Top 100 Crime Fiction Books

📘 The coldest winter ever

In New York’s toughest streets, Winter—gifted, street‑savvy daughter of a Brooklyn drug dynasty—uses her wit and allure to survive a volatile winter of crime and ambition.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The Godfather

The Godfather is a crime novel by Mario Puzo that follows the rise of the fictional Corleone Mafia family in New York City and Long Beach between 1945 and 1955.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 American Dirt

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Criminology

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The Black Dahlia

James Ellroy’s hard‑boiled crime novel follows detectives as they unravel Los Angeles’s darkest mystery, the unsolved murder of the Black Dahlia, blending gritty police work with atmospheric noir.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 Hell's Angels

An in‑depth, first‑hand account of the California chapter of the Hell’s Angels, offering unprecedented insights into their rituals, hierarchy and day‑to‑day life.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 True to the Game

In the late 1980s, a young woman from the projects falls in love with a prosperous drug dealer, and together they confront the harsh realities of street life and the perilous allure of underground wealth.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 True to the Game II

Teri Woods continues the gritty tale in True to the Game II, where Gena’s new romance with Jay unwittingly entangles her with his rival, Jerrell Jackson, who seeks revenge on Quadir’s crew.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Tanah Para Bandit

A book where bad guys are raised from birth.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 I'll Be Gone in the Dark

A true‑crime chronicle that follows editor Michelle McNamara’s obsessive investigation of the Golden State Killer, a serial rapist and murderer who terrorized California for decades.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Midnight

Midnight, a powerful war‑torn underworld lieutenant, arrives in America with his mother to protect his family, reclaim his empire, and defend his wealth using African wisdom and a strong Muslim mindset.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Black Gangster

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less

Four high‑profile victims of a cunning swindler band together to hunt down the fraudster who stole each of their fortunes, turning the tables from the opulent casinos of Monte Carlo to the streets of London.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Heist Fiction

📘 Out

Four women in the Tokyo suburbs spend night shifts at a boxed‑lunch factory while dreaming of escape from debt‑heavy, isolated lives.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 The dopeman's wife

Nautica, raised on the streets, rises through a world of schemes and hustling, only to discover that a new life on the East Coast is a nightmare.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Whoreson

A ruthless young pimp climbs the streets of an inner‑city underworld, born to a beautiful black prostitute and an anonymous white client.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Ruthless People

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Under the bridge

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Brighton rock

A gripping crime thriller that follows teen Pinky Brown, a sociopathic gangster who murders a betrayer and, to cover his tracks, marries a witness, spiraling into desperation as the Brighton underworld closes in.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Mafia queens of Mumbai

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Filth

Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson balances a chaotic personal life with a baffling murder case in Edinburgh, revealing the city’s dark underbelly through his flawed, irreverent eyes.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 Tsotsi

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The Republic of Thieves

Locke Lamora and his partner Jean Tannen face a failed heist, a mysterious poison, and a politicized magical purge while Sabetha from his past resurfaces, forcing him to choose between survival and love.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Heist Fiction

📘 Invisible darkness

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The Third Man

The Third Man, a novella by Graham Greene, follows the mysterious black‑market trader Harry Lime in post‑war Vienna, where he is believed to be dead.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 L.A. Confidential

James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential is a hard‑boiled crime novel set in 1950s Los Angeles, following a trio of detectives as they uncover a web of corruption and homicide within the police department.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 The Sicilian

Michael Corleone returns from a three‑year exile in Sicily to re‑enter America alongside young bandit Salvatore Giuliano, whose reckless acts have upset the Sicilian Mafia.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 True Crime

A hard‑boiled thriller in which a cynical reporter races against time to expose a failed murder investigation and clear an innocent death‑row inmate.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 The Firm (adaptation)

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 True to the Game III

In the explosive Third installment of the True to the Game trilogy, Gena must evade a ruthless killer, crooked cops, and looming threats while protecting her family and cash, all set in the gritty streets of Philadelphia.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Diary of a Street Diva

After gunshot murder of Remy, Cease is on trial and turns to her diary to uncover a dark past and prove innocence.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The cartel 6

A high‑stakes crime thriller set in Las Vegas, where a drug cartel’s new casino plan triggers a deadly power struggle with the Arabian mob and internal betrayals.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Tren Bala

Five killers on a bullet train, one to steal a bag, one to kill his brother... and five to die together. One group is after a bag of gold, the other is after a death. Only their connection to a murder will help them to the end of the trip.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Cartel 3

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Son of the mob

Vince Luca lives a double life: a typical high‑school teen who inadvertently inherits his father's powerful crime‑family ties, forcing him to juggle school, romance, and an FBI‑led battle against his own legacy.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Don't blink

A New York steakhouse becomes the scene of a mob lawyer’s assassination, drawing a tense investigation as suspects, promises, and newspaper headlines collide in a pulse‑quickening thriller.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Runner

