Showing results for "Sins-" in Crime Fiction

My older sister ran away from home to avoid being forced into an arranged marriage with the mafia family blamed for her mother's death. Now, that burden has fallen to me. Eighteen and sheltered, my life has only ever revolved around the familiar comfort of the tennis court. I've always been shielded from the brutal realities of my father's world, protected from his enemies. Enemies like Lochlan Dunne, who my father now wants as an ally.

The ruthless mafia king is no stranger to violence, but when he lays his eyes on my bruised and battered face, he's furious. I thought my makeup was thick enough to cover the beating I suffered until my inappropriately flirtatious boss noticed. As a cocktail waitress in his casino, I've always been on Mr. Salvato's radar, but now he's obsessed, demanding to know who hurt me and why, intent on making them suffer.

Forgive me. Those were the first words Santos Augustine spoke to me before we sealed an unbreakable oath. A contract signed in blood binding me to him as payment for my father’s sins. Wearing the mask of legitimacy, this powerful crime family has returned to Avarice to punish those who have wronged them and take what they’ve always been denied, a place among the elite. Forced to marry my enemy, I’m thrust into his world of secrets and betrayals. My husband is a dangerous man. And he has dangerous enemies. But it’s when I’m attacked that his fury is unleashed.

It’s a brutal winter in Des Moines, Iowa, and the city is gripped by fear. A serial attacker known as the Sin Eater is stalking women and has just struck again. It’s a tough time and a tough place for Riley Fisher, a former small-town sergeant, to be reporting for duty as an FBI agent on her first assignment. Teamed with a man she’s not sure she can trust and struggling to prove herself—while fighting the pull of her old life and family dramas—Riley is tasked with investigating a vicious death threat against the newly elected female state governor.

A woman and her child are missing, a U.S. senator accused of orchestrating the disappearance . Spring is dragging its feet in central Minnesota. The snow is disappearing, but not fast enough for Minnesota Bureau of Apprehension agent Doc Hunter who has gone south to get in some outdoor golf. He’s feeling good about his game, he’s getting ready for the Minnesota Open, when he’s called back to work to investigate the disappearance. Doc is not happy about having his golf game interrupted, and he’s even less happy when his investigation discovers he has been lied to – by a U.S. ...

When a local journalist is found dead in an isolated spot on Roydon Common, lying beneath a hangman's noose on the anniversary of a teenager's suicide, DI Tom Janssen is asked to take on the investigation as a favor to local colleagues and must unpick the deceased man's life to discover how he came to be there. The dead man was working on something, a story he was keeping close to his chest, and even those closest to him, loved ones and colleagues, were kept in the dark. But what did he know that was so damaging as to be worth killing for?

A killer is putting the mangled, lifeless bodies of prostitutes on display in sleepy Northeast Tennessee. The murderous spree is accelerating. Two detectives, Lukas Miller from Johnson City and Brooke Stevens from Kingsport, have been assigned to hunt the killer down and stop him. Miller and Stevens are considered the best in their respective departments, and although they've never met, their superiors order them to work together in a coordinated effort to put an end to the violence as quickly as possible. Their reputations, and perhaps their careers, are on the line.

An unknown assassin has appointed himself judge, jury, and executioner, brutally taking out high-level human targets citywide. It's just the kind of case that will test the resolve of a tough FBI agent like Jaid Marlowe. Especially when her new partner is Adam Raiker, Jaid's former colleague - and ex-lover.

Three dead. Shot point-blank. A hot summer day just got hotter. Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Agent Doc Hunter had a golf game scheduled. Doc was a good golfer. Very good. Thinking about going pro. But now all of that had been put on hold because three people on a farm got themselves shot and Hunter's boss had decided he needed to be the one to investigate. Doc wasn't happy about the assignment, and was even less happy when he finds there is a cover-up and a suspect list that only seems to keep growing. On top of that, he has a killer who has a lot more killing to do. As the body count ...

In two weeks, I'm supposed to become the perfect wife. I don't know or like the man my father chose to marry me off to but I have no say in the matter. That's why when I see Rocco Marchetti, the man I've had a crush on my entire life, I decide he'll be my first. We keep stealing glances and hiding smiles, but I want more. I want one night with him. So what if I'm the daughter of the most feared man in organized crime?

