Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Hard-Boiled

A gritty and thrilling anthology of 28 new short stories in tribute to pulp noir master, Cornell Woolrich, author of 'Rear Window', the inspiration behind Alfred Hitchock's classic film. Featuring Neil Gaiman, Kim Newman, James Sallis, A.K. Benedict, USA Today-bestseller Samantha Lee Howe, Joe R. Lansdale and many more.

DCI Alison McCoist is back: newly promoted and even less popular. Chuck Gardner is the proud owner of both a confidential paper-shredding business and a serious betting habit. When Chuck finds some scandalous paperwork and McCoist investigates a rat-nibbled corpse under a flyover, they are both sucked into a deadly stramash of gangland wars and police corruption.

Fall, 1947. New York City. Private Investigator Ida Davis has been called to New York by her old partner, Michael Talbot, to investigate a brutal killing spree in a Harlem flophouse that has left four people dead. But as they delve deeper into the case, Ida and Michael realize the murders are part of a larger conspiracy that stretches further than they ever could have imagined. Meanwhile, Ida’s childhood friend, Louis Armstrong, is at his lowest ebb.

Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it's dumb and harmless until it's too late to think otherwise. Then there's Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighbourhood wrongs through acts of violence.

Los Angeles. Christmas, 1967. A city on fire as a killer strikes. A young nurse, Kerry Gaudet, travels to the City of Angels desperate to find her missing brother, fearing that something terrible has happened to him: a serial killer is terrorising the city, picking victims at random, and Kerry has precious few leads. Ida Young, recently retired private investigator, is dragged into helping the police when a young woman is discovered murdered in her motel room. Ida has never met the victim, but her name has been found at the crime scene and the LAPD wants to know why.

It's a steamy, sultry day in a Mediterranean summer. Wealthy lawyer Terrence, his wife Cathy, their daughter Lucy, and a doctor are relaxing on the yacht that is Terence's pride and joy. Suddenly, a storm whips up from nowhere.

Houston publishes so many books a year that he can't possibly write them himself. He has a ghost team; writers, agents, publishers. So when he takes a year out to write something of quality, a novel that will win prizes, a lot of people stand to lose their livelihoods. Now Houston, the prime suspect in his wife's murder, has disappeared. He could be anywhere and there are many who'd like to find him.

Robert Finlay is looking forward to returning to uniform policing and a less stressful life. But fate has other plans. Finlay's traumatic past is about to return to haunt him. A policeman is killed by a bomb blast, and a second is gunned down; both were former army colleagues from Finlay's own SAS regiment. And so begins a game of cat and mouse, a wicked game in which Finlay is in embroiled in a fight against a determined and unidentified enemy.

Two small children - playing a game called 'Witch-Hunter' - place a curse on a young woman eating lunch in a church courtyard. An hour later the woman is found dead. Then a society photographer is stabbed to death in a nearby park and suddenly a link emerges between the two cases. As the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit investigate, they realise that the case might not just end in disaster - it might also get everyone killed.

On New Year’s Day, a wealthy family is found slaughtered inside their exclusive gated community in north London, their youngest child stolen away. The murder weapon is a gun for stunning cattle, leading Detective Max Wolfe to a dusty corner of Scotland Yard’s Black Museum devoted to a killer who thirty years ago was known as the Slaughter Man. But the Slaughter Man is now old and dying. Can he really be back in the game?

Reeling from the attempts on his life and the lives of his family, Police Inspector Robert Finlay returns to work. His first job - to investigate the Eastern European sex-slave industry, just as a key witness is murdered. Finlay, along with his new partner, Nina Brasov, finds himself facing a ruthless criminal gang determined to keep control at all costs. Finlay's efforts to protect his wife and child may have been in vain, though, as an MI5 protection officer uncovers a covert secret service operation that threatens them all....

When the body of pregnant 15-year-old Hope Lacey is discovered in a churchyard on Christmas morning, the community is shocked, but unsurprised. For Hope lived in The Home, the residence of three young girls, whose violent and disturbing pasts have seen them cloistered away. As a police investigation gets underway, the lives of Hope, Lara and Annie are examined, and the staff who work at the home are interviewed, leading to shocking and distressing revelations...and clear evidence that someone is seeking revenge.

Robert Finlay seems to have finally left his SAS past behind him and is settled into his new career as a detective. But when the author of a book about secret operations goes missing, along with his agent and an explosive new manuscript, it’s clear that Finlay’s troubles are far from over. With his friend and former colleague, Kevin Jones, in trouble, and police complaints branch gunning for them both, Robert teams up with MI5 agent Toni Fellowes to find out who’s behind the growing conspiracy.

Pinion, Minnesota: a huge city of all of 700 folks who define the phrase ‘small town’. Nothing has ever happened in Pinion, and nothing ever will...until the mayor of sorts comes up with a scheme to put Pinion on the map. He’s heard of a place where a floating image of the Virgin Mary turned the whole town into a shrine, attracting thousands of curious people and making the townsfolk rich overnight. Why not stage a prank in Pinion and do the same? What could go wrong? And then a dead body shows up.

PI John Craine has come to Hale Island to get away from it all. But within hours he stumbles across the dead body of a young girl on the beach. When the police arrive the body has inexplicably disappeared. Or did Craine imagine it in the first place? Determined to get at the truth, Craine starts asking questions. But it seems that no one on the island is talking. And all too soon he finds himself tangled up in a deadly network of fear and violence…

When notorious gangster "Fat Sam" Mahood is murdered, the chief suspect is arrested nearby. But he seems to have suffered a breakdown. Incarcerated in a mental institution, he's known only as the Man in the White Suit. The suspect remains an enigma until Nurse Brenda calls on Mystery Man, Belfast's finest mystery bookshop owner, to bring his powers of investigation to bear....

Rome: McCabe and Chip, two American exchange students, are about to become embroiled with a violent street gang. Detroit: Sharon Vanelli's affair with Joey Palermo, a Mafia enforcer, is about to be discovered by her husband, Ray. Brilliantly plotted and shot through with wry humour, All He Saw Was the Girl takes place as these two narratives converge in the backstreets of Italy’s oldest city.

In 1938, English spy Harry Taverner and Jewish photographer Anna Cantrell spend the night dancing at Berlin's most elegant hotel. Anna is married to another man, the Nazi shadow is rising over Europe and neither expects to ever meet again. But once peace is declared, they reunite in the ruins of Berlin, where Anna is searching for her missing children. With the blockade tightening and the Soviets set on conquest, Harry and Anna walk a treacherous line between love and duty, integrity and survival, loyalty and betrayal.

There's something sinister about Drumdalloch Woods in the Black Isle near Inverness. It is a place of tangled growth and shadowy darkness, it has business opportunists, biological scientists and conflicted family members all competing for a say in its future. Then a body is found, and everything starts to look suspicious. As DCI Kelso Strang's investigation grows more complex, he unearths layers of hatred, greed and revenge that cast doubt even on the local police force.

As mid-winter temperatures grip the cathedral city of Ely, a man is found frozen to death in his high-rise flat. The police may think that Declan McIlroy killed himself, but journalist Philip Dryden is not convinced, and he begins digging for the truth. All too soon, there's another frozen corpse to consider–that of Declan's best friend. And suddenly a routine suicide gives way to a chilling trail of cruelty and betrayal stretching back thirty years, towards a mystery from Dryden's own childhood.