Short Stories Crime Suspense

These funny, loving, courageous, and sometimes frightening characters prove that behind every crime, there is divine comedy.

Akashic Books’ acclaimed series of original noir anthologies has set a high standard for portraying cities and their neighborhoods in all their dark and violent splendor. Now, Mexico City Noir surpasses that standard with phantasmagorical tales of double-dealing, corruption, violence and self-delusion.... This collection is such a varied literary feast.

Explore the world of Maynard Wills, PhD, professor of folklore and fan of the podcast, Video Palace. The podcast followed a man named Mark Cambria, who along with his girlfriend Tamra Wulff, investigated the origins of a series of esoteric white video tapes. Cambria went missing in pursuit of these tapes, but not before hearing whispers of an ominous figure called the Eyeless Man.

This collection of the best crime and mystery short fiction of 1999, gathered from around the globe and including more award-winners and stories than any other comparable volume, fills the void for those with a hunger for the best international mystery and suspense stories.

Everyone comes from someplace. Everyone has somewhere they feel safe. Some people have found their home and are content where they are. Others feel trapped and yearn to go somewhere else. Many are somewhere else and yearn to go back. But even in these safest of places, sometimes…crime hits home. What happens then?

Despite their common setting, these stories neither glorify nor castigate this store, which has come to play such a central role in small-town USA life. These are simply crime stories, direct, sometimes humorous, and well-written.

David Bain presents six tales of small town supernatural horror.

Henrietta and her daughter, Mary Grace, are sold and taken to Charleston, South Carolina, to be auctioned. Separated from her husband, Henrietta now faces an uncertain future and the possibility of becoming estranged from her child. Luckily, fortune shifts in her favor when Olivia Hendricks—the wife of a wealthy planter—purchases her as a nursemaid for their unborn infant. During her years at Livingston Plantation, Henrietta finds sanctuary and safety in the big house, eventually becoming a caregiver to both Mrs. Hendricks and her child.

Is the ‘perfect murder’ possible? Can that crime be committed with such consummate care, with such exacting skill, that it is unsolvable—even to the most astute investigator? In this unique collection, legendary crime writers Margery Allingham, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts, Ronald Knox, Dorothy L. Sayers and Russell Thorndike each attempt to create the unsolvable murder, which Superintendent Cornish of the CID then attempts to unravel.

In this explosive short story, international bestselling author Jeffery Deaver brings listeners a classic tale of star-crossed lovers who defy the boundaries of enemy territory. When an underworld kingpin gets taken out, his prime turf is up for grabs. For Irish crime lord Brendon Nagle and archrival John Yung, head of a forty-man tong, it’s war. For Nagle’s son, Andrew, and Yung’s daughter, Loi, it’s love at first sight. But others are watching as their secret love unfolds.

In The Man by the Sea, John "Slim" Hardy, heavy drinker and disgraced soldier turned bumbling private detective, is hired to investigate Ted Douglas, an investment banker who slips out of work every Friday to visit a desolate cove on the Lancashire coast. In The Clockmaker's Secret, John “Slim” Hardy comes upon something buried in the peat on Bodmin Moor - an unfinished, ticking clock that holds the key to a decades-old mystery and missing-persons case. In The Games Keeper, he is hired to uncover the identity of a blackmailer, a person already killed.

Fifteen short stories, including: "Ashes to Ashes", "Asylum", "Attack", "Attention", "Bait and Switch", "Charade", "Forever", "Holdup", "I'll Bet I Can", "Just Desserts", "Just What I Always Wanted", "Kerry Me Back", "Make a Run for It", "Million Dollar Smile", and "My Lucky Numbers".

Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch accompanies his old friend and mentor, retired bush pilot Charley Stevens, as he pays a visit to a mysterious woman, the widow of a Vietnam vet, living in isolation in the Maine wilderness. Many years earlier, she had called Charley, then a young game warden himself, for help. She claimed that her badly bleeding husband had been attacked by a rabid bat. But in the succeeding days, despite her husband's increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior, his wife resisted Charley's attempts to help, arousing his suspicions that more was going on than met the eye.

What would you do if the TSA sexually assaulted your mother? If you're a red-blooded American, you'd do the same thing James Young did. What did James Young do? You'll have to find out. This book really highlights the effects that governmental abuse of power and paranoia can do to individual lives. In this short novel, James Young decides that he has had enough and decides to do something about it. The legal system has failed him. The solution is vigilante justice.

For the first time, all three Lisa Paxton short crime novelettes are available in one convenient book. Come along as Lisa and her hunky partner fight crime, sadistic killers, and their attraction to each other.

A collection of short stories from the number-one New York Times best-selling "Queen of Suspense" Mary Higgins Clark, including the never-before-published novella Death Wears a Beauty Mask.

A comic vignette in which a carnival barker's valuable watch gets stolen during an illegal poker game. The local sheriff seems in no hurry to apprehend the thief, until a reward is offered.

With hold-your-breath suspense and shocking endings, the five short stories in this collection will put you on the edge of your seat and get your brain and blood pumping.

Rebirth is a dramatic thriller short story, which narrates about a gang group of feminine individuals who were programmed from their youth to do crime. The story reflects the hypocritical lifestyle versus the lifestyle of truth. A conversion from gangster-ism to Christianity. It all started with a puzzling dream Ellen had, which caused her to be isolated for a while because it troubled her. Ellen searched for meanings through the Internet to understand a revelation of a message contained in a dream.

"Get in. We're goin' for a ride." Art grabbed Eddie's left arm, while his partner, Gordo took the other arm. They hurried Eddie along the sidewalk and nearly threw him into the back seat. Eddie quickly scooted across the seat and cowered in the corner near the opposite door. Gordo crawled in next to him while Art slid in behind the wheel. The car squealed away from the curb and headed out of town on the Old Plank Road. Eddie has a fifty-fifty chance of coming out of this alive.