I write the NYPD Detective Chiara Corelli Mystery series featuring Corelli and her partner Detective P.J. Parker. Most mysteries have a single main character so Iâm passionate about finding other authors who write mysteries with two professional investigators as main characters. Itâs fascinating to see how authors writing the same type of characters handle them and what they do about character growth over the course of the series. To me, watching two characters react to each other, seeing their relationship change over the course of a book or a series is much more interesting than reading about a single detective.
I seem to be addicted to long-running series with British detectives, though not all written by British authors, and A Clubbable Woman is the first book in this twenty-one-book series by Reginald Hill.
When I began to write fiction and worked on creating Corelli and Parker, Hill was one of the authors I looked to for inspiration. Although his Yorkshire detectives, the abrupt and rude Detective Superintendent Andrew "Andy" Dalziel and the educated, calm, and well-mannered Detective Sergeant Peter Pascoe, did not fit my vision for my own characters, I enjoyed their antics and read the entire series. The books are fun and challenging and this is a great beginning.
Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel investigates a murder close to home in this first crime novel featuring the much-loved detective team of Dalziel and Pascoe.
'So far out in front that he need not bother looking over his shoulder' Sunday Telegraph
Home from the rugby club after taking a nasty knock in a match, Sam Connon finds his wife more uncommunicative than usual. After passing out on his bed for a few hours, he comes downstairs to discover communication has been cut off forever - by a hole in the middle of her forehead.
What makes me passionate about this topic is my love of art, encouraged by my parents and developed when I was completing an undergraduate degree in architecture. Iâm also addicted to mysteries, preferably ones with history thrown into the mix. Born in Australia, I lived for some years in the UK before moving to Canberra. I hold a PhD from the London School of Economics and Iâm a professor at the Australian National University. I do hope you enjoy the books on my list as much as I have.
Every novel Peter Carey writes is a rollicking adventure and this one is no exception. I love his way with words that is always original, and his idiosyncratic characters.
Theft tells the story of Michael "Butcher" Boone, an Australian artist whose career is in the doldrums. The novel alternates between the viewpoint of Butcher and that of his "damaged" brother Hugh. And yes, there is theft in the novel,âŚand scams and forgeries too. This is my favourite of all Careyâs novels.
Michael "Butcher" Boone is an ex-âreally famous" painter, now reduced to living in a remote country house and acting as caretaker for his younger brother, Hugh. Alone together they've forged a delicate equilibrium, a balance instantly destroyed when a mysterious young woman named Marlene walks out of a rainstorm and into their lives. Beautiful, smart, and ambitious, she's also the daughter-in-law of the late great painter Jacques Liebovitz. Soon Marlene sets in motion a chain of events that could be the making--or the ruin--of them all.
The best sci-fi has a lived-in feel â think of the polluted, grimy futurism of Blade Runner or Alien.
This is something that it has in common with noir fiction. Compare, say, the cyberpunk of William Gibson with the gritty, hard-boiled detective fiction of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett â take out the sci-fi elements, and they could be writing about the same world.
In Titanium Noir, Nick Harkaway imagines just that. It is a razor-sharp pastiche, combining the best tropes of the gum-shoe genre â the femme fatale, the world-weary PI, corrupt cops, and menacing crime bosses â with an intriguing sci-fi premise: What if someone invented a drug that made youth eternal? What influence and power would such people wield? And what would happen if one of them mysteriously died?
A virtuosic mashup of Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler by way of Marvelâthe story of a detective investigating the murder of a Titan, one of societyâs most powerful, medically-enhanced elites. ⢠âCross-genre brilliance from the superbly talented Nick Harkaway.â âWilliam Gibson, New York Times best-selling author of Agency
"An exemplar of its genre, Titanium Noir twists and turns between excellent fun and deep melancholy." âThe New York Times Book Review
Cal Sounder is a detective working for the police on certain very sensitive cases. So when heâs called in to investigate a homicide at a local apartment, heâs surprisedâŚ
I donât remember a moment in my life when there wasnât a dog in it. They are members of my family, and I identify with protagonists who have the same connection in their lives. In my day job, I write mysteries and forecast geopolitical events. Mysteries with dogs help me balance the darkness in the world with the sheer delight that can be found with a dog.
I love this entire series, but the first one is where Poppy meets Consuela (her Chihuahua with attitude). One of my favorite micro-genres, the funny-cozy-romantic-spy mystery, Poppy Fields is a poor little rich girl. But what redeems her for me, is her drive to do something important in the world. I found it impossible not to fall for her and her bossy Chihuahua. And the communication connection between Poppy and Consuela is one we all hope to have with our dogs. Consuela yaps and Poppy understands her. Not to mention, Poppy couldnât ask for a better partner in solving crime.
