Inside Writing Mystery, Noir & Detectives

“Welcome to Antebellum,” the ghoul said. “You are the guest of honor.” Things are not right in 1955, Raleigh, North Carolina, and it will be up to Jazz Jones to get to the bottom of the murk and clear things up.“You heard about the dead boy?” She had said that her name was January Queen and that she was with the NAACP. Her eyes were a pair of sins, or maybe they just mirrored my own.“Maybe we came to you,” she said, “because not only are you fair, but you have a firm grasp on what the word justice really means.”And there it was, I thought. I was being asked to bring the killers to justice and expose the underbelly of seething hatred in my city, even if it meant offending my neighbors and inflaming the ire of otherwise good white folks who just didn’t know any better. And, possibly, break the law along the way. Whatever it took. Even if I had to dig some six-foot-deep holes along the way.Report an issue with this product or

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen and his daughter Morgan Olsen, the gripping true-crime story of America’s Lady Bluebeard—a seemingly ordinary wife accused of poisoning husband after husband, who very nearly got away with all of it.On a hot August afternoon in 1920 at Blue Lakes Ranch in Idaho, a new bride set out three saucers of flypaper on the boarding house porch. By nightfall, her husband was on the floor of their canvas tent, clutching his stomach in agony. Within days he was dead.Lyda Trueblood was everything a wife should be: beautiful, charming, an excellent cook. Men fell for her easily. They also died easily around her too—poisoned by arsenic. One husband, then another, then two more. Her brother-in-law. And, then there was her two-year-old daughter—whose death no one could ever fully explain.Six deaths in five years, and a 1921 trial that made Lyda Trueblood a national sensation. But what turned a Missouri farmer’s daughter into a methodical killer—and how did she elude justice for so long?Drawing on court transcripts, prison records, and Lyda’s own unflinching statements, the Olsens go beyond the lurid headlines to reveal the woman herself—calculating, charismatic, and chilling to the last.

A dying gangster's plea sends Joe King Oliver on a quest for a missing woman across America's coasts—unraveling a dark and violent family history along the way—in this engrossing new novel from one of the most celebrated and acclaimed crime writers at work today.Joe King Oliver is the big man you call to solve the most delicate and dangerous of problems. Fresh off unraveling the mystery of his own parents’ fates, King finds himself accepting (again at his grandmother’s request) a case from Arman Babylon, a powerful Los Angeles gangster now dying from cancer.Babylon’s granddaughter, Twyla Mann, has been missing for years, and he’s desperate to find her before he passes. The search pulls King into the Babylons’ stained past and the cold case of Dalia Shorts, a torch singer who vanished without a trace and whom Arman was once suspected of killing.As King follows her trail from L.A. to New York and back, he’ll realize nothing is what it seems as he uncovers a pattern of violence that has targeted the women around Babylon for decades. How much will King be willing to risk to finally set things right?

In the latest in this USA Today bestselling series, Nevada sheriff Porter Beck receives an anonymous riddle leading him to a body hidden for decades, leading Beck and his team in a chase to unravel riddles that will help them uncover and stop a long-time serial killer.Porter Beck is the sheriff of Lincoln County, Nevada, a vast expanse of desert and mountains best known to the outside world for the top-secret installation called Area 51. Just down the highway sits a weathered mailbox where UFO believers leave messages for aliens. But this time, the message is for Beck.It’s a riddle. And when Beck and his team decipher it, the answer leads them to the shrinking waters of Lake Mead and an oil drum chained to the bottom. Inside are the remains of someone missing for more than fifty years, someone tied to Beck by a thread of DNA stretching deep into his own past.Enter Jett Lowell, a pint-sized but fearless FBI profiler who believes Beck’s riddle is connected to one she received seventeen years earlier, shortly before the disappearance of someone close to her.Convinced they are hunting a serial killer, Beck and Jett follow a trail of riddles from the deserts of Nevada to the mountains of Arizona, and finally to the red rock wilderness of Utah, racing to uncover a chain of murders spanning generations before the killer unleashes a final, horrendous act decades in the making.

Josh Green has a secret.Since he was a child, Josh has had troubling visions that allow him to see into other people’s pasts due to his extrasensory perception. Frightened by this ability, he’s told no one about it, except his best friend, Tony. When Tony’s college-age stepdaughter suddenly vanishes, he asks Josh to help him find her, as well as determine the circumstances of her disappearance. For the first time, Josh is forced to embrace his psychic ability to help trace the young woman’s steps. Eventually, this leads him to not only learn why she’s missing, but where she is. Following a trail that unravels familial secrets, Josh finds himself in the middle of a very complicated web.

A DEADLY RECKONING UNFOLDSin book three of Michael Balter's award-winning crime thriller series.Marty Schott and Bo Bishop are trying to extricate themselves from a dangerous business partnership with a Russian oligarch when a midnight phone call shatters their plans. Bo’s brother-in-law has been murdered—and the Portland police detective on the scene recognizes them instantly. He’s questioned them before. He hasn’t forgotten.As Marty and Bo dig for answers, they uncover a hidden wire, criminal activity inside their own company, and a killer who isn’t finished. What begins as a murder investigation quickly spirals into a high-stakes web of cigarette smuggling, counterfeit money, and a covert FBI operation they don’t yet understand. Every lead pulls them deeper into a conspiracy that blurs the line between criminals and law enforcement—and puts their families squarely in the crosshairs.At the same time, the cracks between them begin to widen. Marty is still entangled with Natalya, the alluring power broker linked to the powerful investor they’re trying to escape, and Marty’s inability to cut ties threatens everything. Bo’s loyalty is pushed to the limit as secrets, suspicion, and past betrayals collide. With pressure mounting from every direction, a single misstep pulls Marty into a deadly trap—and forces a choice that could cost him everything.In Dead Exit, danger isn’t over—it’s waiting for one wrong move.

Alfred Prince has created a social media site that is… EveryThing.“I am looking for investors to support a new tech startup that will transform the world.” Prince had apparently moved into business mode. “It is an app called Triangulation, with an avatar named AL, for Artificial Learning, that will gather the data gleaned by EveryThing, Universe, and Totality.”Max Creed is a modern-day Robin Hood, an anti-hero willing to do whatever it takes to enact justice for those who have been wronged by the ultra-wealthy. He and his band of not-so-merry people investigate a billionaire for shoddy safety protocols on EveryThing, but quickly discover that the diabolical plot is much more elaborate than merely warping hearts and minds.Prince plans to sow the seeds of discord, create chaos, burn the establishment down, and emerge as the de facto emperor of the world. Max Creed is tasked with stopping him. What will happen when an unstoppable force collides with an unmovable object? An electrifying thriller that rivets the reader to the page with a breathtaking climax

Nashville PI Jackson Gamble has had all manner of clients and cases during his long career as a private investigator, but never a client like the one involving convicted triple-murderer Harvey Harris. Until recently a death-row inmate, and now dying of untreatable cancer, Harvey wants to see his daughter one more time before his time runs out. The search seems simple enough, but the girl has been missing ten years, and the case quickly goes into the weeds as Gamble’s search takes him on a three-state chase that involves him with a beautiful woman, two murders, and a conclusion that even an experienced PI like Gamble never quite sees coming.