Short Stories Mystery Thrillers

A top-secret experiment at a restricted virtual-reality compound pulls attorney Tommy Diaz back into the orbit of Irene Adler, an old friend with an eidetic memory, a love of true-crime podcasts, and a knack for solving the unsolvable. But this? At a remote warehouse, a VR trial goes awry when a willing test subject, alone in the observation room, drops dead of anaphylaxis—from the sting of a virtual bee.

Throwing on an almost convincing French accent, Tommy is determined to act the Great Detective Hanaud to his and Tuppence's latest, lovely client. Miss Hargreaves has recently received a box of chocolates from nobody knows who, and, due to her dislike of chocolates, was the only one to not fall afoul of the arsenic-spiked treats. But, Miss Hargreaves is not the first recipient of such a gift; three other large country houses have received arsenic-laced chocolates. Miss Hargreaves is holding something back, and Tommy and Tuppence must take up residence at her house to discover the true culprit.

In a forgotten Cold War bunker, a cold-blooded arms dealer counts his cash and watches from a distance as cities collapse into violence. Pledged to stop him is a man without a past, guided by a teenage boy through the tunnels under the corrupted port city. With each stealthy move toward their target, the path ahead grows ever darker.

This collection of short stories of Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe), and his human partner, PI Bernie Little includes: "Upper Story," "The Iggy Papers," and "The Numbers After Two."

When CIA officer Craig Norton glimpses an unexplainable object in the sky over Mongolia, he can’t quite believe it. Frankly, he isn’t sure Langley will either. Despite his misgivings, Craig reports the sighting in a cable to headquarters detailing the incident. Fast-forward fifteen years. Craig is still reeling from the report that tanked his career and his personal life. That fleeting moment on the Mongolian steppe made him a pariah at the Agency, and he still hasn’t recovered. At this point, he doubts he ever will.

Do not go gentle into that good night, wrote Dylan Thomas, and Canadas notorious Ladies Killing Circle has taken his advice to heart. In Going Out with a Bang, the dangerous dames have brought together an explosive mix of authors from across the country. Whether its the boom of drums, the cacophony of a train wreck, or the thud of a body crashing down the stairs, no one goes out without a fight. Twenty authors, along with poet Joy Hewitt Mann, will chill you, entertain you or plain blow you away in this eclectic fictional brew.

Killing Me Softly introduces Key West private eye Gideon Lowry, who moonlights as a piano player at a local jazz club. When Virginia Murphy shows up one night to ask him to investigate her sister's death 40 years earlier, Gideon is led down the darker side of memory lane where secrets linger. Some are buried as deeply as the paradise that was once Key West, now entombed in concrete. Key West's Hemingway Days is in full swing in Night and Day, when Gideon is pulled into the world of a famous nightclub singer known only as Asia.

This drive through the dark streets of the Motor City “is one of the best in Akashic Books’ noir series. You cannot go wrong with this anthology.”—Reviewing the Evidence From cri….

Germany, 1945. In the waning days of World War II, the Nazis have been all but defeated. Uwe Fuchs, never a fighter, feels fortunate to have avoided the front lines as he cared for his widowed mother. But Uwe’s fortune changes when Hans Sauer, the village bully, recruits him to join a guerilla resistance unit preparing for the arrival of Allied soldiers. At first, Uwe is wary. The war is lost, and rumor has it that Hans is a deserter. But Hans entices him with talk of power, brutality, and their village’s ancestral lore: werewolves.

The Josephine Tey Collection includes unabridged recordings of Tey's 8 major novels in one audiobook, including all 6 of the novels in the Inspector Alan Grant series.

In this incredible follow-up to the New York Times and USA Today best seller FaceOff, 22 of the world's most popular thriller writers come together for an unforgettable anthology. MatchUp takes the never-before-seen best seller pairings of FaceOff and adds a delicious new twist: gender. Eleven of the world's best female thriller writers, from Diana Gabaldon to Charlaine Harris, are paired with 11 of the world's best male thriller writers.

Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses books have fascinated fans and critics alike with their irresistible blend of fantasy, romance, and adventure. Now in Quatrain, she weaves compelling stories in four of the worlds that fans love in "Flight", "Blood", "Gold", and "Flame".

In Lace and Lies, the knitting shop's been chosen to appear on TV with celebrity knitting designer Teddy Lamont, but things go wrong on and off the camera, and somebody doesn't make it to the final credits.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. In Hong Kong Noir, 14 of the city’s finest authors explore the dark heart of the Pearl of the Orient in haunting stories of depravity and despair.

The iconic duo find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events: an otherworldly stone whose touch inflicts fatal bleeding; a hellish potion to unlock a person’s devilish psyche; a fiendishly clever, almost undetectable method of revenge and many more—including a brand-new Cthulhu Casebooks story.

A deadly betrayal is at the center of The Athens Solution. When a game-changing weapon falls into the wrong hands, the US ambassador to Greece must risk everything to recover it, even if it means participating in a ruse that costs his life. With the ambassador dead and the device still at large, covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath rushes to eliminate a terror cell about to sell the dangerous technology to Iran.

In the title work in this collection of novellas, Poirot and Inspector Japp collaborate on the investigation of a suspicious suicide. The supernatural is said to play in the disappearance of top secret military plans in The Incredible Theft—an incredible claim, indeed, as Poirot will prove. The bullet that kills Gervase Chevenix-Gore shatters a mirror in Dead Man's Mirror—just the clue Poirot needs to solve the crime.

In appearance Hercule Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet, reasoned the detective, like Hercules, he had been responsible for ridding society of some of its most unpleasant monsters. So, in the period leading up to his retirement, Poirot makes up his mind to accept just 12 more cases: his self-imposed "Labors". Each would go down in the annals of crime as a heroic feat of deduction.

Seichan is ripped out of the Sigma series for an adventure all her own - but can she survive? The beautiful and elusive assassin wakes in a hotel in Paris with a deadly electronic collar fastened to her throat. Joined by a boy who is similarly threatened, she must rescue the son of a hated enemy, who has fallen under the sway of the nefarious leader of an apocalyptic cult. To survive she must venture into the dark world beneath the City of Lights, into the infamous catacombs of Paris.

Gears, Grills, & Guns: When Wendell Holliday's body is found dead in one of Happy Trails Campground bungalows, Mae along with the help of the Laundry Club Ladies once again put on their sleuthing caps. Eggnog, Extortion, & Evergreens: Mae West along with the help of the Laundry Club Ladies put on their amateur sleuth cap to help solve the mystery of the murders before a killer sends her a Christmas gift she can't return. Ropes, Riddles, & Robberies: With a group of friends to help, Mae is on the case to put the clues of the past together to bring out the truth.