Showing results for "Brilliance" in Hard-Boiled

Back from leave after her first closed case, Cassidy Clarke returns to the LAPD, ready to dig in. This time, homeless teens are disappearing. And it’s not because of social reform—they’re being targeted. Cassidy follows a lead to a charismatic grad student who leans on his charm and vast resources to lure vulnerable kids under his wing. But when the people who could expose him start turning up dead, she abruptly switches focus, racing to protect his potential victims instead.

For generations, the urban legend of Granny Hatchet has plagued the quiet residential area of Suvikylä in northern Finland. As the story goes, this immortal killer murders her victims with a hatchet then buries the hearts in a potato field and eats them after they've rotted black. But not everyone is convinced it is just a story.

Tensions have been running high in White River as it approaches the anniversary of a fatal shooting of a black motorist by a local police officer. The economically depressed, racially polarized city is on edge, confronted with angry demonstrations, arson, and looting. In the midst of the turmoil, a White River police officer is shot dead by an unknown sniper. As the town spirals out of control, local authorities approach Dave Gurney to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting. But when he zeroes in on peculiar aspects of the individual murders that follow, his involvement is suddenly terminated.

When Cassidy Clarke joins the LAPD, she doesn’t plan on following in her father’s footsteps. Veteran detective Bill Clarke has big shoes to fill, but Cassidy has her own path to forge through the department’s tarnished reputation. She’s just getting started when a string of murders plagues the city: Young women are being strangled in their homes. The media incites an uncontainable frenzy. And no matter how many newspapers they’re splashed across, the Hollywood Hit Men are no closer to being found.

Other than the bullet lodged less than a centimeter from his heart, former Detroit police officer Alex McKnight thought he had put the nightmare of his partner’s death and his own near-fatal injury behind him. After all, Maximilian Rose, convicted of the crimes has been locked in the state pen for years. But in the small town of Paradise, Michigan, where McKnight has traded his badge for a cozy cabin in the woods, a murderer with Rose’s unmistakable trademarks appears to be back to his killing ways.

Lamar Pye has escaped from Oklahoma State Penitentiary, accompanied by his idiot cousin and a vicious but cowardly artist. To have stayed in prison was certain death, but his chances on the outside are not much greater: his excesses know no bounds - one killing follows another. But one murder brings his nemesis upon him: Bud Pewtie of the Highway Patrol loses his partner in a blood-soaked shoot-out with Lamar, and from that moment on, nothing will stop him from getting even.

Scott Weiss is a private detective. John Foy is a professional killer. The woman is Julie Wyant, a hooker with the face of an angel. Julie spent one night with Foy - a night of psychopathic cruelty that Foy called love. Desperate to get away from him, she vanished without a trace. And Foy wants her back. There's only one man who can find her: Weiss, the best locate operative in the business. She's begged him not to look for her, but Weiss can't stay away.

It starts off simply enough. (Doesn't it always?) Jack has been on hiatus since the tragic events in Harbingers. With his beloved Gia's encouragement he dips his toe back into the fix-it pool.Christy Pickering's 18-year-old daughter is dating Jerry Bethlehem, a man twice her age. Christy sensed something shady and sinister about him, so she hired a private investigator to look into his past. But the PI isn't returning her calls. Will Jack find out why?

Forty years’ accumulation of art, antiques, and family photographs are more than just objects for Stanley Peke - they are proof of a life fully lived. A life he could have easily lost long ago. When a con man steals his houseful of possessions in a sophisticated moving-day scam, Peke wanders helplessly through his empty New England home, inevitably reminded of another helpless time: decades in Peke’s past, a cold and threadbare Stanislaw Shmuel Pecoskowitz eked out a desperate existence in the war-torn Polish countryside, subsisting on scraps, dodging Nazi soldiers.

San Francisco homicide detective Jane Candiotti never shies away from the risks of the job. Now she’s finally ready to gamble on her personal life, inviting her partner and boyfriend Kenny Marks to move in. But just when domestic bliss settles in, Skip Lacey, an ex-cop turned junkie, is found brutally murdered, his eyes gouged out with a spoon. He is the first—but he won’t be the last.

