Crime Mystery

Exit Wounds is a thrilling anthology of crime stories written by masters of the genre, including Dean Koontz, Val McDermid, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Elly Griffiths, Dennis Lehane, Joe R. Lansdale, and others.

Drew Danner, a crime novelist with a house off L.A.'s storied Mulholland Drive, awakens in a hospital bed with a scar on his head and no memory of being found convulsing over his ex-fiancee's body the previous night. He was discovered holding a knife, her blood beneath his nails. He himself doesn't know whether he's guilty or innocent. To reconstruct the story, the writer must now become the protagonist, searching the corridors of his life and the city he loves.

Twenty-six-year-old Maggie Barnes is someone you would never look at twice. Living alone in a month-to-month sublet in the huge city of London, with no family but an estranged sister, no boyfriend or partner, and not much in the way of friends, Maggie is just the kind of person who could vanish from the face of the earth without anyone taking notice. Or just the kind of person MI5 needs to infiltrate the establishment and thwart an international plot that puts all of Britain at risk. Now one young woman has the chance to be a hero - if she can think quickly enough to stay alive.

Meet Detective Inspector Dan Hellier, a man who needs to redeem his career and catch a killer. Soon after DI Hellier returns home to Exeter under a cloud, the body of a talented young singer is found in the woods. When her death reveals links to the boss of a recording studio, a predatory gang and a school music teacher, Hellier knows he has his work cut out. Before more innocent people are put in danger, Hellier will need to untangle the web of lies and work out which of many suspects are guilty of murder.

Malcolm West is fleeing the hell he unleashed in his last assignment as an undercover cop. A backwoods bungalow sounds like the perfect place to start over. Until he discovers he's been set up....

In a secluded farm house in the Pacific Northwest, a family has been slaughtered - and a teenage son has disappeared. Single mother and cop Emily Kenyon spearheads a dark hunt for a killer. But Emily's teenage daughter, Jenna, is one step ahead of her. Then another family is butchered, and another. As Emily fits the puzzle pieces together, she makes a chilling discovery: The killer is coming after her and her daughter....

Cold-blooded murder just isn't Thomas Lang's cup of tea. Offered a bundle to assassinate an American industrialist, he opts to warn the intended victim instead - a good deed that soon takes a bad turn. Quicker than he can down a shot of his favorite whiskey, Lang is bashing heads with a Buddha statue, matching wits with evil billionaires, and putting his life (among other things) in the hands of a bevy of femme fatales. Up against rogue CIA agents, wannabe terrorists, and an arms dealer looking to make a high-tech killing, Lang's out to save the leggy lady he has come to love...and prevent an international bloodbath to boot.

When Matt Ballard was starting out his career, three boys were murdered in the same area, the remote and bleak Gibbet Fen. When the main suspect was killed in a hit-and-run, the killings stopped. But Matt was not satisfied that the real murderer had been caught. Over 25 years later, Matt gets a photo in an unmarked envelope. It's of the Gibbet Fen crime scene. And the picture was taken before the murder took place. More photos arrive, relating to the historic murders, as well as intimate pictures of Matt's very secret private life.

On a cold night in Australia, two construction workers driving along a deserted mountain road are gunned down inside their vehicle. The killings are fast. Efficient. An assassination carried out with expert precision. The only witness to the crime is a man resting by the side of the road. Recently retired, he'd flown halfway across the world to escape his demons. Ex-US black ops operative Jason King.

Someone is committing random murders across Chicago—and making sure detectives Billy Harney (Aaron Paul) and Patti Harney (Krysten Ritter) are first on the crime scene. What connects the victims, and why is the killer leaving clues behind with each body? Billy and Patti are scrambling to stop the next killing when their father, Chief of Detectives Dan Harney (Beau Bridges), is kidnapped. But in their race to track him down, they uncover pieces of his past that simply can’t be true. Could their own flesh and blood be covering up a dark secret?

Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski led a double life beyond anything ever seen on The Sopranos, becoming one of the most notorious professional assassins in American history while hosting neighborhood barbecues in suburban New Jersey. Now, after 240 hours of face-to-face interviews with Kuklinski and his wife and daughters, author Philip Carlo tells his extraordinary story.

No one would ever accuse famous opera star Dame Serena Levante of lacking a flare for the dramatic. Unfortunately, it's curtains down on the dysfunctional diva when she's found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her elegant home. Solving an opera singer's murder may not be the typical hairdresser's aria of expertise. But Dame Serena was the mother of Daisy's best friend Floria, so Daisy must do-or-dye her best to get to the roots of the case.

In 1998, the American Jorgenson family had been on a year-long road trip in Australia. One humid, storming night, the mother - Elsa Jorgenson - vanished in an isolated stretch of Australian everglades. Elsa was never seen again. That night, twelve-year-old Lily Jorgenson was left alone and terrified in the family camper—even her teenage sister Iris is missing. When Iris comes racing back through the rain, she refuses to tell where she’s been. Lily is certain her sister is hiding a dark secret.

A family move into their dream home in Dorchester. It seems perfect, particularly for their two children, but when Philip and Jill Freeman move a buddleia bush, what they find buried beneath its roots will haunt them forever. DCI Sophie Allen is forced to probe crimes that occurred many years before, crimes that cause emotional upheavals within the local community. In a complex investigation, Sophie Allen unearths family secrets which carry on having devastating effects to this day and risk taking new lives.

Detective Sergeant Chris Waters got the call at 05.29 that July morning. This is it, said DCI Reeve, you'll be first there, it's all yours, you're the crime scene manager. Suddenly, after months of waiting and wondering, Waters finds himself in at the deep end, and alone at the scene of a puzzling murder. As the investigation proceeds, the detectives at Kings Lake Central find themselves visiting familiar places and talking to some familiar faces, while old enmities reappear in the incident room. Before this is over, Chris Waters will need to make a career-changing decision.

Megan Keeler died years ago - or so everyone believes. In fact, she disappeared to escape from her sadistic husband, Glenn. When dismembered body parts were found near their home, Glenn was convicted of his wife's murder. And Megan, terrified for her unborn child's safety, never came forward with the truth.... Since then, Megan has built a new life in Seattle for herself and her son, Josh. She's never forgotten that she's a fugitive, and Josh knows nothing about her past. But someone does. There are anonymous emails and threats, just as she learns Glenn has been released from prison.

Separate incidents with two common threads - a first wife who took her own life, and a secret the victims took to their graves. Stephanie Coburn has barely recovered from her sister's mysterious suicide before her brother-in-law and his new wife are murdered, her face disfigured beyond recognition. Stephanie never met the bride, has never even seen a clear photograph. But she knew her sister, and she knows something is desperately wrong.

A young man's mutilated body is found on top of the Agglestone. It seems that he was involved in a human trafficking and prostitution gang. But why is DCI Sophie Allen keeping something back from her team? Is it linked to the extraordinary discovery of her own father's body at the bottom of a disused mineshaft, more than 40 years after he disappeared? Find out.

Emma O'Donovan is 18, beautiful, and fearless. It's the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and, tonight, she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the party, and all eyes are on Emma. The next morning, Emma's parents discover her collapsed on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there. To her distress, Emma can't remember what happened the night before.

Young Michael, an illegal immigrant escaping the troubles in Northern Ireland is strong and fearless and clever, just the fellow to be tapped by Darkey, a crime boss, to join a gang of Irish thugs struggling against the rising Dominican powers in Harlem and the Bronx. The time is pre-Giuliani New York, when crack rules the city, squatters live furtively in ruined buildings, and hundreds are murdered each month.