New Mystery Suspense

From the incomparable master of horror and suspense comes an electrifying collection of contemporary literary horror, with stories from 25 writers representing today’s most talented voices in the genre. Horror writing is usually associated with formulaic gore, but New Wave horror writers have more in common with the wildly inventive, evocative spookiness of Edgar Allan Poe than with the sometimes-predictable hallmarks of their peers. Showcasing this cutting-edge talent, Poe’s Children now brings the best of the genre’s stories to a wider audience.

Inside a luxury housing complex, two misfit teenagers sneak around and get drunk. Franco Andrade, lonely, overweight, and addicted to porn, obsessively fantasizes about seducing his neighbor - an attractive married woman and mother - while Polo dreams about quitting his grueling job as a gardener within the gated community and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. Each facing the impossibility of getting what he thinks he deserves, Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme.

You know that eccentric great-aunt no one wants to sit beside at family functions? Or that neighbor who’s just a little too strange to get to know? Or the pushy woman at the thrift store? Maybe you know Gertrude. She’s rude. She’s frightfully frugal. And she’s fearless. Here are the first three Gertrude, Gumshoe novellas, collected for you in one place. She’ll find a body in a house of balls. She’ll tick off the local police. She’ll go undercover at her local thrift store. And she might even manage to get herself kidnapped while yardsaling. All in the name of justice.

Alice didn’t think her maternity leave would involve so much, well, murder. Before becoming proud new moms, she and her friends bonded more than members of a prenatal group usually would, as they became accidental amateur sleuths and solved a crime together. Now, with all this behind them and Alice’s son Jack somehow already a year old, Alice is keen to finally catch up on some sleep. So when an opportunity presents itself in the unlikely form of an eco-protest, Alice and her friends willingly chain themselves to trees and settle in as an excuse to get some overdue rest.

What does divorcing Hollywood’s most powerful jerk get you? In my case, blacklisted and a ticket to rock bottom. A one-time studio executive, I’m now scrabbling as a newly licensed P.I. in the city that popularized noir. And I’ve just landed a job at a shabby downtown agency. Watch out, LA! But that was before I discovered the agency’s specialty—hunting monsters. The actual kind. Suddenly, I’m learning about a side of the city that makes horror seem like a documentary: vampires, werewolves, hostile spirits, and all manner of magic.

I was the only daughter of the Italian American mafia boss on the East Coast. After my mother was murdered, he made sure the world forgot he had a daughter. I had to pretend to be the girl I’ve never been: meek. There is not one submissive bone in my body, but I had to look and act the part. Matteo De Salvo is the only person that has ever made me nervous. My skin itched around him and my throat closed up. I watched him from a distance, the defiant part of me hoping he’d catch me. He did.

Previously uncollected and unpublished: new short stories from a master of psychological suspense. New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are 10 (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time.

Trick I - The first thing to vanish is a worthless doorstop. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, goes its rich and elderly owner. And, for the grand finale, both reappear - each as dead as the other. Trick II - From the House of Darkness issues more bafflement. In total darkness and from a distance of 12 feet, four bullets are pumped within an inch of each other into a spectator's back - a feat utterly impossible to perform yet brazenly and undeniably done.

Amaia Salazar, a young detective from the north of Spain, has joined a group of trainees at the FBI Academy in Virginia. Haunted by her past and having already tracked down a predator on her own, Amaia is no typical rookie. And this is no ordinary student lecture at Quantico. FBI agent Aloisius Dupree is already well acquainted with Amaia’s skills, her intuition, and her ability to understand evil. He now needs her help in hunting an elusive serial killer dubbed “the Composer,” and in solving another case that’s been following him his whole life.

Homicide detective Hoke Moseley is called to a posh Miami neighborhood to investigate a lethal overdose. There he meets the alluring stepmother of the decedent and begins to wonder about dating a witness. Meanwhile, he has been threatened with suspension by his ambitious new chief unless he leaves his beloved, if squalid, suite at the Eldorado Hotel and moves downtown. With free housing hard to come by, Hoke is desperate to find a new place to live.