Unable to escape his own past, Rick Cahill risks his life for a woman who is hiding her own. Rick Cahill was never convicted of his wife’s murder, but he was never exonerated either. Not by the police. Not by the media. Not even by himself. Eight years later, police suspicion and his own guilt remain over his responsibility in his wife’s death. When he meets Melody Malana, a beautiful yet secretive TV reporter, he sees a chance to love again. When she is arrested for murder and asks Rick for help, the former cop says no, but the rest of him says yes, and he grasps at a chance for love and redemption.

In a nation still recovering from the nuclear tragedies of forty years earlier, Clyde is working a dead-end guaranteed job at a diner, and Moonis is incarcerated in a Labor Camp for the Malcontented. But when Moonis's sister, Cecily, goes missing, the old friends escape their prisons to search for her in post-fallout America.

LAPD detective Michael Gideon and his German shepherd K-9 partner, Sirius, walked through fire to catch an infamous serial killer, and Gideon is still paying the price with his PTSD fire dreams. To assist the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, Gideon has agreed to monthly prison visits with Ellis Haines, a.k.a. the Weatherman. This time, a homicide case the FBI wants Haines to analyze sparks a chilling discovery: A new serial killer has struck, and he's lacing his crime scenes with hidden messages intended for Haines.

In the underbelly of Soho's organized crime ring, everyone knows that retired boxer Harry Woods is not one to mess with. And that goes double for his family. Harry has it all: the big house, the flashy cars, and an abundance of wealth. As much as money talks in his world, Harry knows deep down the only thing that really counts is family. Haunted by the sudden death of his wife, he'll do anything to protect his children, but truth is a heavy burden and hidden secrets can unravel even the strongest of bonds....

A beautiful woman paid it with her body. A seedy lawyer used somebody else's money. It's the vig - the exorbitant interest mob loan sharks take on their money. Now, in the city by the Bay, everyone has to pay.

Adam Murphy wants to be a serious journalist. Unfortunately, he spends his days writing copy about underwear and abs for a gay lifestyle magazine. When a troubled young porn star brings him a tip about a recently deceased marine's secret visit to an infamous pimp for underage boys, Adam is determined to break the story... until someone starts threatening his life.

Caleb Parker has been on the run from his past ever since his father, a serial murderer known by the name of Shame, was electrocuted by the state of Florida. Wishing for nothing more than to start life anew and away from the dark shadows of his past, Caleb tries to distance himself from his father’s legacy by moving to California. But even when he’s far from his father’s killing grounds, the past catches up with Caleb when a new series of murders occurs - reminiscent of Shame’s brutal handiwork. Once more Caleb is thrust into the spotlight - only this time as the prime suspect.

When David Perry confides the sordid details of his bitter divorce to a sympathetic stranger, he never imagines the nightmare he would unleash. Now his socialite wife is dead, brutally murdered by a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants…Veteran San Francisco homicide detective Jane Candiotti never allows her personal feelings to interfere with the job - until Jenna Perry is found strangled in the hills of Marin County.

"I was sitting at the end of the bar sipping single-malt Scotch when I spotted the tall blond woman with the large green eyes and the small gray gun."

The next thing Jake Lassiter knows, the woman pumps three bullets into the man on the next barstool. Lassiter, the linebacker-turned-lawyer, has a new client. She's a stunning South Beach model; the dead man is her wealthy father; and the murder case is a slam dunk for the prosecution. Or is it?

"Lassiter is smart, tough, funny, and very human...one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction." - Booklist

Miami lawyer Jake Lassiter has a dangerous conflict of interest. He's sleeping with Gina Florio...and defending her mobster husband in court for the wrongful death of an environmental activist. The homicidal Nick Florio has hatched a scheme deep in the Florida Everglades that oozes corruption, blood, and money. One false move, and Jake will be gator bait.