Adam Dalgliesh takes on a baffling murder in the rarefied world of London book publishing in this masterful mystery from one of our finest novelists. Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are confronted with a puzzle of impenetrable complexity. A murder has taken place in the offices of the Peverell Press, a venerable London publishing house located in a dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames. The victim is Gerard Etienne, the brilliant but ruthless new managing director, who had vowed to restore the firm's fortunes.

In one of London's most elegant shops, a decorative doll in green velvet adopts some rather human, and sinister, traits.... A country gentleman is questioned about a murder that has yet to be committed.... While summoning spirits, a medium is drawn closer to the world of the dead than she ever imagined possible.... In a small country church, a dying man's last word, sanctuary, becomes both an elegy and a clue to a crime.

FBI agent Emma Griffin has seen her share of dark and twisted murders. When she's called onto a new case, Emma finds herself baffled and horrified by the crime scene. Cream-colored tags. Mysterious spirals. Words with seemingly no meaning. Victims with tags that don’t seem to correspond to their “sin”. As Emma dives deeper into the case, other mysteries that impact her life start closing in. The more truths Emma uncovers the more bizarre turns this “Seven Deadly Sins” case takes, and the more of a target Emma becomes.

In Locksburg, Pennsylvania, a former coal and steel town whose best days seem long past, five thousand residents have toughed it out, and have reasons for both worry and hope as this neglected place teeters between decay and renewal. For some of them, their biggest troubles have just arrived.

Other than her bonsai trees, 20-year-old arborist Silvania August Moonbeam Merigal is alone in the world. After her mother dies and then her grandfather, Silva suffers a sexual assault and becomes pregnant. Then, ready to end her own life, she discovers evidence of a long-lost artist grandmother, Isabelle. Desperate to remake a family for herself Silva leaves her island home on the Puget Sound and traces her grandmother’s path to a hippie beekeeper named Nick Larkins with secrets of his own and then to a religious, anti-government Y2K cult embedded deep in the wilds of Hells Canyon.

In rural McCown County, Missouri, a young pregnant woman is found beaten to death in a trailer park. The only witness to the murder is Ivy, her six-year-old daughter, who points to her mom's boyfriend - father of the unborn child. County prosecutor Madeleine Thompson promises the community justice, and in the Ozarks that can mean only one thing: a death sentence. When Madeleine's first choice for cocounsel declines to try a death penalty case, she is forced to turn to assistant prosecutor Elsie Arnold.

Once you are rooted in sin, there is no turning back. She wasn’t supposed to be in the crossfire. My enemies should not also be hers. My past is dark, and my demons are dangerous. I should let her be free, safe from the shadows that still haunt me. But I can’t let her go. My obsession is too strong. She’s mine even though she’s a possession I shouldn’t keep. But I of all people should know that the mafia doesn’t let anyone go.

Laos, 1979: Dr. Siri Paiboun, the twice retired ex-National Coroner of Laos, receives an unmarked package in the mail. Inside is a handwoven pha sin, a colorful traditional skirt worn in northern Laos. A lovely present, but who sent it to him, and why? And, more importantly, why is there a severed human finger stitched into the sin's lining?

While on special assignment to the bank fraud unit, Texas Ranger Faith McClellan accidentally stumbles upon a raging fire consuming the back of a nearby house. When partially cremated remains are pulled from the ruins, she finds herself back on homicide - and on the trail of a ruthless killer. As she races to identify the victims, the sadistic murderer strikes again - this time against state politicians with ties to Faith’s father, a former governor of Texas.

When Silvie Martin moves to New York from Texas with her husband, Simon, and their one year-old daughter, Mary, she is filled with the joy and hope she derives from their shared faith. But no sooner have they moved into their new home, which backs on to their church, than her husband is brutally murdered before her very eyes. The only trouble is, the shock has completely erased her memory. Now, 18 years later, Detectives Stone and Dehan have to piece together a crime where their prime witness remembers nothing, and the suspects are as bizarre as they are unlikely