessed with Gene Hackman, the biggest funeral Brixton has ever seen, and what you get is the Blues like they've never been sung before.

Queenpin


Megan Abbott - 2007
    Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protégée the ropes, ushering her into a glittering demimonde of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlors, inside heists, and big, big money. Suddenly, the world is at her feet--as long as she doesn't take any chances, like falling for the wrong guy. As the roulette wheel turns, both mentor and protégée scramble to stay one step ahead of their bosses and each other.

Manifest Recall


Alan Baxter - 2018
    As layers of ugly truth are peeled back and dark secrets are revealed, the duo find themselves in a struggle for survival when they unravel a mystery that pits them against the most dangerous forces in their lives. A contemporary southern gothic thriller with frightening supernatural overtones, Alan Baxter’s Manifest Recall explores the tragic life of a hitman who finds himself on the wrong side of his criminal syndicate. Baxter’s adrenaline-fueled approach to storytelling draws readers into Eli Carver’s downward spiral of psychosis and through the darkest realms of lost memories, human guilt and the insurmountable quest for personal redemption.

Broken Fall


Fergus McNeill - 2015
    Albert Errington, aged seventy-nine, lived alone in his Bristol home and appears to have taken a nasty tumble down the stairs late one night. His death seems a terrible shock for his son and daughter, and his long-term carer. But ever-observant, DI Harland is sure this isn't an accidental death. And he will find out who is trying to get away with murder . . .

Coyote Songs


Gabino Iglesias - 2018
    A woman offers colonizer blood to the Mother of Chaos. A boy joins corpse destroyers to seek vengeance for the death of his father.These stories intertwine with those of a vengeful spirit and a hungry creature to paint a timely, compelling, pulpy portrait of revenge, family, and hope.