Mystery Survival Fiction

Laurence Gonzales’s electrifying adventure opens in the jungles of the Congo. Jenny Lowe, a primatologist studying chimpanzees—the bonobos—is running for her life. A civil war has exploded and Jenny is trapped in its crosshairs...She runs to the camp of a fellow primatologist. The rebels have already been there. Everyone is dead except a young girl, the daughter of Jenny’s brutally murdered fellow scientist—and competitor.

When the exiled Prince Okisada, the most illustrious prisoner of the penal colony on Sado Island, is poisoned, Akitada is called upon by the emperor's envoys to investigate incognito. Posing as a prisoner, he discovers a deadly conspiracy, only to fall into the hands of brutal guards and disappear. It falls to Tora, Akitada's devoted assistant, to begin his own dangerous search of the island for his lost friend and the truth.

Powerful, glamorous television journalist Mary Carelli is charged with the murder of famed novelist Mark Ransom. However, she pleads self-defense against rape. Christopher Paget, Mary's attorney (and former lover), prepares to shock the courtroom with revelations about Ransom's past as a twisted sexual predator. But as the trial unfolds, Paget is in for some surprises of his own. He learns that Mary may not be telling the whole truth about the rape, and may well have a secret motive for murder. Meanwhile, newly disclosed tapes of Ransom force Mary to confront ugly secrets about her own past, including testimony at Congressional hearings 15 years earlier that led to her stardom and helped Paget bring down the President.

Airboats give adrenaline filled rides across the lakes of Florida. The thrill is even more daring at nighttime under a full moon. Annie's problem was that she didn't want to go on the airboat ride on Lake Washington to begin with, much less at night. Bill Kirby had insisted, so she bravely went along for a thrill that turned into a nightmare when a crash spilled them into water full of alligators. Join Annie's nightmare for survival in black swamp water as she struggles to escape from creatures of the night.

Thomas Bolden grew up on the streets, his childhood a blur of fragmented memories. But now he's managed to put his past behind him, find the woman he wants to share his life with, and carve out a successful career on Wall Street. Until, in the blink of an eye, his world is turned upside down. A bizarre kidnapping sends him fleeing for his life, his face everywhere on the TV news, and a violent, shadowy organization is framing him for crimes he did not commit.

At 21 Cassie is in a dead-end job and has just been dumped, whilst her friends are succeeding at school or their careers, and compared to her, are generally winning life. On a whim, she hands the reins of her decisions over to Twitter, and at first her followers seem to be making her life better. However, as the instructions continue, they become increasingly strange, and she finds herself held at ransom, forced to commit crimes for an unknown party who seems to be stalking her at every turn.

Joe and his cousin are curious about a war vet who lives by himself out in the woods. Joe makes up an excuse to visit the man's home - and the cousins find themselves trapped in a fight for their lives.

As militant groups arm themselves and take to the streets, survivalist Simon Redfall and his band of freedom fighters scramble to uncover more facts about the swarm of red storms suffocating the planet. The more they dig, the deeper the conspiracy grows. Yet, it all seems to point back to one man and his weather control technology, Jeffrey Hansen. A former military intelligence officer who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

Terrorists have taken down America's electrical grid in the simplest way possible, they shot holes in it. The same as they had previously tried on the Silicon Valley in 2013 that most people in the know said was a trial run to destroy America. The attack, which nearly took out power to parts of Silicon Valley, has been called "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred" by the nation's top electrical utility regulator. The destruction continues and mayhem ensues as hackers use cyber-attacks to further destabilize the world and take down the nation's infrastructure.

Former special ops and survivalist Simon Redfall has lost everything: his wife, his fortune, and his future. Despite being hunted by angry mobs and his own bankrupt government, Simon arrives in Washington, DC, to attend the first ever pay-per-view execution of someone he loves. Then red storm clouds appear and begin to spread their potentially toxic rain across the planet. The mysterious weather phenomenon grounds all travelers, knocks out communications, and threatens to take down the grid, sending civilization back to the Stone Age.

