In Terry Shames' debut A Killing at Cotton Hill, the chief of police of Jarrett Creek, Texas, doubles as the town drunk. So when Dora Lee Parjeter is murdered, her old friend and former police chief Samuel Craddock steps in. He discovers that a lot of people may have had it in for Dora Lee--the conniving rascals on the farm next door, her estranged daughter, and her live-in grandson. And then there's that stranger Dora Lee claimed was spying on her. As Craddock digs to find the identity of the killer, the human foibles of the small-town residents-their pettiness and generosity, their secret vices and true virtues-are also revealed.

Former FBI profiler Hugo Marston is back in Mark Pryor's second mystery-cum-thriller, The Crypt Thief, this time investigating a killer and twisted grave robber before he becomes the target. Taking place about six months after the events of The Bookseller, many favorite characters are back and the action and suspense never let up. Haunting imagery sets the stage in this second novel, says RT Book Reviews, "and the City of Light becomes a backdrop for Marston's adventures. The clever antagonist leads him on a merry chase that will keep [you] entertained throughout."

Cowboy boot-wearing Hugo Marston made his debut in The Bookseller. When he witnesses his friend Max--an elderly Paris bookstall owner--abducted at gunpoint, Hugo launches a search that reveals Max's dark past.  Soon, more booksellers are found dead while street gangs erupt in violent turf wars. Can Hugo connect the two and solve the puzzle before he becomes a target himself? With "enough intrigue to satisfy every reader," says RT Book Review, this is "a fantastic debut!"

What happens to your career as an attorney when your boss suddenly commits suicide and you develop stage fright in the courtroom?  In Robert Rotstein's debut Corrupt Practices life gets pretty grim for Parker Stern.

 

But when a powerful cultlike church charges his former colleague with embezzling millions, Parker may be the only one who can help.  To represent his friend and client he must unearth the church's gruesome secrets and overcome his own long-buried past. "Not since Grisham's 'magic' with The Firm has a novel been this fast-paced, offering thrills and twists and plot changes galore... We're talking pure adrenaline!" says Suspense Magazine.

Detective Sean Duffy is back in I Hear the Sirens in the Street , book two of Irish crime novelist Adrian McKinty's highly praised Troubles Trilogy (which was just shortlisted for best fiction in Australia's Ned Kelly Awards). Duffy, shaken after the trauma he experienced in The Cold Cold Ground, now investigates a brutal crime--a torso found in a suitcase. Before long, Detective Duffy is caught in a tangle of romantic instincts, gross professional misconduct, and powerful men he should know better than to mess with.

 

Life is never easy when you're an outcast, but to be an albino of mixed race working in a mob-run speakeasy in Prohibition-Era Hell's Kitchen, life is can also be very dangerous. In John Florio's Sugar Pop Moon Jersey Leo, known as "Snowball" on the streets, accidentally buys counterfeit moonshine ("sugar pop moon") with his boss's money, forcing him to go undercover to track down the bootlegger who took him in.