Private Investigator Thriller

Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international bestseller and MWA Grandmaster Sara Paretsky has selected the twenty most puzzling, most thrilling, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

Lorna Kepler was beautiful and willful, a loner who couldn't resist flirting with danger. Maybe that's what killed her.

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin star in these four gems. In "The Christmas Party", Wolfe condescends to uncharacteristic theatrics, which aren't enough to clear him from suspicion of murder. The "Easter Parade" tempts Wolfe to commit larceny for an orchid. "A Fourth of July Picnic" has Wolfe scheduled for to appear as an orator. But his day in the sun is rained out by murder. The last selection, "Murder Is No Joke", is a whodunit in a couturier's salon, where a murderer is dressed to kill and kill again.

Andrew Crain has it all: a brilliant scientist and astute businessman, his groundbreaking work with lithium has made him one of the world’s richest men. He is universally adored and admired; that is, until Crain’s beautiful wife, Laura, comes to Spenser hoping that he can find out what skeletons lurk in her husband’s closet. Though Crain is a generous philanthropist and loving family man, she is concerned—he has recently become secretive, bordering on paranoid, and prone to violent outbursts.

A woman with a murky past who kills herself - or was it murder? A spoiled kid awash in gambling debt who thinks he can beat the system. A lovely woman whose life is about to splinter into a thousand fragments. A professional shoplifting ring working for the Mob, racking up millions from stolen goods. A wandering husband, rich and ruthless. A dirty cop so entrenched on the force he is immune to exposure. A sinister gangster, conscienceless and brutal. A lonely widower mourning the death of his lover, desperate for answers, which may be worse than the pain of his loss.

A resident of one of LA's toughest neighborhoods uses his blistering intellect to solve the crimes the LAPD ignores. East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the neighborhood's high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch. They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence.

This story is based on the actual murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers, a crime that paralyzed New York because of the unprecedented violence that the murderer turned on her. Mary Cecilia Rogers was born in Connecticut in 1820 and disappeared on October 4, 1838, in unclear circumstances. Some days later the newspapers announced that she had been found and had fled to marry a naval officer. The case was closed, but three years later, on July 25, 1841, Mary Cecilia Rogers disappeared again. Her lifeless body was found floating in the Hudson River

Sarah Booth Delaney and her friends can't help falling in love with Christmas this year, which they plan to spend celebrating the King of Rock n' Roll at the annual Elvis Festival in Tupelo. The main attraction is an Elvis impersonator competition, drawing impersonators from all over the world to honor the king. But before the revelry can get underway, a priceless jewel-encrusted belt once belonging to Elvis is stolen from its display case, and Sarah Booth and Tinkie are roped into the biggest heist in the history of Mississippi.

When London’s finest jazz musicians, the Dizzy Heights, are booked to play the glitzy Midsummer Ball at a country house in Oxfordshire, they expect a weekend filled with flappers and toffs having a roaring good time. But the festivities at Bilverton House take a turn for the worse when the group are stranded by a summer storm. And when a member of the Bilverton family turns up dead in a locked room in an apparent suicide, Skins, Dunn and Ellie realize this is going to be a much tougher gig than they thought.

Dr. Kendra Michaels, blind for the first 20 years of her life before gaining her sight via a revolutionary surgical procedure, is a renowned investigator known for her razor-sharp senses - honed during her years in the dark - and keen deductive abilities. Now, her skills are needed uncomfortably close to home. Two staff members have been murdered at a school for the blind where Kendra spent her formative years. But the murders are puzzlingly dissimilar: one victim was brutally stabbed, while the other was killed by a bullet to the head. Are the crimes related?

When an extra $5,000 shows up in her bank account, Kinsey Millhone puts it down to clerical error. But suddenly the deposit makes sense. It's not a mistake, it's a setup!

A car accident in upstate New York strands Nero Wolfe, America's largest detective, and Archie Goodwin, his confidential assistant, in the midst of a family feud. The feud, over $45,000 worth of prize bull, turns ugly when the beef in question is found pawing the mangled body of a family scion. Solving the mystery is no problem - but, alas, the evidence keeps disappearing.

Private is the most elite detective agency in the world. But when kidnappers threaten to execute a royal family member in front of the queen, Jack Morgan and his team have just 24 hours to stop them. Or heads will roll, literally.

When six-year-old Sam Kettering is kidnapped and then manages to save himself, Savich and Sherlock join his father - former FBI agent Miles Kettering - to determine why Sam would be abducted and brought to eastern Tennessee. Though the local sheriff, Katie Benedict, catches up with Sam before the kidnappers do, the case isn't over - not by a long shot.

Sid Halley had one good hand and another made of metal. Five hundred pounds of horse had landed on him, directly ending his career as a brilliant jockey - and indirectly ending his marriage to the woman he loved. He had become a private investigator, quite a good one, though his new life could never erase the haunting memories of his past glories.

When a body of a woman is discovered at a lighthouse in the Icelandic town of Akranes, it soon becomes clear that she’s no stranger to the area. Chief Investigating Officer Elma, who has returned to Akranes following a failed relationship, and her collegues Sævar and Hörður commence an uneasy investigation which uncovers a shocking secret in the dead woman’s past that continues to reverberate in the present day.

When Charley is rudely awakened in the middle of the night by her best friend who tells her to get dressed quickly and tosses clothes out of the closet at her, she can’t help but wonder what Cookie’s up to. Leather scrunch boots with a floral miniskirt? Together? Seriously? Cookie explains that a friend of hers named Mimi disappeared five days earlier and that she just got a text from her setting up a meet at a coffee shop downtown....

"- La suite ! réclamaient les enfants. La suite ! La suite ! Ma suite à moi c'est l'autre petit moi-même qui prépare ma relève dans le giron de Julie. Comme une femme est belle en ces premiers mois où elle vous fait l'honneur d'être deux ! Mais, Julie, crois-tu que ce soit raisonnable ? Julie, le crois-tu ? Franchement... hein ? Et toi, petit con, penses-tu que ce soit le monde, la famille, l'époque où te poser ? Pas encore là et déjà de mauvaises fréquentations !"

There are 96 names on the list. They are those of businessmen, judges, and senators - the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful. And they are all going to die. A man named Takahashi has hired the world’s finest assassins to eliminate these men in secrecy and style, crossing names off the list without raising any suspicion. And they are killing ahead of schedule. But someone has noticed the pattern of these seemingly unrelated deaths, and she knows enough to call Blaine McCracken.

Since he first went behind enemy lines in Vietnam, Blaine McCracken has faced death on every continent. In the line of fire he is an iron man, but now he faces a different challenge: fatherhood. His son, Matt, is 13 - the unknown product of a long ago tryst. When the boy’s mother dies, McCracken goes to England to meet him. He finds a son cut in his father’s mold: a young athlete determined to put his body at risk to serve his country.