A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE – Jordan Harper


Los Angeles, right now. America with its back up against the wall. This Frankenstein’s monster of crimes and lurid dreams sewn together into something like a city.    

A city ready to explode: A Hollywood pedophile is arrested, and is ready to tear down the city to get his freedom. A young woman goes missing—and men in black rubber gloves who look like cops clean out her apartment in the middle of the night. And the serial killer known as the LA Ripper is on the loose, leaving tragic/graphic/brutal crime scenes in his wake. Three people trying to keep their heads above the dirty water will find themselves coming together to unite these strands into one enormous, unspeakable crime …   

Jake Deal is a gonzo live-streaming nightcrawler, beaming the city’s chaos straight to his audience of blood-hungry subscribers, giving them the view from the top of the mushroom cloud—until a job he can’t refuse drags him back into his old life of Hollywood glamour, drugs, sex and sleaze. Armed with cameras and hidden mics, he’ll infiltrate private clubs, gather high-class dirt—and stumble onto a conspiracy woven into the center of LA’s most powerful men, who call themselves “The Kids in the Candy Store.”   

Doug Gibson is a street lawyer, who fights for his clients against the army of cops, prosecutors and judges—he is the knife they bring to the gunfight. But when he’s hired by a Hollywood pedophile ready to sell out his friends for a chance for freedom, he’ll take on a fight bigger than he could have imagined. And when his client “commits suicide” in prison, Gibson will have to stop being a weapon—and become a warrior.    

Kara Delgado works for an underground private concierge company—a make-a-wish foundation for the terminally rich. She scores drugs, makes connections, and plans multi-million dollar sex parties.She has learned the secret truth of this world: there are no rules, only prices. Her best friend Phoebe has gone missing, and Kara’s the only person who knows that Phoebe’s place was wiped clean of evidence by men in black rubber gloves. But when she begins to unravel the mystery of what happened to Phoebe, and its connection to the killer known as the LA Ripper, it will drag her into the dark heart of the city.   

As Jake, Doug and Kara all investigate these crimes, they’ll encounter ketamine-addled sitcom stars, bloody riots, homeless gangsters, a killer cop on death row, secret vaults in Beverly Hills, tech-bro orgies, medical cannibals, true crime junkies, private security wet-work teams, reality shows, street takeovers, car chases, coyotes, a sadistic Tarzan, and a three day, fifty million dollar wedding, before everything is revealed and they must each make their choice about how to fight back in this violent world before the bloody, blazing conclusion.
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A PARTICULARLY NASTY CASE – Adam Kay


When his toxic medical director dies of a heart attack, fellow doctor Eitan Rose smells foul play. Nobody else does, though, including some quite crucial players like the police and the medical examiner. So Eitan vows to uncover the truth himself.

But Eitan’s own past and reputation are far from spotless, despite his budding relationship with Cole, a handsome hospital porter, and reluctant camaraderie with his office mate, Margaret-with-the-cats. As his colleagues become increasingly concerned about his mental health, Eitan’s investigation spirals out of control. Could a killer really be stalking the wards? Or is Eitan making a catastrophic mistake?
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BLACK TUNNEL WHITE MAGIC – Rick Jackson and Matthew McGough


In June 1990, Ronald Baker, a straight-A UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once lived. Shortly thereafter, Detective Rick Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the case. Yet the facts made no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron Baker in such a grisly manner? Was the proximity to the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck?

Jackson and Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker’s two male roommates, one Black, and one white. What emerges is at once a story of confounding betrayal and cold-hearted intentions, as well as a larger portrait of an embattled Los Angeles, a city in the grip of the Satanic Panic and grappling with questions of racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of Rodney King.

In straightforward, matter-of-fact prose, Rick Jackson, the now-retired police detective who helped inspire Michael Connelly’s beloved Harry Bosch, along with co-writer, Matthew McGough, take us through the events as he and his partner experienced them, piecing together the truth with each emerging clue. Black Tunnel White Magic is the true story of a murder in cold blood, deception and betrayal, and a city at the brink, set forth by the only man who could tell it.
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A MAN NAMED DOLL – Jonathan Ames


Happy Doll is a charming, if occasionally inexpert, private detective living just one sheer cliff drop beneath the Hollywood sign with his beloved half-Chihuahua half-Terrier, George. A veteran of both the Navy and LAPD, Doll supplements his meager income as a P.I. by working through the night at a local Thai spa that offers its clients a number of special services. Armed with his sixteen-inch steel telescopic baton, biting dry humor, and just a bit of a hero complex, the ex-cop sets out to protect the women who work there from clients who have trouble understanding the word “no.”
 
Doll gets by just fine following his two basic rules: bark loudly and act first. But when things get out-of-hand with one particularly violent patron, even he finds himself wildly out of his depth, and then things take an even more dangerous twist when an old friend from his days as a cop shows up at his door with a bullet in his gut.
 
A Man Named Doll is more than just a fascinating introduction to one truly singular character, it is a highly addictive and completely unpredictable joyride through the sensuous and violent streets of LA.
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THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME – Gabino Iglesias

Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.
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