Poppy Fields, social influencer and secret spy, is on Grand Cayman. Her mission? Maid of honor at her motherâs wedding to Russian billionaire Yurgi Prokorhov. No surprise, Chariss Carlton is a difficult and demanding bride.
When Poppy witnesses a murder, her days change from irritating to dangerous. She and her partner Thor (real name Mark Stoneâbut a dead-ringer for a Norse god) are tasked with catching a killer and shuttering a billion dollar money laundering scheme.
Between bombs, bridal showers, high-speed car chases, a missing wedding planner, and a femme fatale with her eye on Thor, it will be aâŚ
Iâve adored reading a good snarky first-person story since I first read Bloodlist, so long as the snark doesnât go too far and become total unlikeable jerk⌠It can be a fine line!I hope I stay on the right side of it, but having read it enough and written in it for years with my Blood Rights Series, I feel qualified to say Iâm aâŚsnark connoisseur. (If you ask my family, this is how my own internal/life narrator speaks! My mother says that my character Dakota is me if I âsaid everything aloud that I think in my head.â Sheâs probably right, and Iâm okay with that.)
This series of books by Elrod was one of my first introductions into not just vampire fiction but also this style of dryly-humorous narration. Up until my mid-to-late teens, Iâd read a lot of high/epic fantasy, which is typically third person and more pragmatically written, but here I met a first-person narrator who was snarky as heck. I loved it. Not only that, but itâs a vampire P.I. story that plays in the land of noir in gangland Chicago during Prohibition. It was so engaging and fun that I devoured the series as fast as I could, and when anyone asks for my inspirations, itâs at the top of my list. Like it is here.
A reissue of the book that began the popular series follows Jack Fleming, ace reporter and vampire--the result of an affair with a beautiful femme fatale--as he attempts to hunt down his own shadowy murderer. Reissue.
As a screenwriter Iâve always enjoyed noir stories, whether books or movies. Stories where the characters are not your squeaky-clean âgood guys.â I like to see âordinaryâ people; people who are flawed (like all of us), or maybe with a shady past, who are swayed or manipulated by dire circumstances into doing something they would not ordinarily do. I enjoy stories with unique, interesting characters that are not your run-of-the-mill private eyes, and whose moral compass might be a bit off. I particularly like stories where characters are forced to become investigators because of a situation they are thrust into, whether by accident or by their own dubious actions.
Okay, so this main character is Private Investigator, but I loved this book. A good flawed, dubious, tough-guy main character, a sexy femme fatale, dangerous mobsters, and lots of keep-you-guessing plot twists and turns. This page-turner, with great, witty, wise-guy banter, fulfills all that this Neo-Noir Crime Novel fan craves for.
PI Pete Fortunato, half-Italian, half-Jewish, who suffers from anger management issues and insomnia, wakes up one morning with a bad taste in his mouth. This is never a good sign. Working out of a friendâs downtown real estate office, Fortunato, who spent a mysteriously short, forgettable stint as a cop in a small upstate New York town, lives from paycheck to paycheck. So, when a beautiful woman wants to hire him to find her husband, he doesnât hesitate to say yes. Within a day, Fortunato finds the husband in the apartment of his clientâs young, stud lover. Heâs been shotâŚ
I am fascinated by how people communicate. I enjoy when different cultures clash and cooperate. Coming from another country and growing up in California exposed me to my first taste of different groups. Traveling around the country and the world has allowed me to see the vast variety of people and I continue to wonder how we can get along together.
Jade is a being of mysterious power who has traits of shifter, witch, fae, and others. She serves the police force in Winston, in a world in which supernatural beings are everywhere, but are discriminated against. She must solve a mystery and fight to protect herself and her friends. I enjoyed this story. I think you will enjoy it if you like fantasy.
Meet Jade Smith, a magical mutt with a mission. A detective partnered with a shifter named Rolfe, sheâs on the case to solve a slew of murders: Vamps are killing humans, and nobody knows why. When London Jane, the most powerful vamp in town, is implicated in the murders, Jade knows something isnât right. Together with Jill, the Winter Queen of Faerie, Jade and Jane take their investigation underground. On the run, with nowhere to hide, they uncover a secret that could destroy Faerie, as well as the human realm. Will Jade stop the killer in time? Or will sheâŚ
UK-born CY Croc started her career in the health industry, but later changed professions after obtaining a postgraduate degree in teaching. It was while teaching she discovered her dream profession. An author was invited to the school to showcase her latest book. Inspired, CY wrote over 30 books in the next 3 years in contemporary, sci-fi, and paranormal romance. She loves to include positive subliminal messages in her stories about body image, prejudice, and love from a higher realm and always practices inclusion in her writing. Her main characters practice autonomy and come from all races. CY believes everyone should experience love, and that's why some of her protagonists are not of this world.
