National Network for Equitable Library Service

"My husband was down on his knees, bloodied, battered, and beaten to the point he could barely hold himself up. He'd always been a warrior, my warrior. They would kill him, I knew that. I felt it with everything within me. My husband was going to die, and it was all my fault... ." Meet Marcel and Sabrina, a hitman and a bookkeeper for the Mob. The couple should have never met, let alone fallen in love. When they decide to go against the grain, all hell breaks loose. Somebody wants them dead; they just don't know who.

They inherited ultimate power ... Heir to the infamous DeLuca drug cartel fortune, Angel DeLuca walked away from it all for a normal life-until a wrenching betrayal shattered his belief in anything but saving his family's hard-won legacy. He's come back to lead the DeLuca empire-no matter the cost. But his most dangerous rival is the one woman whose fierce determination he can't resist ... How far will they go to keep it' Emilia East grew up in the game-virtually a daughter to Angel's mother.

Rising urban lit star Saundra ignites a sizzling tale of a good girl turned drug kingpin's lady ... A hard-working daddy's girl, Precious Cummings is sure she's going to college. But when her father is murdered, she discovers he lied for years about money they never had-and hid a shocking family secret. Shattered and lost, she starts hangin' with savvy hood chick Keisha-and falls hard for DaVon, LA's most powerful drug dealer. As his new lady, Precious soon gets the best of every luxurious thing-and fast learns the ropes of her lover's lethal hustle ...

Kiki Swinson's bestselling "tension-packed" (Library Journal) and "unrelenting" (Publishers Weekly) novels burn with extraordinary characters, triple-down twists-and a raw portrait of Southern life only she can deliver. Now she turns up the heat as a young woman cashes in on a sure thing-only to find some addictions are always killer.Break the rules: At first, med student Misty Heiress just wants to help. With her cousin Jillian in constant pain, and the doctor refusing to prescribe, Misty steals opioids from the Virginia Beach pharmacy where she works.

They beat the odds and turned their lives around. But now three best friends will go head-to-head with ambition, deception-and each other ... Derrick. Ricky. Jamal. One's responsible; one's still a player; one's upwardly-mobile. Sentenced to the Branch Avenue Boys' Youth Institute at twelve, they grabbed the chance for better futures. They stayed tight even when their lives diverged-but the times ... they are a-changing. New deputy mayor Jamal is anti-corruption, which means severing ties with Ricky, now a "criminally-adjacent" businessman.

Tasha thinks she has seen it all, but when she follows a childhood friend to the city of Flint, Michigan, she realizes that sometimes the small cities breed the grimiest of individuals. When Tasha and her friends link up with Manolo, one of Flint's known stick-up kids, they take the hustlers of Flint for all they're worth. But when the only man Tasha's ever loved becomes her target, will she decide to save him, or will she remain loyal to the Manolo Mamis?

Dixyn Greene is livin' the life--until the feds arrest her man. To survive, Dixyn becomes indebted to Brian Winters and is forced to do his bidding. She is soon entangled in a web of lust, betrayal, blackmail, and deceit.

Trapped in the festering sore of a major American ghetto, a young man and his girlfriend--both attractive, talented, and full of promise--are inexorably pulled into the living death of the hardcore junkie.

“If you like your crime hard and fast, Kalteis is for you.” — The Globe and Mail

Set to the cranking beat and amphetamine buzz of Vancouver’s early punk scene, Zero Avenue follows Frankie Del Rey, a talented and rising punk star who runs just enough dope on the side to pay the bills and keep her band, Waves of Nausea, together. The trouble is she’s running it for Marty Sayles, a powerful drug dealer who controls the Eastside with a fist.

Full of gory conflict, these three whodunits offer nonstop action, savage violence, and an unforgettable cast of characters
 

The Wilson Mystery Omnibus brings together Mike Knowles’s first three critically acclaimed novels just as the fourth gritty Wilson mystery, Never Play Another Man’s Game (May 2012), hits shelves.