Short Stories Crime Suspense

Nothing exciting ever happened to Melissa Berkley. It was time to try to change that, she thought. She stood on the stern of the ship looking out at the horizon. Most of the other passengers stayed inside, or sat on the deck chairs with something to read. Melissa had something to read herself, even if it was just a short note on a post card that read: "To whomever finds this bottle: I dropped it overboard in the middle of Lake Michigan on this, the third day of September 1997. If you find it, please mail this post card back to me and let me know where you found it."

We've all been there. Some punk with a beater car creates a road rage situation, but being that your car is a new Mercedes-Benz, you don't want to take any chances so you let it slide. But the kid's not done playing with you. He raises the stakes but pointing a revolver at you. To hell with the car, that's what insurance is for. Go get him.

Tim Murphy is a television newscaster who specializes in stories from the streets. After a long day on location, his cameraman drops him off at the studio, but it's closed for the day. He heads for his car but finds that someone has stolen it. Now, he has to walk home late at night on the same streets he's been reporting on. Can he make it home safely even though the only weapon in his pocket is a microphone? Let's find out.

Betty and Frank live a normal married lifestyle. She's a homemaker and he owns a third generation butcher shop. He's content with his life, but it seems Betty is not. She's been seeing Frank's friend, Bruce on the sly for afternoon delights. As long as Frank doesn't find out, what's the harm? Frank finds out.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. You've lost your job and your family needs money. You've exhausted all other options. Your last chance to bring home the bacon is to holdup a tavern and its patrons. As you wait in their restroom, trying to muster up the courage, two other robbers come in and proceed to rob your tavern. This is the last straw. Time for action.

Penelope was a plain, unassuming woman that nobody noticed. Her job was going nowhere. Enter Debbie, her new co-worker at the insurance company where Penelope had gone unnoticed for nearly three years. Debbie's going places in the company, and fast. Why? Because she saved her money and got breast implants. Once Penelope saw what those implants did for Debbie, she decided to have the operation herself. One way or another, she would get noticed. Be careful what you wish for, Penelope. Attention may not be all that it's cracked up to be.

It's 1964. Philip Duran has been driving all night to make a sales meeting in the wee hours of the morning in Hollywood. Vern Grayson has the purchasing power at MGM. Mr. Duran's new invention could be just the thing MGM needs to pull ahead of its competitors, but can Duran convince Grayson to buy his contraption? Find out here, because Philip Duran will do, anything for a sale.

Every morning at the same hour on the golf course, Jack Hartington hears mysterious cries for help coming from a cottage. He speaks to the resident and learns that she has unsettling dreams of a woman with a blue Chinese vase. Believing that the cries for help are from the late Mrs. Turner, the former resident of the cottage, Jack hires a psychic investigator to spend a night in the house, a night which proves to have startling results.

Get a real job? Not on your life. You'd rather keep pulling the same cons on unsuspecting rubs. Your latest con involves selling TV boxes with just a picture tube in it to the gullible public. It keeps you in money and your cost is zero. But what happens when you unkowingly sell one of these useless boxes to Anthony Vonetti, crime underworld hit man? Well, you did and when they see what's in the box, your life won't be worth a plug nickel. You have to get it back before that happens. Good luck.

You just know your husband's stepping out on you but you can't prove it. Well, wait a minute, this is Hollywood and you know a hairdresser who knows a makeup artist. Together they can transform you into a beautiful, unrecognizeable tart. Then you can go out, pick up your husband at his favorite bar and see just how far he'll go. What can possibly go wrong?

Your Aunt Grace is dying and you are her only living relative so you would be the logical choice as sole heir to her fortune. However, Aunt Grace has nine cats that also figure into the equasion. Will you split the fortune 10 ways? Or will that plan you've hatched help you keep it all? What will you do?

It's been decades since the beatings and harassment and the humiliation of this high school bully, yet here he was big as life standing right in front of you at the car rental counter. You may never get this chance again. Go for it. Tell him what a jerk he was and how you'd like to punch his lights out. You jump over the counter, ready to exact your vengeance but you stop. Your bully is supporting himself on two crutches and he has braces on both legs. Now what? You can't very well beat up a cripple. Or can you?

Penelope is a meter maid who also does double duty emptying the parking meters and counting/sorting the change. This is how she first got interested in coin collecting. She started out by finding a Liberty dime, then a couple of buffalo nickels and finally several wheat pennies. While sorting her find at home one night, she discovers that someone had dropped a rare coin into a parking meter and she ended up with it. Could she keep it? Probably not after the original owner was killed. What to do, what to do.

An exciting mystery anthology of short stories by assorted writers including Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton.

Beirut is a city of contradiction and paradox. It is an urban and rural city, one of violence and forgiveness, memory and forgetfulness. Beirut is a city of war and peace. This short story collection is a part of a vibrant, living recovery of Beirut. Beirut Noir recovers the city once again through writing, through the literary visions of its authors....

More tales of crime and mystery, of those who walk crooked paths and pay the price for it. People on the spot when things have taken a bad turn. A young woman facing a deadly challenge. A man who walks into the wrong bar with the wrong attitude. A boxer who refuses to quit. An officer of the court with a grudge. A rich man who finds his motives questioned by the police. These are the stories of the darker side of life, when people decide to harm others.

Chrysalis, the glass-skinned queen of the Joker underworld, has been found brutally murdered in her popular restaurant, the Crystal Palace. Now two men are out to find her killer: Jay Ackroyd, the Ace private investigator who discovered her ruined body, and the vigilante archer known as the Yeoman, who has been framed for the crime. Their quest leads them on a nightmare odyssey of madness, violence, passion, and political intrigue that will forever alter the fates of Aces and Jokers everywhere.

Brigitte had a rough start in life. It all began when her village was bombed when she was just a child. After being sent to the US by a refugee agency, she drifted from one foster home to another for some time. In her pursuit to find the sense of family, she is recruited by the Russian mob, where she meets up with an old friend. The mob offers them everything except freedom. She wants more. She changes her name and makes a new life for herself.

Step into Indian Country. Enter the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas, where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent. Features brand-new stories by: Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martnez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg, and Melissa Yi.

The Rules have allowed Andrew Phillips to commit the most heinous of crimes for decades. He meticulously plans and executes kidnappings, murders, and other unspeakable acts to children. No one has ever come close to solving the atrocities he perpetrates every few months. Phillips thinks he's successfully committed the perfect crimes. And then he meets Asher Benson.