Short Stories Mystery Thrillers

Psychiatrist Olivia Cole is a shell of herself after only two years with her tyrannical husband, the outwardly perfect Sebastian. On their two-year anniversary, she’s subjected to one power move too many when Sebastian whisks her away on a surprise trip—first to the charming capital of Sweden, then to an unexpected final destination. Miles from home and help, the only way for Olivia to wrest back control of her life is to give Sebastian an even bigger, shocking surprise.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by the magazine.

Dramatisations and readings of five of Josephine Tey's classic mystery novels. Scottish novelist and playwright Josephine Tey was one of the greatest Golden Age crime writers and the author of eight mysteries, including six featuring Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant. The most famous of these, The Daughter of Time, was acclaimed the greatest crime novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association. A full-cast dramatisation of this iconic story is included here, along with adaptations of four of her other much-loved mystery novels.

A shadowy master criminal has been kidnapping experts from the food industry and stealing both food and equipment. The crimes are so unrelated no one in the world had noticed the connections. No one except Albert Smith, that is. He’s got almost nothing to go on, but with every place he visits, he gets just a little closer to the truth. He’s not working alone though, his faithful sidekick, Rex Harrison the former police dog is right there with him. Can the two of them pull off the impossible and find the man Albert chose to dub ‘the Gastrothief’?

Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.

The best of the golden age crime writers, praised by all the top modern writers in the field including P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L. Sayers created the immortal Lord Peter Wimsey. In his tenth appearance, he takes a job as an advertising copywriter to expose a ruthless killer. Victor Dean fell to his death on the stairs of Pym's Advertising Agency, but no one seems to be sorry. Until an inquisitive new copywriter joins the firm and asks some awkward questions....

Matthew Scudder and his wife, Elaine, talk of the night they met while listening to music in various places around their part of New York.

This collection by crime fiction master Raymond Chandler features four long stories in which private eye Philip Marlowe is hired to protect a rich old guy from a gold digger, runs afoul of crooked politicos, gets a line on some stolen jewels with a reward attached, and stumbles across a murder victim who may have been an extortionist.

A short ghost story from the best-selling author of Abbot's Keep. A photographer reluctantly agrees to take images of an abandoned manor house on the Dorset clifftops only to find the building is not completely empty.

Under the Great British Baking Contest tent, the competition's heating up to be crowned Best Baker in all of Britain. For amateur baker Poppy Wilkinson, there are mysteries, secrets, and lies, even murders to solve. As a fledgling witch, Poppy's having enough trouble controlling her sponge cake, never mind trying to control her powers. Besides solving crime, Poppy's also trying to uncover the mystery surrounding her own background. Will she discover who she really is before she gets sent home? Or worse?

In this short story from New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, Edgar Allan Poe's brilliant amateur detective Auguste Dupin is called in to investigate a savage murder perpetrated by an invisible killer.

In the haunted, war-torn highlands of Afghanistan, amid the ruins of Shahr-e-Gholghol, an archaeology team is massacred in the night. Sergeant Jordan Stone and his crack forensic team are called in to examine the site, to hunt for the perpetrators of this horrific act. But the discovery of a survivor - a child of 10 - will shatter all the team knows about life and death.

Experience the exciting breadth of #1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins's wild imagination and adventurous spirit in this anthology of his short masterworks, including a new full-length novella featuring Captain Tucker Wayne and his military war dog, Kane, as well as nine previously published short stories, gathered together for the first time.

As a young reporter, Arthur Crane exposed the secrets behind the Orchid Killer, a cult murderer from the late '60s whose crimes blackened the end of the Summer of Love. Half a century later, Arthur wakes to find an orchid resting on his pillow, a symbol of death from a killer connected to his estranged younger brother, Christian. To discover the horrifying truth, Arthur will risk all - even his very soul - for Christian may not be the brother that Arthur remembers....

Here is the precursor to Jurassic Park. Victorian explorers have heard there is a remote plateau where dinosaurs still survive, and a group set outs on a dangerous mission to find out more about it.

Murder comes in two familiar forms. Whether as a crime of passion with high emotions or a cold dispassionate plot to take life in order to gain in some way, the act strikes us all as somehow inhuman. Beneath us as civilised beings. But however we cloak our animal instincts the need to remove a human being and gain relief from abuse or gain from money, the term is just the same – MURDER. Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, W W Jacobs and many others bring their literary heft to bear in as calculating a way as any killer could.

Someone is trying to ruin Christmas. Two of the town’s annual traditions have gone sideways so far. Now it’s starting to get personal for Zara Riddle, a witch who’s just trying to enjoy the season with her family. In a small town full of supernaturals, it’s going to be tricky to figure out who or what has been causing such a calamity. Zara has a list of suspects in mind, and the one at the top of the list happens to live under her own roof. Can the Riddle family’s first Christmas in Wisteria be saved?

Under the Great British Baking Contest tent, the competition's heating up to be crowned best baker in all of Britain. For amateur baker Poppy Wilkinson, there are mysteries, secrets, and lies, even murders to solve. As a fledgling witch, Poppy's having enough trouble controlling her sponge cake, never mind trying to control her powers. Besides solving crime, Poppy's also trying to uncover the mystery surrounding her own background. Will she discover who she really is before she gets sent home? Or worse?

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, and John D. MacDonald all got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by the magazine.

This bundle includes books four, five, and six of the Cupcake Bakery Mystery series: Book Four: Red Velvet Revenge, Book Five: Going, Going, Ganache, and Book Six: Sugar and Iced.