Donât let this quirky cover fool you. The pages of this book are smoking hot at times. This is book 1 in a novella series dedicated to hooking up paranormals. It kicks off a dating series with an opposites attract trope, featuring two paranormal beings who couldnât be more differentâa witch and a vampire. This is a light-hearted romance that leaves you thirsty for book 2 and wanting to know what otherworldly beings will be featured.
Witch Harper Clarke is pretty sure misfortune follows her around like a bad smell. Her spells end in disaster, her dating agency for supernaturals has an embarrassing lack of clients, and her love life is a washout. So, when a vampire signs up to the agency and she canât find him a match, she agrees to date the vamp herself.
Charmer Damon Vertefeuille has it all: power, status, and wealth. Becoming a vampire to get his errant brother out of trouble isnât what he expected. Newbie vamps arenât supposed to be dangerous, but one look at his witchy date andâŚ
I have loved crime fiction since encountering it in college. After seeing the Bogart-Bacall version of The Big Sleep, I read the underlying Raymond Chandler novel and was hooked. I devoured Chandlerâs other works and moved on to James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, John D. MacDonald, and others. Later I discovered the crime novels of Charles Williams, Day Keene, Gil Brewer, and other âpulp masters.â Loving those novels led me to try my hand at writing crime fiction, and Stark House Press has now published five of my novels with another on the way. My crime-writing career is an unusual path for someone whose M.A. thesis is on Jane Austen!
I think The Hot Spot is perhaps the best of several noir novels by Charles Williams, a writer who deserves to be better known.
Originally published as Hell Hath No Fury, The Hot Spot, well filmed under that title in 1990, chillingly illustrates the claimed truth of the proverb about a woman scorned. As readers, we cannot help but like Harry Madox, a clever but semi-sleazy used-car salesman who robs a bank in a small Texas town and sleeps with his bossâs boozy wife before falling in love with a younger, more innocent woman.
Then Harry learns to his dismay that the bossâs wife is determined to keep him from having the things he now realizes he really wants. Re-reading this novel, I always root for Harry to escape from the deep pit he has dug for himself, and I keep turning the pages, hoping he will.
A dark, brooding masterpiece of guilt, greed, and lust in a town ripe for felony.
Madox wasn't all bad. He was just half-bad. But trap a man like Madox in a dead-end job in a stultifying small town, introduce him to a femme fatale like the Harshaw woman, and give him a shot at a fast fifteen thousand dollars--in a bank just begging to be knocked over--and his better nature doesn't stand a chance.
Merciless in its suspense, flawless in its grasp of the ways in which ordinary people hurtle over the edge, The Hot Spot is a superb exampleâŚ
As a transplant to California, albeit more than 50 years ago, I am still fascinated by what makes this place at the edge of the Pacific so unique. It has accepted so many people, from so many places over a fairly recent period. I always feel I can deduce more history from well rendered characters set in specific times and places. Their wholeness and their meaning, as well as that of their culture, are to be found in literature.
The juxtaposition of Eve Babitzâs unabashed hedonism and her incisive ability to nail a situation are not what you normally expect.
This book ranges all over southern California of the 1960s and 1970s, always coming back to the place Eve loved best, Los Angeles, a place of âvast sprawls, smog, and luke nights: L.A. It is where I work best, where I can live, oblivious to physical reality.â
When I moved to Los Angeles, I was disposed to love it, but it was hard to find any confirmation in books! I am delighted with Eve Babitz, who, with extravagant and precise language, celebrates the place.
No one burned hotter than Eve Babitz. Possessing skin that radiated âits own kind of moral laws,â spectacular teeth, and a figure that was the stuff of legend, she seduced seemingly everyone who was anyone in Los Angeles for a long stretch of the 1960s and â70s. One man proved elusive, however, and so Babitz did what she did best, she wrote him a book.
Slow Days, Fast Company is a full-fledged and full-bodied evocation of a bygone Southern California that far exceeds its mash-note premise. In ten sun-baked, Santa Ana windâswept sketches, Babitz re-creates a Los Angeles of movieâŚ
