Short Stories Mystery Thrillers

Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler returns with a new anthology of exhilarating mysteries, assembling Victorian society's lords and ladies and most miserable miscreants. Behind the velvet curtains of horse-drawn carriages and amid the soft glow of the gaslights are the detectives and bobbies sniffing out the safecrackers and petty purloiners who plague everything from the soot-covered side streets of London to the opulent manors of the countryside. Brush off your dinner jackets and straighten out your ball gowns for these exciting, glitzy mysteries.

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 13 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Gervase Fen novella by Edmund Crispin that has never previously been published. With the Golden Age of detective fiction shining ever more brightly thanks to the recent reappearance of many forgotten crime novels, Bodies from the Library offers a rare opportunity to read lost stories from the first half of the twentieth century by some of the genre’s most accomplished writers.

On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, on a cold February day in St. Paul, Guy Noir looks down the barrel of a loaded revolver in the hands of geezer gangster Joey Roast Beef, who is demanding to hear what lucrative scheme Guy is cooking up with stripper-turned-women's-studies-professor Naomi Fallopian. Everyone wants to know, and Guy faces them one by one, as he and Naomi pursue a dream of earning gazillions by selling a surefire method of dramatic weight loss.

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.

The New York Times best-selling author continues his colonial-era thriller series with eight tales of mystery, adventure, and supernatural suspense.

New York Times best-selling author Sara Paretsky is the master of twisting suspense and propulsive plot. She has been hailed by the crime community as "a legend" (Harlan Coben) and "one of the all-time greats" (Karin Slaughter). Her acclaimed novels featuring detective V.I. Warshawski rank among the most celebrated crime series in modern fiction. Now in this spellbinding collection, Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents with 14 short stories, eight of which feature the indomitable detective - and a new V.I. story.

A terrorist attack in the news leaves Nameless reeling from a disturbing vision. But it’s not a glimpse of the future. It’s a recovered memory that’s opening a window into his mysterious past. Uncharacteristically forthcoming—and unexpectedly personal—Nameless’s handlers have no choice but to emerge from the shadows. The indoctrinating factions of his visions are growing in number. What’s more, their chilling symbol of totalitarian control is now linked to the highest powers in the country.

Weddings are even better with a touch of magic - and mystery! Enter the magical world of the Seattle Haven, where magic is real and the weddings are over the top. Enjoy the complete Touch of Magic trilogy and the prequel novella in this boxed-set edition.

Chase’s grandfather is missing, and he asks Odelia to help find him. And since Odelia’s editor has told her to find out who the new Hampton Cove Santa is, she gladly agrees. After traipsing all over New York City in search of Grandpa Kingsley, and the new Santa, they have to declare defeat. Lucky for them, there’s still Max and Dooley, Odelia’s feline sleuths. Will they find out what happened to Grandpa Kingsley? And will they figure out who the new Santa is? Get into the holiday spirit with Max and Odelia and find out in Purrfect Santa. This title features three short stories.

A collection of four chilling novels, ingeniously wrought gems of terror from the brilliantly imaginative number one New York Times best-selling author of The Fireman, Joe Hill.

It seems straightforward enough: Get a foot in the door by posing as a potential investor in a lucrative underground business—then bring the place down from the inside. There’s more here than meets the eye. What it triggers in Nameless is uncontrollable rage and brutal retribution. What it reveals is a clue to his forgotten past. Is it a breach on his handler’s part? Or a test? Either way, something’s not right.

A grand treasure for fans of the grande dame of mystery, The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories brings together nine rare and brilliant Christie tales of murder and detection that span nearly half a century of her storytelling genius. In "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest," Hercule Poirot unravels the psychological conundrums that motivate a killer.... In "The Actress," a great star's shady past becomes the plaything of a blackmailer.... In "The Harlequin Tea Set," Mr. Harley Quin helps a man save his loved ones from the greedy hand of murder.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

In Lisa Gardner’s first-ever short story following 13 best-selling novels, "The 7th Month" takes listeners between the books and into a day in the life of Boston Detective D. D. Warren.

In her seventh month of pregnancy, D.D. should be taking it easy. Instead, she accepts a small consulting role on the set of a serial-killer film shooting in Boston. D.D. figures she’ll be useful to someone for at least one night, serving as a police expert and making a little extra money in the bargain. It seems like a simple task—until the previous film consultant, a former Boston cop, is found beaten to death.

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are restless for adventure, so when they are asked to take over Blunt's International Detective Agency, they leap at the chance. Their first case is a success - the triumphant recovery of a pink pearl. Other cases soon follow - a stabbing on Sunningdale golf course; cryptic messages in the personal columns of newspapers; and even a box of poisoned chocolates. But can they live up to their slogan of "Any case solved in 24 hours"?

When the end of the world arrived, it came not with a bang, as most expected, but with more of a "pfft" instead. Humanity has been torn asunder and brought to the edge of total annihilation in less than an hour. For those who died, it was a quick death, so fast that their brains didn't have time to process the pain signals from their nerves. For those who survived, the true horror is about to begin as they struggle to not only stay alive, but come to grips with the shocking realization about what - and who - was responsible.

A fourth floor room, a door locked with the key inside, no way in, no way out. Edgar Allan Poe is the true grandfather of the murder mystery. Decades before Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, Poe gave us C. Auguste Dupin, a man able to solve mysteries through observation and deduction.

Spencer Quinn’s first original audio short story reveals how everyone’s favorite detective duo - Chet the Dog and P.I. Bernie Little - came to meet before their first big case in Dog On It. As fans know, Chet first met Bernie on that fateful day when he flunked out of K-9 police school. The details of that day, though, have always remained a little vague (like so much in Chet’s doggy brain). All we know is that Chet had been the best leaper in his K-9 class, but for some reason he failed his final leaping test...and that a cat was involved...and that there was some blood. But whose?

Years before the Great War summoned Bess Crawford to serve as a battlefield nurse, the indomitable heroine spent her childhood in India under the watchful eye of her friend and confidant, the young soldier Simon Brandon. The two formed an inseparable bond on the dangerous Northwest Frontier where her father’s Regiment held the Khyber Pass against all intruders. It was Simon who taught Bess to ride and shoot, escorted her to the bazaars and the Maharani’s Palace, and did his best to keep her out of trouble.

Train journeys through rolling countryside and cruises across the open ocean might sound like paradise, but when murder strikes mid-journey, they’re anything but. Even on vacation, tensions can bubble beneath the surface, and when the end of the line leads to murder, everyone’s a suspect.