Mystery/Thriller

  • The Turning of Sally-Mae
    $18.99

    A historical African-Wild West horror story of supernatural vengeance and terrifying occultic magic from the winner of the Bram Stoker Award® for Lifetime Achievement. Two fearsome deities battle each other for the souls of white twins destined to either bring vengeful devastation or salvation to their community in Texas, USA, for a great injustice done to their mother.

    When Sally-Mae Jenkins is violated and impregnated by the twin scions of a wealthy rancher, she’s sent to join the African missionary ship as a widow. Pregnant and terrified, Sally-Mae vows vengeance on all those who abused her and her family.

    Amara is a young woman with the body and face of an old hag. The village outcast, Amara can ‘eat’ the diseases ravaging the villagers and cure the most deadly ailments. But her powers drain her youth and her strength and the only help she has is the fearsome entity that claimed her soul, the spirit known as Aja-Mmọ, the death-giver and physician of the dead.

    When Sally-Mae arrives in Amara’s village, her unborn twins become the focus of both the Python-Goddess, Asata, who wants the twins dead, and Aja-Mmọ, who wants the twins alive in her service, just like Amara. And suddenly, Sally-Mae finds the boys, with their unearthly and fearsome powers, have become the weapons of her vengeance against the unsuspecting citizens of her home town back in Texas….

    A gripping tale of supernatural horror, bitter revenge and battling deities, suffused with Onoh’s trademark thrilling storytelling, wit and dark humor.

  • PRE-ORDER: Girl Number 8
    $30.00

    In a bustling and class-divided Nigerian state, a strong-willed female detective is called to the mansion of a wealthy politician to investigate the disappearance of a house girl’s daughter.

    Olori’s four-year-old daughter, Frieda, has vanished. Working as a house girl for wealthy politician Samson Buzugbe, Olori suspects his wife knows more than she’s saying. But no one—certainly not the police—listens to domestic workers. And Olori has so much regret when it comes to her girl.

    What begins as a missing child case takes a sinister turn when Detective Sola Adeyemi, head of the police’s Department of Ritualistic Murders and Human Sacrifice, is called to investigate. Frieda is the eighth child to disappear in the lead-up to an important election day. And for the superstitious in Nigeria, the girl’s light green eyes put her in particular danger.

    As the election looms and Sola’s personal life unravels, she discovers the crime may just reach the highest levels of power. It’s up to her to find Frieda. But proving ritualistic involvement won’t be easy.

    Fans of Tana French and Oyinkan Braithwaite will be captivated by this electrifying exploration of maternal guilt, systemic corruption, and the deadly price of superstition.

  • PRE-ORDER: There Used to Be People Here
    $30.00

    In 1970s Mississippi, a Black detective and his temporary partner are assigned to a case that shifts from murder to paranormal conspiracy with life-altering repercussions.

    Wenton, Mississippi: A man enters the bathroom of a local gay bar and doesn't come back out. Instead he's found cold, on the floor, and facing the wall. And no one seems to know how this happened.

    Samuel Barkley is Wenton's only Black detective. Assigned to the case, Samuel's one goal is to keep his head down with eyes on moving up in the police ranks. But it's not easy with Harvey, a new, temporary partner who Samuel can't seem to like...or hate. Nor with the cold, questioning eyes and fake smiles from those in town. Persistent. Judging. Wrong. Samuel is reaching his breaking point.

    As his investigation leads him to a curious plane crash cover-up, Samuel's placid existence is turned on its head. Because what crashed in Wenton isn't a plane. There are others here. They like it here. And if Samuel can't stop them, they will find a way to stay.

    With shades of The X-Files and S. A. Cosby, There Used to Be People Here deftly explores race, queerness, and existing as other in a society that demonizes everything different.

  • PRE-ORDER: Jackson Alone
    $18.99

    Four Black Japanese gay men team up against a culture where discrimination is deep-seated and revenge is just a click away. A searing, darkly funny debut from the Akutagawa Prize–winning author.

    Nobody at the corporate offices of Athletius Japan knows much about the massage therapist Jackson—but rumors abound. He used to work as a model. He likes to party. He’s mixed race—half-Japanese, half-somewhere-in-Africa-n. He might be gay. Fueling the gossip is the sudden appearance of a violent pornographic video featuring a man who looks a lot like Jackson.

    When Jackson serendipitously meets three other queer mixed-race guys, he learns he’s not the only one being targeted. Together they concoct a plan: find out who’s responsible and, in the meantime, switch identities and play tricks on people—a boyfriend, a boss—who’ve wronged them, exploiting the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart.

