Hooligans


William Diehl - 1984
    His specialty is a branch of the Mafia known as the Cincinnati Triad. He's pursued them for years, and now they've set up shop in Dunetown, Georgia. This time, they will not escape the Hooligans, a tough squad of ex-cops that Jake has organized. This time, he'll settle the score once and for all....

Snowbound


Blake Crouch - 2010
    Will under suspicion, they flee. Suddenly a hard-edged FBI agent appears on their doorstep. “I know you’re innocent, because Rachael wasn’t the first ... or the last.”

Ordinary Thunderstorms


William Boyd - 2009
    There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him. He is alone and anonymous in the huge, pitiless modern city. Adam has nowhere to go but down - underground. He decides to join that vast army of the disappeared and the missing that throng the lowest level of London's population as he tries to figure out what to do with his life and struggles to understand the forces that have made it unravel so spectacularly. His quest will take him all along the River Thames, from affluent Chelsea to the sink estates of the East End, and on the way he encounters all manner of London's denizens - aristocrats, prostitutes, priests and policewomen amongst them - and version after new version of himself.William Boyd's electric follow-up to Costa Novel of the Year Restless is a heart-in-mouth conspiracy novel about the fragility of social identity, the scandal of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of every city.

The Rip-Off


Jim Thompson - 1989
    It's not just that he thinks she's out of his league. It's more that the longer he stays with her, the closer to death he seems to come. A vicious dog is somehow let loose in his hotel room. He's threatened at gunpoint by a man in a skeleton costume. And when he finally ends up in the hospital, someone pushes his wheelchair down the stairs.Nothing anything like this has ever happened to Britt before--and while Manuela's never around when the so-called "accidents" happen, neither can Britt prove she's behind the many threats on his life. Is a rival for Manuela's affections trying to chase him away? Is there more to Manuela herself than meets the eye? Whatever it is, Britt better find out fast--before whoever's after him hits their mark, and the man who never thought he'd land the ultimate girl ends up paying the ultimate price.

Flood


Andrew Vachss - 1985
    Burke's newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner.  She wants Burke to find a monster for her—so she can kill him with her bare hands.In this cauterizing thriller, Andrew Vachss's renegade investigator teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child's murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements.  Fearfully knowing, crackling with narrative tension, and written in prose as forceful as a hollow-point slug, Flood is Burke at his deadliest—and Vachss at the peak of his form.

Thirteen


Richard K. Morgan - 2007
    Morgan arrived on the scene. He unleashed Takeshi Kovacs–private eye, soldier of fortune, and all-purpose antihero–into the body-swapping, hard-boiled, urban jungle of tomorrow in Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies, winning the Philip K. Dick Award in the process. In Market Forces, he launched corporate gladiator Chris Faulkner into the brave new business of war-for-profit. Now, in Thirteen, Morgan radically reshapes and recharges science fiction yet again, with a new and unforgettable hero in Carl Marsalis: hybrid, hired gun, and a man without a country . . . or a planet.Marsalis is one of a new breed. Literally. Genetically engineered by the U.S. government to embody the naked aggression and primal survival skills that centuries of civilization have erased from humankind, Thirteens were intended to be the ultimate military fighting force. The project was scuttled, however, when a fearful public branded the supersoldiers dangerous mutants, dooming the Thirteens to forced exile on Earth’s distant, desolate Mars colony. But Marsalis found a way to slip back–and into a lucrative living as a bounty hunter and hit man before a police sting landed him in prison–a fate worse than Mars, and much more dangerous.Luckily, his “enhanced” life also seems to be a charmed one. A new chance at freedom beckons, courtesy of the government. All Marsalis has to do is use his superior skills to bring in another fugitive. But this one is no common criminal. He’s another Thirteen–one who’s already shanghaied a space shuttle, butchered its crew, and left a trail of bodies in his wake on a bloody cross-country spree. And like his pursuer, he was bred to fight to the death. Still, there’s no question Marsalis will take the job. Though it will draw him deep into violence, treachery, corruption, and painful confrontation with himself, anything is better than remaining a prisoner. The real question is: can he remain sane–and alive–long enough to succeed?2007 1st Ed Del Rey 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Act of Revenge


Dick Couch - 2014
     Garrett Walker is a warrior. For the last decade and a half he’s been continuously at war –combat rotation after combat rotation. He’s a veteran of the close fight. And he’s taken a great many lives. Yet, all that combat and all those deaths were in the service of his country. Now, that’s about to change. Since their college days, Garrett and his identical twin have been estranged. They were both in love with the same woman, and she chose Garrett’s brother. So Garrett chose the Navy SEALs. Then, following the death of their younger brother, also a Navy SEAL, yet another tragedy strikes the Walker family. The twin is caught in the web of a Russian Mafia organ-theft ring. He was just another business man in Las Vegas on just another business trip. Then drugged and alone, strange men enter his hotel room and crudely remove his kidneys. It’s a rare crime, but one that happens more than is reported. For those in the black-market organ trade, easy pickings right? But they didn’t count on the resiliency of the one twin, nor the rage of the warrior twin. Together, they embark on a mission. Together, they put all the rules to aside bring about the ultimate Act of Revenge. About the Author Dick Couch. Navy SEAL, Combat Veteran, CIA Case Officer, New York Times Best Selling Author–with eighteen books to his credit. During the Global War on Terror, Dick Couch alone has been allowed to embed with the component commands of the US Special Operations Command. Dick Couch alone has tracked the SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers, and Marine Special Operators as they trained for war–and written extensively about this training. Now after eight books of special-operations nonfiction, Act of Revenge marks his return to fiction.

