Crime Suspense

Sixteen delightful holiday short stories by some of your favorite Soho crime authors! This captivating collection of short mysteries and crime capers - which features New York Times best-selling authors, Crime Writers Association Gold and Diamond Dagger winners, and Edgar Award nominees - contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season.

Slough House is a dumping ground for British intelligence agents who've screwed up cases in any number of ways - by leaving a secret file on a train or blowing a surveillance. River Cartwright, one such "slow horse", is bitter about his failure and about his tedious assignment transcribing cell phone conversations. When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, River sees an opportunity to redeem himself.

On the tree-lined banks of Surrey’s River Wey, a decaying corpse is dug up by workmen in the middle of an Anglo-Saxon burial site. His modern dental fillings show that this is no Dark Age corpse. DCI Craig Gillard is called in, but the body’s condition makes identification difficult. One man, however, seems to fit the bill: Ozzy Blanchard, a contractor employed by the same water firm doing the digging who disappeared six months ago. But then an X-ray of the corpse throws the investigation into turmoil. The deeper Gillard digs, the more shocking truths he will uncover.

Five thrilling tales of mystery, mayhem, and murder from an exceptional quintet of Edgar, CWA Dagger, and National Book Award winners.

There's a different schemer or slimeball behind every door: cocaine duckpins who have survived only by the dumbest fortune, hard-luck gigolos desperate to score, undercover cops busting undercover cops who are running sting operations on undercover cops.

Twenty-year-old Kendele Byers is savagely killed and buried in a shallow grave. She had a violent past, a bizarre, kinky line of work, and the suspect list grows longer every day. But when another woman is murdered, Detective Mitchell Lonnie realizes that there's something much more sinister afoot: a connection between the two murders. Both victims had received a clue hinting at their oncoming demise several minutes before they were attacked. There's a serial killer in Glenmore Park.

It’s the night shift worker who finds them. Huddled in a hospital store cupboard is elderly Edith Higgins. Knifed to death. Sitting behind her is Staff Nurse Lily Frampton, a scalpel clasped in her blood-soaked hand. No one can understand why this kind-hearted, dedicated nurse would brutally murder a frail patient she’s spent months caring for. That same day, mild-mannered schoolteacher Rod Black is found surrounded by the battered bodies of his pupils. Why would a well-respected teacher beat five schoolboys to death?

Behind the cold, damp walls of the cottage, 17-year-old Malakai River is left to fend for his younger sisters. In her selfish quest for freedom, his mother shacks up with a small-time gangster and recklessly leaves the children behind. When Jean River returns a year later, she makes two shocking discoveries - a decomposing body of a young woman in her cottage...and Kelly Raven.

I know I should be afraid of him. He's huge. Powerful. Cold as ice. But the way he gazes at me makes me weak.... Now we're on the run together. They say he's a monster, but I've glimpsed the person inside. The man sent to kill me is the only one who can save me, and I might be the only one who can save him.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who stopped believing in fairytales after her innocence was stolen. Morgan Myers is tired. So damn tired. Most people either push her around or brush her off, and she's not putting up with it anymore. Determined to reclaim the life that had been stolen from her, she puts her trust in the last person she ever expected to: the notorious Scar. Morgan sees a side of him that few people seem to know - the man, not the myth. Lorenzo. And what she sees, she likes, a lot more than she thought she would.

On his way back to Duluth, Stride stops to visit the grave of his mother in a small Wisconsin town. After a shocking occurrence in the cemetery, Stride becomes enmeshed in a gruesome and suspenseful search for a killer who knows things no one else alive should know.

On an ordinary morning, Maria Colson takes her baby son, Dylan, to the corner store. She turns her back for only a few seconds. When she looks again, she sees his empty stroller as Dylan is being abducted into a waiting van. Maria climbs into the van but is violently thrown to the road, where she is left for dead as the vehicle vanishes without a trace. As Maria fights for her life and her anguished young husband keeps a bedside vigil, the FBI and police across metro Sea-Tac and Washington State search for Dylan.

It’s the opening night of The Manor, the newest and hottest luxury resort, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles; the “Manor Mule” cocktail (grapefruit, ginger, vodka, and a dash of CBD oil) is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen.

Containing over 47 stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train - a bullet couldn't pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes.

As a 14-year-old girl in London, Alice survived a horrific stabbing attack by two classmates obsessed with Mister Tender, a graphic novel character created by Alice's own father. Now, a decade later and an ocean away, Alice is trying to focus on the present - but the past won't leave her alone. Someone knows far more than they should - not just about the night she's tried so hard to forget, but also deeply private details about Alice's life.

Selena Murphy is commuting home on the train when she strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat. The woman introduces herself as Martha and soon confesses that she’s been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When the train arrives at Selena’s station, the two women part ways, presumably never to meet again.

Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion—it’s been a decade since she graduated, and she is looking forward to seeing old faces and reminiscing about her time there. This visit is special because Maya will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi. But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya’s worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on.

In Wiltshire, England, the Crime Review Team is headed by Gus Freeman, pulled back to the police force after three years in retirement. With old witness statements plus fresh clues, the hunt can be on again. Freeman and his team now have several successful cold-case investigations behind them. But can Freeman find Grant Burnside’s killer?

It's not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar. It's love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an air force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. 'Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he's got the connections on the street.

Kate Rees, a young American markswoman, has been recruited by British intelligence to drop into Paris with a dangerous assignment: assassinate the Fuhrer. Wrecked by grief after a Luftwaffe bombing killed her husband and infant daughter, she is armed with a rifle, a vendetta, and a fierce resolve. But other than rushed and rudimentary instruction, she has no formal spy training. Thrust into the red-hot center of the war, a country girl from rural Oregon finds herself holding the fate of the world in her hands.