Contemporary Thriller

Villains have all the fun - everyone knows that - and this anthology takes you on a wild ride through the dark side! The top villains from 16 urban fantasy series get their own stories - including the baddies of New York Times best-selling authors Jim Butcher, Kevin Hearne, Kelley Armstrong, Seanan McGuire, and Jonathan Maberry. For every hero trying to save the world, there's a villain trying to tear it all down.

As a member of Walker Security, Adrian Mack has found redemption for a walk on the dark side. For two years, the former FBI agent was undercover in the notorious Texas Kings biker club. For two years he changed, he became one of them, and when the bust happened, he didn't know who he was anymore. On a hit list with a price on his head, he disappeared and joined Walk Security, but now, the trial is set to start and witnesses are dropping like flies.

It's been 18 years since TV crime reporter Andi Hollister's sister was murdered. The confessed killer is behind bars, and the execution date is looming. But when a letter surfaces stating that the condemned killer didn't actually do it, Detective Will Kincaide of the Memphis Cold Case Unit will stop at nothing to help Andi get to the bottom of it. After all, this case is personal: The person who confessed to the crime is Will's cousin.

Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. His first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he's gutted - he's a level-headed copper who doesn't believe in such things, and he can't help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl. But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee's insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon's heart.

Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town. But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?

Blair is one step closer to finally getting her own wand and becoming a real witch-in-training. The only person standing in her way is the notoriously grumpy wand-maker wizard. One small problem: he's just hired her to find him a new assistant, and the job is cursed. With every possible employee turning into a rodent, it's up to Blair to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Maggie Sullivan has returned to Wolfe Creek, determined to find out why her best friend vanished one fog-shrouded night a year ago. But it quickly becomes clear that if the residents of the secluded mountain town know what happened, they aren't talking. Sheriff's deputy Koda Wolfe reluctantly agrees to help Maggie, even as he tries to convince her to leave town for her own good. Soon he's compelled to protect her from herself, his family's ancient curse, and a killer who could strike again.

A knife that cut too deep, a slash that still burns, failures piled high and flammable. I held my losses at bay with knives, with guns, my hands, my bike, my brothers, my iron will. But not my heart. No, my heart was the flame that would light the match, ignite the blaze. I am the enforcer - the killer when called upon, the ruthless hound on demand, the one who cleans the mess left behind. I am the protector - I can make you bleed, smash you to pieces. But she smashed all my excuses, and I shattered hers.

Two children from Sierra Leone, Liberty and A’shai, are brought together by chance, only to be forced apart by the most inevitable and tragic fate. Ashley & JaQuavis bring us this classic love story set against modern life’s most horrifying realities.

The men in the secret society known as the Lords think they rule the world. And in a way, they do. Each has sold their soul to the devil at a young age in exchange for power and wealth. Like anything else, they have different levels of success. The more they’re willing to serve, the more power they have. Among them are the Spade brothers, who run Carnage. It’s where the Lords who have not held up their oath go to live out the rest of their lives in shackles. Tucked away from the world as if they never existed.

Jimmy Nash has already lived two lives - and he can't talk about either of them. Formerly an operative of a top secret government agency, he has found a new job with a shadowy company called Troubleshooters Inc. Created by a former Navy SEAL, Troubleshooters Inc. helps anyone in desperate need - which provides a perfect cover for its other, more perilous objective: covert special operations.

Daughter of a cold, controlling mother and an anonymous donor, studious, obedient Elizabeth Fitch finally let loose one night, drinking too much at a nightclub and allowing a strange man’s seductive Russian accent to lure her to a house on Lake Shore Drive. Twelve years later, the woman now known as Abigail Lowery lives alone on the outskirts of a small town in the Ozarks.

It has been eight years since the Callahans defeated Avian Doers and conquered Chicago. Melody is now the Governor and public face of the family, while Liam rises as the Ceann na Conairte of both the Irish and Italians. Their reach is limitless; their power endless, but is it possible to have too much power? Can Liam and Melody raise a family, a city, and an empire? Only a fool would try to stop them now.

Ice: The fighting cage made me a monster, and that's what came out when they freed me. She thinks I saved her from monsters, but she just fell into the hands of an even bigger one. She also thinks we're falling in love. She's wrong. I forgot how to do that. Besides, love's not what I want from her. She should've run away from me when I told her to do it. Because now it's too late. Barbie: I'm not letting him toss me aside. I'm staying right where I am, in his arms, and in his bed, and on the back of his bike.

A call from a distraught wife, and another from Lt. Murphy of the Chicago PD Special Investigation Unit makes Harry believe things are looking up, but they are about to get worse, much worse. Someone is harnessing immense supernatural forces to commit a series of grisly murders. Someone has violated the first law of magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Tracking that someone takes Harry into the dangerous underbelly of Chicago, from mobsters to vampires....

Everything has a price, and the price of truth is steepest of all. Eden has an ironclad five-year plan. In three months, she's saying good riddance to Los Angeles and returning to the Pacific Northwest for medical school. Nothing is going to get in her way. Nothing... but the impossible. When she glimpses her doppelgänger at a party, the seemingly accidental meeting turns her life in a direction she never imagined, shredding everything she knows about herself and where she comes from.

Other people gave second chances - I didn't. My modus operandi was to move on to the next girl in line and forget the previous one. So when Tawnee Milano said she needed her space, I let her go. Then I left our mutual employer for a new job with the CIA and didn't look back. But a coded distress message from her sends me right back to where I was when we first split up. The possibility of losing her forever forces me to relax my rigid stance. With her life in danger, I'm finally facing my true feelings for her. Now my hard line policy is to get her back - and keep her this time.

I never forgot her...Noni, the woman just as unique as her name who never failed to light a fire inside me. The last time I saw her I was in a bad place, a dark one that actually sent me to the Big Apple today. I was in the city to lead another one of my late father's corporate divisions yes, but running, escape, had been my true plan of intent. I had lots to get away from, my sins a laundry list, and it had been she, Noni, who got me out of them the last time. She did more than just fill a void. She fixed my messed up soul no matter how brief a time. So why had I let her go?

Katsuk, a militant Native American student, has kidnapped 13-year-old David Marshall - the son of the US undersecretary of state. He and his young hostage flee into the deepest wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where they must work together to survive as teams of hunters try to track them. Even as he struggles to escape, David begins to feel a certain amount of respect for his captor. What the boy does not know, however, is that he has been chosen as an innocent from the white world for an ancient sacrifice of vengeance. And Katsuk may be divinely inspired - or simply insane.

This second novel in the acclaimed Greywalker series finds PI Blaine Harper investigating a chilling case as Halloween approaches. After university researchers create an artificial poltergeist, the team leader suspects someone is faking the phenomena. When a student is murdered, Blaine is asked to investigate. Stepping into the spirit world, she realizes the haunting may be very real. But that doesn't necessarily mean a ghost did the killing.