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 . . .

Evil in Mind


Trevor Negus - 2021
    One deadly obsession.Nottinghamshire, 1984. Jimmy Wade is pure evil - he first killed at the age of eleven and lately he’s been feeling those urges again. And now he finds an unlikely partner in psychopathic police sergeant Mick Reynolds.Against the background of a bitter, acrimonious strike called by the National Union of Mineworkers, the two embark on a horrific killing spree, Wade's natural cunning and Reynolds' knowledge of forensics and police procedure allowing them to stay one step ahead of the law.DI Danny Flint is tasked with investigating the series of brutal murders and so begins a deadly game of cat and mouse. The killers revel in playing mind games, confident they will never be caught.Then, as he slowly closes in on them, Danny discovers that someone he cares about is in terrible danger…Evil in Mind – the first in a gripping new detective series featuring DI Danny Flint.

Savage Lane


Jason Starr - 2015
    Karen Daily, recently divorced, lives with her two kids in a quaint suburb of New York City. She’s teaching at a nearby elementary school, starting to date again, and for the first time in years has found joy in her life. Mark Berman, Karen’s friend and neighbor, wants out of his unhappy marriage, and so does his wife, Deb, but they have stayed together for the sake of their children.Unbeknownst to Karen, while Mark’s marriage has deteriorated his obsession with her has grown. And as Mark’s rich fantasy life takes on a more sinister edge, rumors begin to spread about Karen and a bigger secret is uncovered. And soon Karen finds that Mark is not the only one who has taken an undesired interest in her…Jason Starr is one of our most accomplished writers of the darkness that lies within the human heart, and Savage Lane is his most riveting and intimate novel yet—a dark, domestic thriller and an honest, searing satire of a declining marriage, suburban life, and obsessive love.

Once Were Cops


Ken Bruen - 2008
    He's also a sociopath who walks a knife edge between sanity and all-out mayhem. When an exchange program is initiated and twenty Guards come to America and twenty cops from the States go to Ireland, Shay, as he's known, has his lifelong dream come true--he becomes a member of the NYPD. But Shay's dream is about to become New York's nightmare.Paired with an unstable cop nicknamed Kebar for his liberal use of a short, lethal metal stick called a K-bar, the two unlikely partners become a devastatingly effective force in the war against crime.But Kebar harbors a dangerous secret: he's sold out to the mob to help his sister. Her rape and beating leaves her in a coma and pushes an already unstable Kebar over the edge just as Shea's dark secrets threaten boil over and into the streets of New York.Once Were Cops melds the street poetry of Brooklyn and Dublin into a fast-paced, incomparable hard-boiled novel. This is Ken Bruen at his best.

Getting Off


Jill Emerson - 2011
    She goes to bed with him, and she likes that part. Then she kills him, and she likes that even better. On her way out, she cleans out his wallet. She keeps moving, and has a new name for each change of address. She's been doing this for a while, and she's good at it.And then a chance remark gets her thinking of the men who got away, the lucky ones who survived a night with her. She starts writing down names. And now she's a girl with a mission. Picking up their trails. Hunting them down. Crossing them off her list...

Lies She Never Told Me


John Ellsworth - 2018
    Especially if you were guilty... Michael is a successful trial lawyer who’s been placed on medical leave. But he sorely misses the courtroom battles, where he excels. When Michael receives a call from the local jail he comes to life and knows he cannot resist getting involved. For it’s a case of Murder One. Before jumping right in, he stops and thinks about what his watchful wife will say if he goes to the jail. Every day he’s feeling stronger, working out and jogging. But the call makes him feel more alive since before the stroke. Almost before he realizes what’s happening he finds himself driving at high speed in the direction of the jail. He accepts the case and begins investigating. Then a jury is picked and Michael holds his own at trial. His client is looking more and more innocent with each witness Michael cross-examines. However, there’s a hitch: his investigator and best friend, Marcel Rainford, has disappeared. The police ask Michael what he knows. Then, late one night, the police are pounding on his front door, demanding to talk. They have a written confession they want him to read. He reads. His knees buckle when he reaches the bottom. He’d know that signature anywhere.

Everything We Keep


Kerry Lonsdale - 2016
    But when her fiancé, James Donato, vanishes in a boating accident, her well-baked future is swept out to sea. Instead of walking down the aisle on their wedding day, Aimee is at James’s funeral—a funeral that leaves her more unsettled than at peace.As Aimee struggles to reconstruct her life, she delves deeper into James’s disappearance. What she uncovers is an ocean of secrets that make her question everything about the life they built together. And just below the surface is a truth that may set Aimee free…or shatter her forever.

Woman of God


James Patterson - 2016
    Peter's Square, Rome. White smoke signals that a new Pope has been chosen. Is it possible that the new Pope...is a woman? The world is watching as historic crowds gather in Rome, waiting for news of a new Pope, one who promises to be unlike any other in the Church's history. Some followers are ecstatic, but the leading candidate has made a legion of powerful enemies. From a difficult childhood with drug addled parents, to a career as a doctor on the front lines in Sudan, to a series of trials that test her faith at every turn, Brigid Fitzgerald's convictions and callings have made her the target of all those who fear that the Church has lost its way--dangerous adversaries who abhor challenges to tradition. Locked in a deadly, high-stakes battle with forces determined to undermine everything she believes in, Brigid must convert her enemies to her cause before she loses her faith...and her life.