Urban crime novels
Explore gripping urban crime novels with our curated list of the best books set in city underworlds. Discover thrilling tales of mystery, suspense, and gritty detective stories.
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Now and Then
by Robert B. Parker
Investigating a new client's unfaithful wife, Boston private eye Spenser finds himself in trouble when the case goes terribly wrong and three people wind up dead, a situation that reveals the wife's lover's ties to a terrorist organization.
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5 Shots
by Jemir Johnson
What you do in the dark is your business ... keeping it there is hers. Jay Nova is a private eye ... a "fixer" ... the right one to call at the wrong time. Armed with a semi automatic and mind reading abilities she goes where others won't, to do what they can't ... if the money;s right. But when jobs get nastier and clients with things to hide plot her death, she'll need more than a strong hustle and good aim to make it through. 5 Shots - a graphic novel collection about crime, murder and a mind reader caught in the middle - shows what happens when violence isn't the best answer ... but the only one
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Spare Change
by Robert B. Parker
Called back from retirement when a serial killer from a long-unsolved case reemerges, detective Phil Randall teams up with daughter and Boston private eye Sunny Randall throughout a series of murder investigations in which the victims unsettlingly resemble Sunny. 250,000 first printing.
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Neitherworld Book One Akiiwan
by Scott Baker
Blending Native American myth, archaeological detail, government conspiracy and a sci-fi flair, Neitherworld covers lots of ground with dexterity and grace. This unique story is populated with alien civilizations, 17th-century Ojibwe shamans, shady government agents and archaeologists. Akiiwan begins in the 1600s, when a talented Native American shaman-Voice-in-the-Sky-is contacted by members of an alien race who are interested sharing with the Ojibwe people their secrets and talents. Fast-forward to the modern day: government agents hire skilled archaeologist Samantha Horner to learn more about Voice-in-the-Sky's mysterious powers. But from the moment her excavation begins, strange occurrences - violent storms, unexpected attacks on crew members and baffling disappearances - suggest to Horner that something strange is afoot. Horner's tale is told with skillful ease. The prose is elegant and precise. The descriptions-both of characters and of the natural world-are beautiful and evocative.
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American Gangster
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The novelization of the major motion picture from Universal Pictures about Frank Lucas, drug czar of Harlem. The film stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, and is directed by Ridley Scott. For decades the Mafia controlled the flow of heroin onto the streets of Harlem. Frank Lucas changed all that. Born in rural North Carolina, he came to New York and rose to power under notorious mobster Bumpy Johnson. When Bumpy died, Frank moved to take over the drug business. Caught in a squeeze play between the Mafia and the street dealers, Frank got creative. Instead of being a tool of the mob, he went straight to the source--Cambodia--and set up his own unique distribution system. Using his brothers as his lieutenants and selling "quality" heroin in trademark blue plastic bags, Frank Lucas and his "Country Boys" became the kings of One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Street. Frank had it made. He was rich, successful, and untouchable. . . . . . . until Richie Roberts came along. Roberts, the Eliot Ness of drug enforcement, became a pariah among other detectives in the NYPD when he turned in the million dollars in cash he found in the trunk of a dealer's car. His personal life was a mess--his wife left him, and his son hardly knew him anymore--but on the job, Roberts was all business, and his business, heading up a Federal Narcotics Squad, was busting big-time dealers. His next target? Frank Lucas. This violent, action-filled chronicle of a uniquely American family.is based on Ridley Scott's film, itself based on a New York magazine profile, "The Return of Superfly" by Mark Jacobson.
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Before the Dawn
by Max Allan Collins
In 2019, Max, a beautiful, streetwise member of a gang of thieves and a genetically altered super-soldier who escaped from the top-secret agency that created her, finds her past coming back to haunt her as she heads for Seattle to confront one of her fellow escapees. Original. (The FOX television series, created by James Cameron & Charles Eglee, starring Jessica Alba & Michael Weatherly) (Science Fiction & Fantasy)
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Skin Game
by Max Allan Collins
The saga of Dark Angel continues! Someone is killing normal humans in the fog-enshrouded city of Seattle. The murders are brutal and grisly, but inside Terminal City they barely cause a ripple of concern. The transgenics who live there have problems of their own. In an area under siege by the oppressive arm of the police, the transgenics must protect their fledgling colony against the outside world--a world that eyes them with contempt and suspicion . . . and will do anything to be rid of them. As the killings escalate, Joshua comes to Max with a dire suspicion: the killer may be one of their own. Tensions are high between normal humans and transgenics, and many inside the protected City would just as soon let the humans fend for themselves. Yet Max and her inner circle know they must investigate the crimes and stop the bloodshed. Doing nothing would simply give the normals more reasons to hate. But what they discover will shock even the most jaded among them--and expose a sinister agenda that leads to an old, nefarious foe. . . .