Special Agent Poppy McVie goes deep undercover and finds herself surrounded by the worst people on Earth—wealthy poachers who shoot bears for sport. Her mission is to dismantle the bloody game and drag its masterminds to justice. To earn their trust, she has to join the twisted fun and take aim at one of the majestic beasts herself. Even with the help of her handsome partner, Poppy has to fight to stay in character. But the cracks in her facade put the poachers on edge.

A teenage boy becomes stranded in the remote woodlands of Northern Canada after his bush plane crashes and he is left as the sole survivor. With next to nothing, except the clothes on his back and a few items found from the crash site, he struggles to survive. He faces many dangers, but the biggest danger, one far greater than starvation, hypothermia or the threat of predators, is the danger he never sees coming until it’s almost too late.

Disaster strikes after an EMP disables the country’s power grid, disrupting communications, transportation, and essential utilities. Ben Riker, a prepper and Lieutenant with the Asheville fire department, has managed to secure a new home to rebuild what his family had lost. But before they can start a new life, Ben must retrieve his daughter before the enemy finds her.

With the mysterious event that devastated mankind now four months past, and winter fast approaching, Bobby, Becca, and Myron hunt for game. Though life is not easy, it has at least settled into what now passes as normal. That is until they discover a band of hunters stalking human prey. For Mel, Caryn, and Tara, the end of the world has been a constant struggle to survive. The new world has become chaotic and dangerous. Life has little value except in the depths of depravity in the minds of those who own you.

The Seventh Taking is the chilling tale of a young man’s journey through harsh mountain country in his search for the girl he loves and the two friends who dare to brave the dangerous elements - both human and natural - to support a friend. When Joy Vincent disappears in the Blue Summit Mountains of Tennessee while vacationing with her family, park rangers begin an intensive search for the Louisiana high-school junior. Seven weeks later, the search is abandoned, and authorities conclude that Joy voluntarily ran away because of a fight with her father.

Years after a strategic attack killed millions and left the twelve states of the Midwest in darkness, the nation struggles to rise from the ashes. After a surprise ambush in Springfield, Missouri sets in motion a deadly chain of events, Miles Arrington leaves for Branson to aid militia in a life-or-death mission. As communities fall, and survivors turncoat, it’s not long before panic ensues. While Gunnar Nelson and Arianna narrowly escape enemy troops, Miles discovers a horrifying truth about August and a secret that may change the course of this fight forever.

Evie Childs hoped the all-expense-paid trip to Africa would give her a chance at adventure. Maybe it would even let her forget a past that haunts her and find safety from a husband who abuses her. But when a group of "freedom fighters" kidnaps her safari tour group, intent on holding them for ransom, the adventure turns to nightmare. Now, Evie and the rest of the survivors must travel across miles of the harshest, most dangerous environment on Earth. No food. No water. No communications. And they're being hunted.

They have traveled north and survived the chaos of the big city. Shortly after arriving in Battle Ground, Jim's hometown, everything went completely wrong. Their group is now scattered to the wind, and a reunion seems completely impossible. Jim and Karen are forced to fight harder than they imagined possible to save what truly matters. Brother Paul and his people managed to escape the clutches of a massive zombie horde, and as they flee north toward Battle Ground, he has one thing on his mind: Finding Jim Blackmore, and getting his revenge.

The world is dying. An abhorrent epidemic is sweeping the globe, destroying everything it touches. Contact with even a single drop of contaminated blood or saliva is enough to spread the disease. Within hours, even the healthiest people are transformed into hideous, germ-spewing creatures. They hunt out the uninfected in their tens of thousands, their sole purpose to continue spreading the infection. On a recently-built housing development on the outskirts of a large city, one man will stop at nothing to protect his family from the coming storm.

Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, has joined forces with the editors of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern to create a collection of action-packed short stories by some of today's most talented names in literature.