In the aftermath of World I, a 15‑year‑old boy in Richmond, Australia, becomes an errand‑boy for a feared mobster, hoping his running skills will lift his mother and newborn brother out of poverty.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 The Cartel 4

A new era begins in the Diamond family’s crime empire when Breeze ascends beside Zyir, who tightens control over Miami’s streets, while old rivals and unexpected intrusions threaten to topple the Cartel.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Innocent

When Tamara becomes a guard at the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, she discovers her baby‑dad is on death row. Facing the possibility of his innocence, she must choose between duty and protecting her loved one.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 Homicide

An inside look at Baltimore’s homicide unit, revealing how police investigate and confront the city’s relentless violence.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Rum Punch

In a sizzling Florida smuggling ring, Ordell "Whitebread" Robbie sells illicit weapons while Jackie Burke, a flight‑attendant courier, must dodge federal crackdowns and decide whether to stay loyal or walk away.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 The ultimate evil

Maury Terry reveals that the infamous “Son of Sam” was not a lone serial killer but a member of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, tying the case to a broader Satanic conspiracy and other ritual murders across the country.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Double indemnity

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 Hit them where it hurts

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 A moment of silence

A Brooklyn youth grapples with faith, family, and danger in a city where crime, policing, and cultural clashes threaten his identity and survival.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Cherry

A Cleveland youth leaves college for the Iraq War, returns home battling PTSD and an opioid addiction that strains his education, relationships, and drives him into bank robbery.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Bully

A chilling true‑crime account of a high school bully whose violent reign ends when he is found dead in the everglades, a revenge plot pulled off by his classmates.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Daddy Cool

Daddy Cool follows a ruthless Detroit hit‑man whose icy resolve melts only for his teenage daughter, who falls into the hands of a smooth‑talking pimp—prompting a fierce quest for vengeance.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The Killer Inside Me

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford of a small Texas town hides a dark illness that once threatened his career; now it resurfaces, threatening his peace and the town’s safety.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 Crime and criminology

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 American Kingpin

An exposé of the rise and fall of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road, whose dark‑web marketplace turned into a $1.2 billion crime hub and a federal manhunt that reshaped online commerce and law enforcement.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 They Never Learn

A tense crime novel where a murder mystery unfolds on an American university campus, involving faculty, students, and a vigilant group that seeks justice beyond the law.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 The Cartel 7

After the fallout of their cartel empire, Carter must stay off the radar while plotting a drug‑distribution scheme to free his imprisoned wife, confronting ruthless rivals and federal forces in a brutal urban drug war.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 The death of innocence

A true‑crime case study of the 1996 murder of child JonBent Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado, told through the parents' reflections, theories, and photographs, with proceeds supporting the JonBent Ramsey Children's Foundation.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The Last Don

Mario Puzo’s The Last Don resurrects his saga of a powerful crime family whose reach extends from the streets of New York to the glittering halls of Hollywood and the casinos of Las Vegas.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 The Cartel 5

The Cartel 5 follows the Diamond family as members of a women‑ruled criminal dynasty fight federal pursuit and internal betrayal while trying to legitimize their operations in Miami’s underworld.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Bound By Hatred (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles) (Volume 3)

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Without pity

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 House Of Secrets (True Crime)

A harrowing account of the terrifying crimes of the Sexton family, chronicling incest, sexual and physical abuse, and multiple murders that led to Eddie Lee Sexton’s conviction and death sentence.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Bodega dreams

In Spanish Harlem, Willy Bodega rules the neighborhood by offering help—college tuition, start‑up money—in exchange for loyalty and drug sales. When a promising young man, Chino, seeks Bodega’s favor, he is plunged into a violent underworld of switches, betrayal and murder.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Gone

When crime lord Manuel Perrine escapes prison, he seeks revenge on Detective Michael Bennett and everyone he loves. A tense hunt unfolds as the FBI’s witness‑protection program shelters Bennett’s family on a rural California farm.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 The onion field

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Whoever fights monsters

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 By Their Father's Hand

By Their Father’s Hand chronicles the March 2004 murder spree at the Wesson family home in Fresno, California, exposing a violent tapestry of incest, abuse, and psychosis led by a manipulative patriarch.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Bound by temptation

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Ripley Under Ground

Tom Ripley settles into an opulent life in southern France after inheriting wealthy Dickie Greenleaf’s fortune, only to confront a looming art‑forgery scandal that threatens to unravel his carefully constructed lies.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 God's gangsters?

