Crime Fiction: A Sampler
Explore a curated list of must-read crime fiction books in this sampler. Discover thrilling mysteries, gripping detective stories, and suspenseful tales from top authors.
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Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Hailed by Washington Post Book World as “the best [translation] currently available" when it was first published, this second edition of Crime and Punishment has been updated in honor of the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth. • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky's astounding pyschological thriller, newly revised for his bicentenniel. In Crime and Punishment, when Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that is almost unequalled in world literature for its excruciating suspense, its atmospheric vividness, and its depth of characterization and vision. Dostoevsky’s drama of sin, guilt, and redemption transforms the sordid story of an old woman’s murder into the nineteenth century’s profoundest and most compelling philosophical novel.
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The Little Sleep
by Paul Tremblay
Raymond Chandler meets Jonathan Lethem in this wickedly entertaining debut featuring Mark Genevich, Narcoleptic Detective Mark Genevich is a South Boston P.I. with a little problem: he's narcoleptic, and he suffers from the most severe symptoms, including hypnogogic hallucinations. These waking dreams wreak havoc for a guy who depends on real-life clues to make his living. Clients haven't exactly been beating down the door when Mark meets Jennifer Times--daughter of the powerful local D.A. and a contestant on American Star--who walks into his office with an outlandish story about a man who stole her fingers. He awakes from his latest hallucination alone, but on his desk is a manila envelope containing risqué photos of Jennifer. Are the pictures real, and if so, is Mark hunting a blackmailer, or worse? Wildly imaginative and with a pitch-perfect voice, The Little Sleep is the first in a new series that casts a fresh eye on the rigors of detective work, and introduces a character who has a lot to prove--if only he can stay awake long enough to do it.
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Lush Life
by Richard Price
When a cocky young hipster is shot by a street kid from the "other" Lower East Side, the crime ripples through every stratum of the city, in this brilliant and kaleidoscopic portrait of the "new" New York.
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Clockers
by Richard Price
Crack-dealers known as "Clockers" are at the bottom of the drug-dealing ladder, and they must commit murder to rise higher.
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The Wanderers
by Richard Price
The Wanderers, a teenage gang in the 1960s Bronx, are coming of age and drifting apart. Tormented by cold-hearted girls and cold-blooded ten-year-olds, maniacal gangs and murderous parents, they are caught between the juveniles and the adults. This is the acclaimed writer's first book, which he wrote when he was only twenty-four, and the basis for a major feature film.
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The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death
by Charlie Huston
Working on a crime-scene clean-up crew, disaffected slacker Web Goodhue is hired by the daughter of a Malibu suicide victim who enlists his help in getting her brother out of trouble, making him the target of some gun-toting L.A. cowboys who are out for b
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A Saint on Death Row
by Thomas Cahill
Relates the life of an African American inmate, sentenced to death for taking part in a robbery in which a victim was killed, and for whom opponents of the death penalty spent twelve years unsuccessfuly trying to have the case reviewed and his sentence ov
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The Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler
The renowned novel from the crime fiction master, with the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times), Philip Marlowe. • Featuring the iconic character that inspired the film Marlowe, starring Liam Neeson. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in. “Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.” —The New York Times Book Review
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Badass Horror
by Michael Hemmingson
Seven stories written by some of the best writers of modern fiction including Garry Kilworth, Ron Damien Malfi, Michael Boatman, and Michael Hemmingson reach to the edge of human endurance and push all the harder.
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Voices from the Other Side
by Brandon Massey
16 nightmarish excursions into the other side from stellar black authors, including Eric Jerome Dickey, Linda Addison and Terence Taylor.
