Local Crime

THE POLITE ENGLISH MURDER IS A COMFORTING FICTION. In the cosy world of golden-age detective novels, violence is a matter of inheritance, solved neatly in the library before supper. The reality of Britain’s industrial provinces between 1876 and 1959 operated by a considerably harder set of rules. Behind the soot-blackened brick of the terraced courts and the deafening roar of the cotton mills lay environments of crushing, unprecedented anonymity. Here, absolute poverty reduced human life to a calculable price, and predators could hide in plain sight among the shifting, exhausted ...

A freewheeling, small-town attorney takes on a national murder trial when an out-of-town client is accused of killing a federal judge in Texas. “A spectacular courtroom thriller that kept me turning pages like the best of Grisham or Turow." —Michelle King, co-creator of The Good Wife, The...

Someone knows where she is… The old Victorian pier was a thing of beauty until it was allowed to decay. It was where the youth of Oldcliffe-on-Sea would go to hang out. It’s also where twenty-one-year-old Sophie Collier disappeared eighteen years ago. Francesca Howe, known as Frankie, was...

The mountains keep their secrets. Until someone digs them up. In the deep, isolated hollows, the most dangerous thing isn’t the rugged terrain—it’s the people. This compilation features fifteen interconnected tales of local corruption and devastating realities that echo the darkest news reports. Justice isn't always decided in a courtroom; sometimes, it’s settled on a dirt road by a man with no license plates. From a substitute teacher navigating a terrifyingly quiet school, to an estranged granddaughter inheriting a family cemetery with too many graves, to a journalist unearthing a...

For over twenty-five years, The House of Three Murders has squatted, abandoned, and decayed, deep inside a dense mesquite and tamarisk thicket in the middle of the vast Mojave Desert. The infamous house was the site of gruesome and bloody multiple murders. The murders have gradually passed into barely remembered Mojave Desert legend, but the house remains, foreboding, forlorn, and nearly forgotten. Then, on a moonlight November night in 1960, five people are there at the same time. Four technically, because one of them has just died from a gunshot wound! Three of the five are teenagers from...

An investigative podcaster returns to her hometown to solve her sister’s cold-case disappearance. But the secrets buried in the woods are far more terrifying—and far more primal—than any human crime. Fifteen years ago, sixteen-year-old June walked into the dense, shadow-drenched mountain forest after dark and never came back. The official police report called it a fatal bear attack. Her older sister, Rina, knew better. Now a successful true-crime journalist, Rina returns to her isolated hometown with a microphone, a portable recorder, and a mission: force the community to confront the...

On a winding mountain road into the town of Denton, Pennsylvania, Detective Josie Quinn finds the body of a local teenage girl, Dina Hale. The sight of plum-colored bruises gathering around the girl’s neck pierces Josie’s heart, but the discovery of a second girl’s empty purse in the dirt nearby gives her a flicker of hope that one person, at least, made a lucky escape. Dina’s parents are grief-stricken as the town rallies together in a desperate search for the second girl, who waitressed with Dina. The two best friends were on their way to a shift when they were attacked.

“Narrator Angela Dawe is simply amazing at creating different personalities with the power of her voice…Dawe paints pictures that amplify the listening experience.”—AudioFile From New York Times bestseller and Edgar-Award nominee Elle Cosimano, comes Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own...

Meet Cato Kwong – disgraced cop and ex-poster boy for the police force. The world is in economic meltdown, but a mining town on the edge of nowhere is booming. With the town’s population exploding, it’s easy enough to hide a crime—or even a dirty past. Banished to the stock squad after...

In this thrilling novel from a New York Times bestselling author, an attorney and mother of two discovers her husband’s secret life—and it might cost them all their lives. ​ Everyone in Hemingway Grove, Illinois, knows David and Marcie Bowers. David owns the local pub. Marcie is a former...

A search & rescue expert. A kidnapped woman. The lost girls who haunt them both. "Veteran narrator [Karissa] Vacker performs the novel skillfully.... Her soothing voice, clarity, and intonation draw the listener into the story, while her convincing performance of Theo will hold their attention...

From its inception, Atlantic City has always been a town dedicated to the fast buck, and this wide-reachinghistory offers a riveting account of its past 100 year, from the city's heyday as a Prohibition-era mecca of lawlessness to its rebirth as a legitimate casino resort in the modern era.

William Neal, who called himself "Wild Bill Cody," was seductive and skillful at separating love-struck women from their money, and ultimately, their lives. Apprehended by police, Neal, who proclaimed himself “better than Ted Bundy,” pleaded guilty to three murders then insisted on representing himself at his death penalty trial. But the psychopathic killer found himself up against the incredible courage of his one surviving victim.

In this action-packed thriller, a quiet seafront town is targeted by vicious criminals, leaving locals no choice but to team up and save the place they love.The Inn at Gloucester stands alone on the rocky shoreline. Its seclusion suits former Boston police detective Bill Robinson, novice owner...

The USA TODAY bestselling author of Middletide returns with a lush and atmospheric novel of suspense following a young woman whose job as a game warden puts her in the path of a murderer in a small town eager to protect its own. Desperate to escape a relationship gone bad, Annie Heston flees...

On January 7, 1994, residents of the Berkshire Hills woke up to a typical snowy winter day in the majestic woods of Western Massachusetts. The quaint New England towns, the idyllic scenery and the people who lived there could have stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

From their birthplace in Phenix City, Alabama to the corruption of today, the Dixie Mafia’s tentacles stretch from coast to coast throughout the south. While most of the world denies their existence, this network of freelance criminals have flown under the radar for the most part since the 1950s. Their structure is completely different than that of La Cosa Nostra so people discount them as rogue bands of individual criminals. In reality it’s one massive web of corruption, lies, and murder.

It's the perfect getaway. But the past will always find you . . . When ex-cop Bill Robinson takes over The Inn by the Sea, all he wants is a quiet escape from the city. But when a crime boss moves into town and begins terrorizing Bill's friends, he can't just sit back and watch. It's not long...

Itinerant lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are back in the saddle with guns blazing in this gritty, intense addition to the New York Times–bestselling series. After hunting down murderer and bandito Captain Alejandro Vasquez, Territorial Marshal Virgil Cole and Deputy Everett Hitch...

In this addictive true-life whodunit, author Mardi Link details all the evidence to date in the case of the Robison family murders. She crafts her book around police and court documents and historical and present-day statements and interviews, in addition to exploring the impact of the case on the community of Good Hart and the stigma that surrounds the popular summer getaway. Adding to both the sense of tragic history and the suspense, Link laces her tale with fascinating bits of local and Indian lore.