Down Out Books: 337 books

The real estate mogul is lying about something, but his wife really was raped twenty-years ago in an unsolved assault. Now she’s long dead by her own hand, the case has gone cold, and the mogul starts dropping cash into former Saint Ansgar homicide detective turned private eye Richard Dean Buckner’s...

When the mob finds itself on hard times and has to lay people off, the boss decides to give two different hitters separate lists of "overdue accounts" — a backlist — to see who distinguishes themselves enough to remain on the payroll. The sharp-tongued Bricks and the hapless,...

Jon Catlett, a misanthropic literary obsessive, is facing the loss of the only thing in the world he loves; his used bookstore, a haven for fellow weirdos, outcasts, misunderstood geniuses and malcontents. Jon has several other problems, the least of which are his love affair with a bi-polar femme...

Hardboiled. Softboiled. Noir. East Coast. West Coast. And all points in between. Whatever you call them, gumshoe, shamus, Pinkerton, detective, private eye, P.I., shadow, tail, investigator, and wherever you need them, from East to West, North to South. They’re all here. From the hard...

Inspired by the outcasts, outlaws, and other outré inhabitants of rock legend Lou Reed’s songbook, Dirty Boulevard traffics in crime fiction that’s sometimes velvety and sometimes vicious, but always, absolutely, rock & roll. Inside, you’ll find stories from the fire escapes to the underground,...

Billy Lafitte, former Deputy-Sheriff and motorcycle gang enforcer, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. For some of his enemies, that’s still not enough punishment. Agents Colleen Hartle and Franklin Rome want Lafitte dead so bad, they’ve put a price...

Joe Campion is the kind of teacher any child would want for their class. He’s also the kind of teacher who never turns down a drink, a smoke or a lay. When Joe finds out some of his students are suffering abuse, he doesn’t trust the system to take care of it. His impulsive nature, dedication...

Murder is trending… Hipsters are getting slashed to pieces in the hippest neighborhood in New York City: Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As fear and tension rise in the summer heat, police detectives Petrosino and Hadid eye local gangbangers for the crimes. Meanwhile, slacker reporter Tony Moran...

Joe Portugal’s experienced killing before. He’s seen gunmen mow down a friend on little more than a whim. He’s known greed and ambition to drive his friends to murder. But now he’s face to face with a whole new degree of wickedness. A show business prodigy has been shot dead. Though...

With The Innocents, Bearing Secrets and The Ghosts of Morning, Richard Barre has emerged as “one of the best hard-boiled detective novelists of the ’90s” (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review). Now, with Blackheart Highway, he takes the genre for the ride of its life. Southern California...

Selena is living the dream on her terms—carefree and sloppy and all in the pursuit of pleasure. When a careless act of petty theft puts her in the crosshairs of a violent crime syndicate, her choices are clear—either curl up and die, or tear down the whole damned organization one bloody shotgun...

Dead Guy in the Bathtub is a collection of crime stories with a dark sense of humor and irony. These characters are on the edge and spiraling out of control. Bad situations become serious circumstances that double down on worst-case scenarios. A Lou Reed fan gets himself caught on the wild side. A...

Wiley is a man who's drifting through the remains of his torn-up life like a ghost, playing poker to make ends meet but always on the edge of the abyss, not quite sure whether his minimal efforts at life are worth the trouble. When the estranged daughter he hasn't spoken to in a year turns...

BROOKLYN JUSTICE is a wild ride through the streets of the Borough of Churches. Private investigator Nick Ventura knows trouble — but not how to keep his nose out of it. A pool of blood spreading across a casino poker table, a Buick plowing through a storefront with a dead detective aboard, a fatal...