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Bones
by Max Allan Collins
An original novel based on Fox's new hit television series, inspired by real-life forensic anthropologist and novelist Kathy Reichs, creator of the Temperance Brennan series. Original.
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The Last Quarry
by Max Allan Collins
On the 30th anniversary of his first appearance, enigmatic assassin Quarry stars in this gritty novel inspired by Collins's award-winning short film "A Matter of Principal," written for his acclaimed anthology movie "Shades of Noir." Lured out of retirement, Quarry is hired to kill a young librarian. He doesn't count on falling in love. Original.
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Road to Perdition
by Max Allan Collins
The basis for the major motion picture, ROAD TO PERDITION is an enthralling crime noir story of revenge, morality and family loyalty. Michael OSullivan is a deeply religious family man who works as an Irish mob familys chief enforcer. But after his elder son witnesses one of his fathers hits, the godfather orders the death of OSullivans entire family. Barely surviving an encounter that takes his wife and younger son, OSullivan and his remaining child embark on a dark and violent mission of retribution against his former boss. Featuring accurate portrayals of Al Capone, Frank Nitti and Eliot Ness, this book offers a poignant look at the relationship between a morally-conflicted father and his adolescent son who both fears and worships him.
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Beloved
by Toni Morrison
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author. This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. “A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times
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Sula
by Toni Morrison
Two black women grow up in a small Ohio town, mature along sharply divergent paths, confront and reconcile with each other.
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Sula
by Toni Morrison
In clear, dark, resonant language, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison brilliantly evokes not only a bond between two lives, but the harsh, loveless, ultimately mad world in which that bond is destroyed, the world of the Bottom and its people. Unabridged. 5 CDs.
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A Day Late and a Dollar Short
by Terry McMillan
“Without question, this is McMillan’s best. A glorious novel....A moving tapestry of familial love and redemption.”—The Washington Post With her hallmark exuberance and a cast of characters so sassy, resilient, and full of life that they breathe, dream, and shout right off the page, Terry McMillan has given us a tour-de-force novel of family, healing, and redemption. A Day Late and a Dollar Short takes us deep into the hearts, minds, and souls of America—and gives us six more friends we never want to leave.
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First Shot, Last Call
by Brian Azzarello
Written by Brian Azzarello; Art by Eduardo Risso, and Dave Johnson In this dark and intriguing trade paperback, the mysterious Agent Graves approaches ordinary citizens and gives them an opportunity to exact revenge on a person that has wronged them. Offering his clients an attachďż˝ case containing proof of the deed and a gun, he guarantees his "clients" full immunity for all of their actions, including murder. In these opening chapters, Dizzy Cordova, a Latina gangbanger who has just finished a prison sentence, is given the chance to avenge her family's murders, and a downtrodden bartender receives the opportunity to exact revenge against the woman that ruined his life.
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The World at Night
by Alan Furst
“First-rate research collaborates with first-rate imagination. . . . Superb.”—The Boston Globe Paris, 1940. The civilized, upper-class life of film producer Jean Casson is derailed by the German occupation of Paris, but Casson learns that with enough money, compromise, and connections, one need not deny oneself the pleasures of Parisian life. Somewhere inside Casson, though, is a stubborn romantic streak. When he’s offered the chance to take part in an operation of the British secret service, this idealism gives him the courage to say yes. A simple mission, but it goes wrong, and Casson realizes he must gamble everything—his career, the woman he loves, life itself. Here is a brilliant re-creation of France—its spirit in the moment of defeat, its valor in the moment of rebirth. Praise for The World at Night “[The World at Night] earns a comparison with the serious entertainments of Graham Greene and John le Carré. . . . Gripping, beautifully detailed . . . an absorbing glimpse into the moral maze of espionage.”—Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times “[The World at Night] is the world of Eric Ambler, the pioneering British author of classic World War II espionage fiction. . . . The novel is full of keen dialogue and witty commentary . . . . Thrilling.”—Herbert Mitgang, Chicago Tribune “With the authority of solid research and a true fascination for his material, Mr. Furst makes idealism, heroism, and sacrifice believable and real.”—David Walton, The Dallas Morning News
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Red Gold
by Alan Furst
Deep in occupied France, Red Gold moves with quiet menace as predators from the dark edge of war.