Showing results by publisher "Scribd Audio" in Crime Fiction

In the seaside city of San Marco, Florida, Lise Norwood spends her days serving papers and her nights spying on cheating spouses. But before she became a PI, she was an art major at San Marco University. So when the local police ask her to consult on a murder case in which the victim was posed to resemble a classic Greek sculpture, Lise dusts off her art history degree and joins the task force.

Despite their variety, these stories remain rooted on Moroccan soil - allowing the contributing authors to bring readers closer to the linguistic, cultural, religious, and ethnic reality of Marrakech, whether Arab, Amazigh, African, or Muslim, as well as its historic Mellah - the Jewish Quarter. Here is the capital of tourism, the city of joy and sadness, the city of simple living, the city linked to international capitals through daily flights, the city of the new European community, a winter resort for French retirees, and a refuge for immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

During a buffalo photo shoot, wildlife photographer Nikki Lancaster snaps a picture of an odd man who later follows her to her car. She races away, only to have a vehicle run her off the road and leave the scene of the accident. When the first officer on the scene is DCI Agent Xavier Palinski, her ex-fiancé, Nikki figures things can’t get any worse. She’s wrong. Days later, Nikki discovers a dead body in that same area. After search teams find the bodies of three other women, Nikki suspects she hasn’t just photographed a crazy tourist. Instead, she’s captured a serial killer on film.

The best noir writers make us feel the heat of the sun, the touch of a lover. Setting can be gritty but can also be sublime, no longer relegated to urban locales and seedy hotel rooms but also mansions and swimming pools. Hence, Palm Springs, which may seem like an odd setting for a collection of dark short stories—it’s so sunny and bright here. The stories in this collection come on like the wicked dust storms common to the area.

To confront the puzzle of several sphinxes, most of them female, private detective Remo Bellini plunges into the underworld of São Paulo. Little by little, the mysteries unravel in a surprising fashion, until the solving of the final enigma leaves Bellini perplexed, with a bitter taste in his mouth.

A house on a quiet street on the south side of Glasgow. Neat, terraced homes with manicured lawns and pruned trees. Not the sort of place that reeks of decay or where dead bluebottles pile up on a windowsill. When the police break in, there’s a surprise in store for them. They find Julie Campbell’s decaying body at her desk, her laptop open beside her. She’s a well-liked, respectable woman. On the laptop is a confession – to five murders.

The southwestern-most metropolis in the contiguous United States, resting a mere 40 feet above sea level, tends to garner positive national attention. San Diego is home to the world-famous San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park (with its history reaching back to the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition), temperate climes, and a sunny reputation. It is also the home of shooter Brenda Ann "I Don’t Like Mondays" Spencer, disgraced Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and San Diego County medical examiner-turned-killer Kristin Rossum.

Former Detroit homicide detective Edwin Blake broke into show business as a script consultant on cop movies. Now living in Los Angeles five years later, Blake is suffering from clinical depression, is no longer in demand in film and TV–and money is short. But things look up when Blake gets a call from wealthy, oddball producer, Jason “JP” Perry, telling him he wants to hire him for a future cable TV series. But there’s a catch.

While all Iraqis will readily agree that their life has always been noir, the majority of the stories in Baghdad Noir are set in the years following the American invasion of 2003, though one story is set in 1950 and three are set in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet it is this recent history of Iraq—over the last few decades—that serves to inform its present....

A shady London nightclub owner is found dead on his boat on the River Thames—and newly promoted DCI Alex Fleming, a man with a troubled past, is keen to prove his worth with his first murder case after joining the Major Crime Unit of Thames Valley Police. But Bill Watson, a belligerent fellow DCI, gives Fleming a hostile reception and, as internal politics come into play, Fleming finds himself up against both a difficult case and his own colleagues. During the course of the investigation, Fleming and his sergeant identify five suspects. Now they need to eliminate them one by one.

Earl Marcus thought he had left the mountains of Georgia behind forever, and with them, the painful memories of a childhood spent under the fundamentalist rule of his father RJ’s church - a church built on fear, penance, and the twisting, writhing mass of snakes. But then an ominous photo of RJ is delivered to Earl’s home. The photograph is dated long after his father’s burial, and there’s no doubt that the man in the picture is very much alive.

 Amy Wirkner, a high school senior in Barnesville, Ohio, is a loner, nicknamed “Chevy” for her size. She’s smart, funny, and absolutely determined to escape from her small town in the Ohio Valley, a place poisoned by fracking. She does well in school despite the cruelty of her classmates and has her eyes on a college scholarship, so she can one day become a veterinarian and make something of herself. 

A senior administrator is stabbed to death in his office at the Montreal General Hospital. In the east end of the city, a dead man is found in the trunk of a stolen BMW. A young woman is hospitalized after an apparent hit and run, but despite her doctor’s objections, she refuses treatment and sets off on a desperate search for the man who helped her.

When a homeless man jumps to his death in Old Montreal, the police discover two wallets in his possession: one belonging to a retired psychiatrist who was murdered in a bizarre ritual, the other to a powerful corporate lawyer who has vanished. As Montreal police detective Victor Lessard and his partner, Jacinthe Taillon, work to solve the separate mysteries, a dark conspiracy begins to emerge.

When Ava, a former defense lawyer, wakes up in an empty hotel room to find her husband missing days before he is supposed to report to jail for a heinous crime he swears he didn't commit, she takes matters into her own hands. Searching for her husband herself instead of calling the police, “V” is led on a chase that ends up in her own dark past. With grit and determination, she is forced to confront her own misdeeds while coming face-to-face with her husband’s.  

Inspector Sebag is a policeman in Southern France with an unparalleled sixth sense, who excels at slipping into the skin of killers and hunting them down. However, when a retired French Algerian cop is discovered in his apartment with the symbol OAS left near his body and few indications as to who killed him or why, Sebag’s skills are put to the test. Days later, when a controversial monument is destroyed and another French Algerian is shot down, Sebag begins to put the pieces together.

A baby is left abandoned beside a dumpster. A young Ukranian maid fights the torrents of greed and frustration with the world around her. Small animals begin to disappear off the streets. The task of solving these mysteries is entrusted to a team of policemen in which few believe: the Bastards of Pizzofalcone. Complete with stirrings in the city’s criminal underbelly and a fight against a seemingly inhuman evil, this novel is sure to delight fans of de Giovanni’s previous works.

In a depressed town on France's northern coast, a man named Martial Kermeur has been arrested for the murder of real estate developer Antoine Lazenec after throwing him overboard. Called before a judge, Kermeur goes back to the beginning to explain what brought him to this desperate point: his divorce, his son's acting out, layoffs at his job, and, above all, Lazenec’s dazzling project for a seaside resort. 

Miguel and Helena meet at a nursing home in Tarifa, at an age when they believe they have lived it all already. Miguel is afraid of flying. Helena is afraid of the ocean. Both have adult children and feel they are no longer needed. The dramatic suicide of one of the other residents opens their eyes. They don't want to spend their last days remembering and longing for supposedly better times. Together they decide to undertake the journey of their lives and confront the darkness in their pasts.

Giorgio Pellegrini, the hero of The Goodbye Kiss, has been living an “honest” life for 11 years. But that’s about to change. His lawyer has been deceiving him, and now, Giorgio is forced into service as an unwilling errand boy for an organized crime syndicate. At one time, Giorgio wouldn’t have thought twice about robbing, kidnapping, and killing in order to get what he wanted, but these days, he realizes he’s too long in the tooth to face his enemies head-on. To return to his peaceful life as a successful businessman, he’s going to have to find another way.