    A short, blistering gut punch of a novel, Jackson Alone is at turns satirical and deadpan, angry and tender—a frank exploration of identity, race, queerness, and discrimination in contemporary Japan that announces Jose Ando as a singular new talent in the global literary scene.

  • PRE-ORDER: Who Knows You by Heart: A Novel
    $18.99

    "Electrifying and smart, Who Knows You By Heart is part thriller, part prophecy, part gift and all the way live."--Junot Diaz

    “Scintillates with light and warmth…And it’s hilariously funny. The view of Big Tech through Olivia the coder’s eyes is delicious. I absolutely loved this book.” —Alison Bechdel

    Part social thriller, part modern love story, Who Knows You by Heart is a sly, witty, and endlessly discussable tale of Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and discovering what’s real in an age of artificial intelligence.

    Octavia Crenshaw, a Jamaican-American coder living in Manhattan, is broke, burned out, and haunted by her parents’ deaths. Desperate to pay off some debts, she ditches her nonprofit job for a high-paying gig at Eustachian Inc., a Big Tech company that specializes in audio entertainment. Language, communication, human connection—these are the markets Eustachian wants to revolutionize...and dominate.

    Octavia finds herself swept up in the world of the Tech Titans, with its lure of instant riches and its seemingly limitless future. But as one of Eustachian’s very few Black employees, Octavia is uncomfortably aware of things that seem to escape her coworkers: unexplained tech glitches, cryptic remarks, a mysterious secret floor in the corporation’s gleaming headquarters.

    But she sets her suspicions aside when she’s recruited by another Black coder—the infuriating but attractive Walcott—to collaborate on a secret project code-named Zion. Zion is a new kind of AI-powered storytelling, one that’s programmed to be free from the racist and sexist biases that plague other AI products. Zion could launch Eustachian into a bold new future and make its developers super rich while righting all kinds of injustices. Octavia and Walcott’s excitement over their creation sets off romantic sparks between the two of them, until they discover a toxic secret about their employer—something that they can’t unlearn, or overlook, but must overcome.

  • Read Between the Lies: A Novel
    $16.99

    “Read Between the Lies is a dark, delicious takedown of cancel culture and the publishing industry―I read it in two sittings because I had to stop midway and go google my own name. Highly recommend.” ―Mindy Kaling

    In this claustrophobic psychological suspense from USA Today bestselling author Jesse Q. Sutanto, the line between victim and villain blurs with every chapter. Because in the end, everyone has their own version of the truth―but only one will make it onto the page.

    Fern’s dream of becoming a published author is finally coming true. After years of rejection, her debut novel has sold, and she’s ready to join the supportive online community of fellow debuts. But when she discovers her high school bully, Haven, has landed a major book deal and will be debuting alongside her, old wounds reopen.

    As the pandemic forces everyone online, tensions escalate in their writing community. While Haven seems to succeed effortlessly, Fern watches her own career crumble. Yet beneath their polished personas lies a darker truth about their shared past―one involving a lost friend, Dani, and secrets neither wants revealed.

    Fern isn’t the same person Haven bullied all those years ago. She’s learned that the best revenge stories aren’t written―they’re lived. And she’s been plotting this one for years.

    What begins as online rivalry escalates into dangerous obsession. Because neither woman is telling the whole truth about what really happened to Dani…or about who’s the real victim in this story.

  • House of Margins
    $28.00

    Serial the podcast meets The Other Black Girl in a haunted house, as young African author disappears after being invited to an exclusive writing residency, and her sister is left only with a true crime podcast to help her uncover the truth about what really happened…

    Anaya Sebeya is missing.

    Before her disappearance, Anaya was a brilliant writer: a rising star. Invited to a prestigious writing residency at Günter Huis, an eerie colonial mansion on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, Anaya was supposed to craft the next great African literary masterpiece—and so were four other young, emerging writers, all competing for the grand prize. But Anaya never made it home.

    When a sensationalized true crime podcast about Anaya emerges, claiming to reveal everything that happened at Günter Huis, her sister Ranewa is both skeptical and furious. But with each surreal episode, Ranewa begins to piece together a truth worse than she ever could have imagined…

    At Günter Huis, Anaya’s nightmares consume her. Time slips away from her. Günter Huis inflicts distorted visions and terrible supernatural visitations, pushing Anaya to tell a story no one dares. But exorcising the house’s endless cycle of evil requires a sacrifice that neither Anaya nor her fellows are ready to make.

