Showing results for "Hard Times" in Crime Fiction

While driving home after celebrating friend Murray Ryerson's big break into TV hosting, V.I. almost collides with a fatally wounded woman lying in the street. The deceased is Nicola Aguinaldo, former employee of security giant B.B. Baladine and recent prison runaway. Taking on the case, V.I. finds herself plunged into a sinister network of corruption that pits her against the police, the prison and the entertainment industry - with potentially lethal results.

Johns are dying in Barnstow. It was bound to happen eventually, in a city where legal prostitution is a big part of the tourist industry, but not so many so fast. And of course, if there are dead bodies in Barnstow, Detective Jimmy Delaney isn’t far away.

Jonas kills people...with his mind. He reaches out, focuses for a moment, and feels a snap of pain between his eyes. Then his target falls over dead: a hole in the center of their brains. The cause of death is unknown to all aside from Jonas, and his lone companion, Bubbles, a sarcastic AI with aspirations to be more human, or a serial killer. One of the two. Maybe both. Jonas calls his ability...mind bullet.

In all of Jack Winchester's years, a job has never been more dangerous. When a shocking visit from a mysterious stranger lays before him a seemingly impossible task, Jack travels to Honduras. But when he's framed for a murder he didn't commit, he's thrown into the most violent prison in the country to serve hard time. Now he must unravel who betrayed him while trying to survive against brutal criminals who fight to the death for a corrupt prison warden. No rules. No escape. No mercy. Revenge will be deadly.

It starts with a few near-accidents: A car almost swipes Mike Hammer when he’s crossing the street. A junkie robs the notoriously hardboiled detective at knifepoint. A fight on a subway platform comes close to pushing him in front of a train. While any one of these could be a coincidence, together they make a conspiracy—one that Hammer will have to end in order to survive. And when it comes to finishing something—or someone—nobody does it better than Hammer.

Veteran pilot Tyler Zahn is finally recovering from the tragedies that cost him his family and drove him from the Air Force, when his best friend, Kristee Li, disappears on a remote search and rescue mission. A massive effort to find her fails. No clues. No body. Kristee is presumed dead. A fellow team member claims the disappearance is no accident and Zahn begins to question what really happened in the mountains. Who would have wanted Kristee dead? More importantly...why? Plagued with grief, Zahn probes for answers.

Crime writer Julia Gooden has just completed the most important story of her life - a book about her beloved brother's childhood abduction and how she found his killer after 30 years. But that hasn't taken her focus off her day job - especially with what looks to be a serial killer terrorizing the city. Female runners are being snatched off jogging trails, then slaughtered in abandoned churches. As Julia begins investigating, with help from Detective Raymond Navarro, she realizes just how personal this case has become.

A comic vignette in which a carnival barker's valuable watch gets stolen during an illegal poker game. The local sheriff seems in no hurry to apprehend the thief, until a reward is offered.