Mystery/Thriller

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  • Book cover image

    by Kalela Williams

    $19.99

    Noni Reid has grown up in the shadow of her mother, Dr. Radiance Castine, renowned scholar of Black literature, who is alarmingly perfect at just about everything.

    When Dr. Castine takes a job as the president of the prestigious Stonepost College in rural Virginia, Noni is forced to leave her New England home and, most importantly, a prime internship and her friends. She and her mother move into the “big house” on Tangleroot Plantation.

    Tangleroot was built by one of Noni’s ancestors, an enslaved man named Cuffee Fortune―who Dr. Castine believes was also the original founder of Stonepost College, and that the school was originally formed for Black students. Dr. Castine spends much of her time trying to piece together enough undeniable truth in order to change the name of the school in Cuffee’s honor―and to force the university to reckon with its own racist past.

    Meanwhile, Noni hates everything about her new home, but finds herself morbidly fascinated by the white, slaveholding family who once lived in it. Slowly, she begins to unpeel the layers of sinister history that envelop her Virginia town, her mother’s workplace, her ancestry―and her life story as she knew it. Through it all, she must navigate the ancient prejudices of the citizens in her small town, and ultimately, she finds herself both affirming her mother’s position and her own―but also discovering a secret that changes everything.

  • Book cover image

    by Stephen Graham Jones

    $29.99

    *ships or ready for pick up in 7 - 10 business days*

    1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, the unfairness of being on the outside, through the slasher horror he lives but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.

  • Beauty in the Blood: A Novel cover image

    Charlotte Carter

    $18.00

    A curse rolls out over centuries, murky and unknowable as swamp waters, shaping and destroying lives.

    Sarah Toomey is a successful young black lawyer, lovely but straitlaced– and afraid that she is losing her mind. Since the death of her mother, a force she can neither understand nor control is manipulating her memory and driving her to unexplained acts of violence and destruction. At the same time, Sarah is swept up in a highly charged relationship with a work colleague that portends a danger of its own. As she moves through her privileged life in New York, Sarah comes to learn how her past—her haunted history—is intertwined with America’s.

    Yvonne Howard was born into the working class. Now, after years as a prison guard, she has reinvented herself. Her passion for cooking has landed her a position at a trendy soul food restaurant, and she is looking forward to a glamorous career. Then an ex-inmate named Bitty appears, demanding Yvonne’s help investigating her brother’s shocking death. Before long, Bitty too is dead, and Yvonne is pulled back into a world of ugly violence. Smart but unschooled, Yvonne finds herself in the unlikely role of detective: it is she who must unravel the dark and blood-soaked history that not only doomed Bitty and her brother, but also determined beautiful Sarah Toomey’s fate.

  • Book cover image

    Monika Kim

    Sold out

    PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: January 27, 2025

    “Violent, smart, gruesome and wildly original, this novel pulls readers into a horrific world of murder and cannibalism while also critiquing misogyny, exploring Asian fetishization and stereotypes, sharing what it’s like to navigate two cultures and telling a touching story of a family in turmoil.” —New York Times Book Review

    TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF THE YEAR

    Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this brilliantly subversive, feminist psychological horror novel about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.

    Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying . . . yet enticing.

    In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Mouthwatering blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescendingly toward Ji-won and her sister, as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. But George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

    No matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

    "I was enticed from the first line and entertained throughout. The Eyes Are the Best Part is a quirky, engaging read."—Oyinkan Brainthwaite, author of My Sister, the Serial Killer

  • The Unvarnished Gary Phillips: A Mondo Pulp Collection

    by Gary Phillips

    $17.00

    *ship in 7-10 business days

    Award-winning author, screenwriter, and editor Gary Phillips gathers his most thrilling, outlandish, and madcap pulp fiction in an 17-story collection that straddles the line between bizarro, science fiction, noir, and superhero classics.

    Aztec vampires, astral projecting killers, oxygen stealing bombs, undercover space rangers, aliens occupying Los Angeles, right wing specters haunting the ’hood, masked vigilantes, and mad scientists in their underground lairs plotting world domination populate the stories in this rip-snorting collection. In these pages grindhouse melds with blaxploitation along with strong doses of B movie hardcore drive-in fare.

    Phillips, editor of the Anthony Award-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, and author of One-Shot Harry and Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem, said this about pulp. “The most common definition of pulp is it’s fast-paced, a story containing out there characters and a wild plot. There is that. But certainly, as we’ve now arrived at the era of retro-pulp, these stories have elements of characterization: not just action, but a glimpse behind the steely eyes of these doers of incredible deeds.” As an added bonus, Phillips resurrects Phantasmo, a Golden Age comics character created by Black artist-writer E.C. Stoner in an all-new outing of ethereal doings (includes 4 original illustrations by cover artist Adam Shaw).