    In House of Margins, award-winning Motswana author Tlotlo Tsamaase delivers a mesmerizing story of a young generation facing colonialism’s cultural legacy in Africa.

  • Southern Bastards, Vol. 2: Gridiron
    $9.99

    *Use discount code: SALE at check out for 30% off*

    Sheriff “Big Bert” Tubb once cleaned up Craw County, Alabama with an iron jaw and a big ol’ stick. But that was 40 years ago. When his son, Earl Tubb, returns home to settle some family business, he finds his daddy’s grave unkempt, the stick he was buried with grown into a gnarled old tree, and Craw County in worse shape than ever. Then that tree gets struck by lightning. And suddenly Earl has a stick of his own. And some questions he’d like answered.
    * The hit new crime series, Southern Bastards, returns for its second volume, as Jason Aaron (Scalped, Thor, Star Wars) and Jason Latour (Wolverine & the X-Men, Loose Ends) pull back the curtain on the dark and seedy history of Craw County and its most famous and feared resident, the high school football coach turned backwoods crime lord, Euless Boss. In a place where only bastards flourish, what does it take to be the biggest, meanest, most powerful bastard of them all? Only Coach Boss knows. But if I was you, I wouldn't ask him.
    * Collects Southern Bastards #5-8.

  • Shadow Nights Arc I: Into the Shadows
    $13.99

    "Alright, here's the game plan. I go out, stop some petty criminals, take out a gang or two, find the person or people that are kidnapping people, take out all those gross shadow things, and maybe, just maybe, get the world to like me. Yeah. Yeah that sounds like a good plan!"

    Really, I wish I had lesser expectations of myself, but with this city's stupid high crime rate, a string of missing people, and these strange black creatures trying to tear down anything in their path? I feel like I have more than my work cut out for myself. However, I can't just sit down and do nothing with these powers I gained. This place needs a hero and I'm not gonna stop protecting this place till I save everyone. I just hope I can get all of this done before my mother and father ground me into the dirt.

  • The Devil Is a Southpaw: A Novel

    Brandon Hobson

    $29.00

    A haunting, unforgettable novel of obsession, pride, and forgiveness, exploring the friendship and rivalry between two gifted boys in harrowing circumstances, from the acclaimed writer of The Removed

    Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented Cherokee artist, ever since they were locked up together in a dangerous juvenile detention center in the late 1980s. Until Matthew escaped, that is.

    A novel within a novel, we read here Milton’s dark, sometimes comic, and possibly unreliable account of the story of their childhood even as, years later, he remains jealous of Matthew’s extraordinary abilities and unlikely success. Milton reveals secrets about their friendship, their families, and their nightmarish, surreal, experience of imprisonment. In revisiting the past, he explores the echoing traumas of incarceration and pride.

    Filled with Brandon Hobson’s swirling yet visceral writing, and punctuated with original artwork, The Devil Is a Southpaw is an ambitious, elegant, and propulsive novel in the spirit of Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel García Márquez.

  • A Lethal Lady (A Harlem Renaissance Mystery)

    Nekesa Afia

    $18.00

    Louise Lloyd’s time away in Paris is everything she was hoping it would be until a shocking murder turns her entire world upside down.

    Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she’d longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman.

    The woman’s daughter, Iris Wright, is part of an elite social circle. Louise soon finds herself drawn into a world of privilege and ice-cold ambition—a young group of artists who will do anything to get ahead—but would they murder one of their own? With the help of some friends from home, Louise must untangle a web of lies, jealousy, and betrayal to find out what really happened to Iris while fighting to keep her new life from crashing down around her.

  • Laws of Wrath

    by Eriq La Salle

    $16.99

    There are those who fight the devil within them. And those who worship it.

    When the butchered body of a cross-dresser is found in a dumpster, it’s up to Detective Phee Freeman to solve the crime. But this case is personal. The victim is Freeman’s brother.

    At first, the slaying looks like the random act of a vicious killer, but Freeman, his partner Quincy Cavanaugh, and FBI agent Janet Maclin soon discover this is something much more sinister. Similar ritualistic murders are taking place across the city. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to stop the massacres—even if that means that have to join forces with The Dr. Daria Zibik, a brilliant but deranged cult leader. But what if the evil they are hunting and the sociopath they are trusting are one in the same?

  • The Unvarnished Gary Phillips: A Mondo Pulp Collection

    by Gary Phillips

    $17.00

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    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).

  • The Ballad of Black Tom

    by Victor LaValle

    $13.99

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    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

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    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

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    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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