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God Laughs When You Die
by Michael Boatman
A host of drug dealers meets a foe they cannot kill. The president accidentally invites demons into the country and watches the pope turn into a sabertooth tiger. A man, dead since 1920, lives again in present day Los Angeles to satiate a malevolent goddess. These tales by Michael Boatman will disturb, terrify and traumatize you. Boatman grabs you by throat and drags you kicking and screaming through his prose. With a dash of Lansdale and a smattering of Martina's Wild Cards, the tales within inhabit the dark and nasty side of our souls, and throughout Boatman infuses it all with a keen wit and an eye for detail. And when he lets you up to breathe, like God, you might just find yourself laughing. This is the sort of stuff I like to read as the bells sound midnight. Paul Haines award-winning author of Doorways for the Dispossessed Boatman's debut collection will knock you down and kick you in the teeth. Alternatingly hysterical, grotesque, bizarre, and fantastic, Boatman's collection is a must-read for anyone itching to get their hands on fresh new fiction that pulls no punches. Ronald Damien Malfi, author of The Nature of Monsters and The Fall of Never Michael Boatman writes like a visitor from hell. Someone out on short term leave for bad behavior. I love this stuff. He's one of the new, and more than promising, writers making his mark, and a dark and wonderful mark it is. Joe R. Lansdale
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Dead Run
by Joe Jackson
In June, 1983, Dennis Stockton entered death row in Virginia's state penitentiary, convicted of a murder he insisted he had not committed. For the next twelve years he remained there, during which time he helped plan the only successful mass escape from death row in U.S. history (though he ultimately decided not to join the escapees), developed a career as a writer through a diary and newspaper columns, and continually proclaimed his innocence. His explosive diary entries -- published in the (Norfolk) Virginian Pilot -- about life on death row made him a marked man among prisoners and guards alike; this calumny only strengthened his resolve to clear his name. However, despite strong evidence of his innocence, Stockton was executed on September 27, 1995.
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Scooby-Doo! Storybook Collection
by Jesse Leon McCann
Scooby-Doo and his friends solve eight mysteries.
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Howling on the Playground
by Gail Herman
Scooby Doo and his friends are helping to build a playground when a neighbor tries to stop construction because she hears werewolves in the area.
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Scooby-Doo! and the Sunken Ship
by James Gelsey
Scooby-Doo and the gang are excited about a beach party at Sandy Cove, but rumors of a pirate's hidden treasure have the locals acting fishy and a ghost acting frightful.
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The Haunted Road Trip
by Gail Herman
Scooby-Doo and the gang are going on a road trip, but Yikes! Suddenly everything turns spooky when a thunderstorm forces the gang to stay overnight at the "Creepy Motel." Is it really haunted? Find out in a new Scooby-Doo Reader.
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Meet Big Foot
by Michelle H. Nagler
Is Big Foot hiding in the woods? It's another mystery for Scooby-Doo.
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Scooby-Doo! and the Cactus Creature
by James Gelsey
When Scooby Doo and the gang go to the desert to see a music video being filmed, a cactus creature sabotages the set, and it's up to the gang to capture the culprit.
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Scooby-Doo! and the Zombie's Treasure
by James Gelsey
Camping near an abandoned mine, Scooby-Doo and his friends search for a treasure-stealing zombie.
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The Haunted Halloween Party
by Gail Herman
"It's Halloween in Coolsville and Scooby and the gang are invited to a super-groovy Halloween party!"--P. [4] of cover.
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The Roller Ghoster
by Joy Brewster
Scooby, Shaggy, and their friends are enjoying the rides at Thrill Rides theme park, but a mishap on one of the rides causes them to search for a ghost haunting the roller coaster.
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Scooby-Doo! Snack-tastic Storybook Treasury
by Jesse Leon McCann
Scooby-Doo! and the Weird Water Park -- Scooby-Doo! in Jungle Jeopardy --Scooby-Doo! and the Opera Ogre -- Scooby-doo! and the Phantom Cowboy -- Scooby-Doo! and the Ghastly Giant -- Scooby-Doo! and the Tiki's Curse.
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Dinosaur Dig
by Erin Soderberg
Uncle Ted gets Scooby-Doo and his friends to help find dinosaur bones for the museum, but the bones turn up missing. Can Scooby and his friends find the bones?
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Scooby-Doo! and the Phantom Cowboy
by Jesse Leon McCann
When Scooby-Doo and his friends visit Phantom Gulch, a Wild West theme park, they discover it is closing because the staff and customers are being chased out of town by a spooky cowboy riding a haunted buffalo.