  • Fall

    by Tracy Clark

    Sold out

    In the second book in the Detective Harriet Foster thriller series, author Tracy Clark weaves a twisted journey into the underbelly of Chicago as Harriet and her team work to unmask a serial killer stalking the city’s aldermen.

    The Chicago PD is on high alert when two city aldermen are found dead: one by apparent suicide, one brutally stabbed in his office, and both with thirty dimes left on their bodies—a betrayer’s payment. With no other clues, the question is, Who else has a debt to pay?

    Detective Harriet Foster is on the case before the killer can strike again. But even with the help of her partner, Detective Vera Li, and the rest of their team, Harriet has little to go on and a lot at risk. There’s no telling who the killer’s next target is or how many will come next.

    To stop another murder, Harriet and her officers will have to examine what the victims had going on behind the scenes to determine who could be tangled up in this web of betrayal…and who could be out for revenge.

  • The Ballad of Black Tom

    by Victor LaValle

    $13.99

    *ships in 7 -10 business days*

    A cosmic horror is rising in Red Hook, and Black Tom must either stop it or help it grow.

    People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there.

    Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.

    A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?

  • The Other Mistress: A Riveting Psychological Thriller with a Shocking Twist

    by Shanora Williams

    $16.95

    *ships in 7-10 business days* 

     

    In a deliciously twisty tale of seduction, betrayal, and obsession from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shanora Williams, a scorned wife isn’t the only one looking for answers—at any price . . . Perfect for fans of Tarryn Fisher, Lisa Jewell, and Alyssa Cole!


    Adira Smith-Cortez knows how to turn around a troubled past. Now she’s a self-made multi-millionaire who takes exquisite care of herself and her only true love: her husband, Gabriel. Adira has it all—except the answer to one tormenting question: why is attentive, affectionate Gabriel cheating on her—with not just one, but two women. There’s sexy Jocelyn, a club owner. And then there’s Julianna, a celebrity makeup artist he’s even crazier about. In a tricky twist, vengeful Jocelyn offers Adira the perfect plan to get her straying spouse back . . .

    It sounds simple: Adira will befriend Julianna through a fake identity, play on her and Gabriel’s vulnerabilities and cause them to split up permanently. Determined to reclaim her happiness, Adira won’t—can’t—stop to think what could possibly go wrong . . .

    Until too many of Gabriel’s lies start adding up to a disquieting truth. Until Julianna discovers who Adira really is—and Jocelyn pushes Adira to ever-more-unthinkable extremes. With her world collapsing and shattering memories tearing her apart, how far will Adira’s obsession take her—and how much of herself is she willing to lose in the process . . . 

     

  • The Overnights: An Ashe Cayne Novel (Book 3)

    by Ian K. Smith

    $30.00

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    Someone wants Morgan Shaw dead—or so the beautiful, brilliant, and hugely popular evening news anchor of top-rated Chicago TV station WLTV believes. Fearing for her safety, she turns to P. I. Ashe Cayne for protection. Though he sympathizes, Ashe turns her down—he’s not a bodyguard. But when Morgan’s car tires are slashed and she’s threatened again, Ashe agrees to help her.

    Her mysterious assailant isn’t the only threat worrying Morgan. She’s nervous about the upcoming “sweeps”—the all-important overnight ratings period—which will determine Chicago’s highest-rated television newscast and the city’s number-one anchor. Morgan has long been Chicago’s news queen. Now, though her crown is in jeopardy. She refuses to lose to her crosstown rival, and will risk everything to stay on top—including an audacious investigation into the suspicious shooting of an unarmed African American man by a white cop. The explosive case and her discoveries boost her ratings—and create powerful enemies eager to protect their secrets.

    To save his client and find the truth, Ashe must wade through the tangled layers of competitive local news and the deceptive schemes of its power players, and uncover the identities of those behind the murder of a seemingly innocent man.

  • Warrior Girl Unearthed

    by Angeline Boulley

    $19.99

    *ships in 7-10 business days*

    Sometimes the truth shouldn't stay buried.

    #1 New York Times bestselling author Angeline Boulley takes us back to the world of Firekeeper's Daughter in this high-stakes mystery about the power of discovering and reclaiming your stolen history.

    Perry Firekeeper-Birch has always known who she is - the laidback twin, the troublemaker, the best fisher on Sugar Island. Her aspirations won't ever take her far from home, and she wouldn't have it any other way. But as the rising number of missing Indigenous women starts circling closer to home, as her family becomes embroiled in a high-profile murder investigation, and as greedy grave robbers seek to profit off of what belongs to her Anishinaabe tribe, Perry begins to question everything.

    In order to reclaim this inheritance for her people, Perry has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. She can only count on her friends and allies, including her overachieving twin and a charming new boy in town with unwavering morals. Old rivalries, sister secrets, and botched heists cannot - will not - stop her from uncovering the mystery before the ancestors and missing women are lost forever.

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