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The Executioner #30

Ex‑Vietnam sniper Mack Bolan, the Executioner, battles a Mafia plot to seize political power in New York after escaping a London ambush.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Hard rain falling

A San Quentin inmate discovers love with his cellmate while navigating the harsh realities of prison life, the ongoing racial tensions, and the challenges faced by African American offenders in California's most infamous penitentiary.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Escrava de favela

Petala Parreira, prostituta, puta e membro de “Piranhas para Jesus” publicou seu novo livro “Escrava de favela”, em que ela narra a vida horrível de uma menina vendida por seu pai em troca de drogas ao traficante local.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Candy licker

Teenager Candy Raye Montana, a former drug runner on the streets of Harlem, dreams of hip‑hop stardom and lands a deal with the ruthless producer Junius "Hurricane" Jackson, only to find herself trapped by his violent ambitions and dangerous secrets.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Devil's knot

Mara Leveritt’s investigative account unravels the West Memphis Three case, exposing investigative failures, judicial error, and the wrongful imprisonment of three teenagers in Arkansas’s brutal triple‑murder trial.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 The Gangs of New York

A detailed exploration of 19th-century New York gangs and their lasting impact on the city’s underworld.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Snitch

Julia DiVino, a promising college‑bound student at South Bay High School, vows to stay away from gangs—until her dream boyfriend, Eric Valiente, turns up as a member. A tense choice tests loyalty, love and ambition in very Brooklyn.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Pronto

U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens hunts a bookie, Harry Arno, who has fled to Italy after skimming profits, forcing Givens to track him down before the criminal scene can close in.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Heart Full of Lies

A Hawaiian wedding turns to a deadly Oregon getaway as a surf photographer, Liysa Northon, is accused of murdering her airline‑pilot husband in a case that blurs the lines between victim and killer.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 Five Families

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Bronxwood

Tyrell struggles to rebuild his life after his father's release from prison, while his brother ends up in foster care and his mother remains distant. With debts, drug trouble, and a painful love triangle looming, Tyrell must decide whether to join his father's dangerous plans or forge his own path.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 A brief assignment

A gangster on the run encounters a young nun, leading to a violent encounter and a surprising final act.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 Death Around the Corner

C‑Murder, the New Orleans rap star and former inmate, turns his experience of growing up in public housing and street life into a hard‑banging novel that blends mystery and urban realism.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The man with the candy

Jack Olsen investigates the chilling case of Dean Corll, the Houston serial killer who lured, murdered and buried at least sixteen boys in the early 1970s.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Lost girls

An investigative narrative that traces the lives of five Craigslist‑working prostitutes and the circumstances that led to their tragic deaths on a Long Island beach in 2010.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Bitter Harvest

A true crime account of a devastating arson that claimed the lives of two children and left a family in ruins, detailing the unraveling of a marriage and the murderous actions of its members.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 The mammoth book of true crime

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Blood brothers

Blood Brothers chronicles the 1989 shotgun murders of parents Jose and Kitty Menendez by their sons Lyle and Erik—offering a chilling, evidence‑based look at inherited wealth, family crime and the highly publicized California trial.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Dutch

Dutch, a cunning thief turned drug kingpin, controls a feared heroin empire while battling Mafia, law‑enforcement, and betrayal—until a woman he can’t resist threatens to unravel it all.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Omerta

The Spanish translation of Mario Puzo’s crime‑fiction classic "Omerta," a tale of mafia honor and its breach.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Nightmare alley

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 Supreme Clientele

Zya inherits Jules' drug empire after his five‑year sentence and expands it into an untouchable powerhouse, forming an elite underground network called Supreme Clientele while navigating New York’s dangerous criminal underworld.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Last dance, last chance

A gripping true‑crime investigation, detailing cosmetic surgeon Dr. Anthony Pignataro’s forged credentials, botched procedures, and attempted arsenic poisoning of his wife, followed by four other shocking criminal cases.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 A Hustler's Wife

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 I, Michael Bennett

I, Michael Bennett is a fiction thriller by James Patterson.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 The Heist

Gabriel Allon, an art restorer turned spy, hunts a stolen Caravaggio masterpiece—and must resort to art theft himself.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Heist Fiction

📘 Smash Cut

A wealthy Atlanta businessman is murdered, and his nephew becomes the prime suspect. A celebrated defense lawyer and the victim’s beautiful mistress clash as secrets unspool, ending in a dramatic twist that keeps readers guessing.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Noir

📘 A Beautiful Child

Sharon Marshall, a brilliant and beautiful student, was drawn into a lifetime of deception by her murderous fugitive father, creating one of America’s most baffling criminal cases.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Deadly kin

A shocking true‑crime biography of Susie Newsom Lynch and her first‑cousin Fritz, detailing a murderous romance that claimed nine lives across Kentucky and North Carolina.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Lady boss

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Organized Crime

📘 Lifeguard

A lifeguard discovers the heist of a lifetime at a luxury resort, but his obsession with his new love complicates his mission to recover the stolen $5 million.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Heist Fiction

📘 Street Pharm

290 pages ; 21 cmHL500L Lexile

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld

📘 Kiss kiss, bang bang

Six, a street-smart woman, is forced into a deadly game when she falls for an enemy she should hate. Caught between love and loyalty, she must decide where her true allegiance lies.

Genre: Crime Fiction Subgenre: Criminal Underworld