Sin City. An artificial oasis of pleasure, spectacle, and entertainment, the gambling capital of America has reinvented itself so many times that it's doubtful that anyone knows for sure what's real and what isn't in the miles of neon and scorching heat. Las Vegas is considered the ultimate player's destination, no matter what your game. Las Vegas is the true city that never sleeps, where fortunes are made and lost every day, and where snake-eyes aren't found just on a pair of dice.

Stephanie Plum once again takes to the mean streets of Trenton, NJ, armed with attitude (not to mention stun guns, defense sprays, killer flashlights, and her untrustworthy .38) to find Kenny Mancuso, who recently left the army, inadvertently shot his best friend, and is on the run in violation of a bond.

Becky and Jamie are an ordinary hard-working couple trapped in the daily grind, dreaming of an easier life. On one of their rare vacations, they meet Phil and Mel, a wealthy couple who seem to have it all—they're fun, well-traveled, and very generous with their money. But they are also very, very dangerous. Phil and Mel are not who they say they are, and this is no random vacation friendship.

For Gordon Van Zandt, life was one of duty and loyalty to his country, so when 9/11 happened he dropped out of college and joined the Marine Corps. This youthful idealism soon vanished, one fateful day in a war torn city in Iraq. Ten years later, he is still struggling with the ghosts of his past, but must now face a new reality thrust upon him and his family.

North America, Europe, and the Far East have all suffered a devastating Super-EMP attack that has caused catastrophic damage

Drugged, manacled, condemned to a dank cell in the depths of London's infamous Newgate prison, the world's greatest literary detective awaits execution by a vengeful crew of formidable enemies. Escape is impossible; death, a certainty. But not for Sherlock Holmes, who, in a stunning display of intellect and derring-do, will elude his hangman's noose and live to fiddle, spy, and ratiocinate another day.

Ryan Sharma is a Cherub agent. Working undercover, he can slip under adult radar and get information that sends criminals and terrorists to jail. Now he's investigating a double kidnapping, working with mission controller James Adams. In the mission to end all missions, Ryan and James must assemble a team of legendary Cherub agents to find the hostages and bring them home....

It's the grand opening of Daybreak Island's cat cafe, where customers can get cozy with an assortment of friendly felines - and maybe even take one or a few home. Co-owner Maddie James is purring with excitement over her new warm-and-fuzzy venture, until she becomes entangled in a petty drama between one of her volunteers and a wealthy woman who insists on adopting a calico kitty. The catfight that ensues is bad enough for business. But when the snubbed socialite is found dead with a tell-tale catnip toy on the scene, suspicion lands squarely on Maddie's staffer.

Something big is coming...big enough to destroy the entire solar system...and it's heading straight for Earth. That's what Dr. Ben Rollins, head of Harvard's exoplanet research team, is told by NASA after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His first instinct is to call his daughter and wife, who are vacationing in Italy: Something is coming, he tells them, a hundred times the mass of our sun. We can't see it, we don't know what it is, but it's there.

After the annual parade of Christmas presents in Tinker's Cove, Maine, has ended, Lucy Stone and her daughter Elizabeth are ready to ring in the new year in style. Elizabeth has won mother/daughter winter makeovers in Manhattan from Jolie magazine! But the all-expenses-paid trip is bound to have some hidden costs - and one of them is murder.

In these five tales, Sherlock Holmes is shown at the height of his powers: he co-operates with a young Winston Churchill in the famed Siege of Sydney Street, helps defeat a plan for a German invasion outlined in the Zimmerman Telegram, establishes a link between two missing lighthouse keepers and the royal treasures of King John, contends with a supernatural curse places upon an eccentric aristocrat, and discovers a lost epic of Lord Byron.