Short Thrillers

Patterson Blake is an FBI Agent on a mission. When she was a teenager, her older sister vanished while on a cross-country road trip and hasn't been seen since. Patterson thought she'd put the trauma of her sister's disappearance behind her, but now there is new evidence, and suddenly the old wounds reopen. Except that Patterson isn't a kid anymore. She has a badge and a gun, and the resources to follow her sister's trail. But it won't be as easy as Patterson thinks.

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.

A collection of Smith's apace adventure stories featuring Captain Volmar, including the never before published novella, "Red World of Polaris."

Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international bestseller and MWA Grandmaster Sara Paretsky has selected the twenty most puzzling, most thrilling, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

Alden McCausland and his mother are what they call “accident rich”; thanks to an unexpected life-insurance policy payout and a winning Big Maine Millions scratcher, Alden and his Ma are able to spend their summers down by Lake Abenaki, idly drinking their days away in a three-room cabin with an old dock and a lick of a beach. Across the lake, they can see what “real rich” looks like: the Massimo family’s Twelve Pines Camp, the big white mansion with guest house and tennis court that Alden’s Ma says is paid for by “ill-gotten gains” courtesy of Massimo Construction.

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.

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.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson traverse the British Isles and the Italian peninsula in a rousing new series of adventures. After a thrilling jaunt in the Far East, Holmes and Watson return to England to address an inheritance left by one of Watson's relatives in Cornwall, half of which he gave to his dear friend, Sherlock Holmes. Financially secure, the two are now free to spend as much time on Baker Street and the Continent as they please - until clues surface that Holmes' great nemesis, Professor Moriarty, might still be alive….

When Cherringham's Council debates selling the historic village hall for development as a luxury restaurant and hotel, all of Cherringham is up in arms; some seeing the sale as needed, others deeply opposed. For many, the centuries-old hall is the very heart of the community! But when the leader of the protestors is attacked after a raucous meeting and death threats are made, Jack and Sarah are asked to investigate. Can they find a possible killer before the crucial Council vote? And maybe stop a murder?

Two women have gone missing, and LAPD detective Harry Bosch has a strong suspicion that an avid fisherman named Denninger is the culprit. Bosch needs something stronger than a suspicion to bring Denninger in, but all he has are a handful of photos - prior mug shots and pictures of Denninger posing with his prize fish. It's not much to go on, and Bosch is running out of time, which is why he calls in FBI agent Rachel Walling. What she sees in these photos could blow his case wide open.

Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren confronts the strangest case of her career in this exclusive short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author. D. D. Warren was pretty sure she’d seen it all. Then a man walks into police headquarters, attempting desperately to convince the squad that he’s dead. Explaining to him that he’s very much alive, they finally send him on his way…and then hours later, he turns up actually dead. And it’s on D. D. Warren to figure out how and why the dead man died…twice.

This collection of recordings about Brother Cadfael—a Benedictine monk and amateur sleuth in the 12th century—are performed here by the ideal actor. Sir Derek Jacobi, who portrayed Cadfael in several television adaptations, captivates listeners with his renderings of Monk's Hood, Saint Peter's Fair, The Heretic's Apprentice, The Potter's Field, The Summer of the Danes, and Brother Cadfael's Penance.

Detective stories existed for centuries before the concept of the detective itself—amateur or professional— was fully formulated, and tales of mystery and intrigue have been thrilling readers since ancient times. The Lock and Key Library is the classic overview of the history of the mystery genre, at once a rousing listen for fans of the unsolved and unknown as well as an essential literary resource for those seeking to understand the roots of modern pulp fiction. This volume is sure to delight and enthrall armchair detectives and fans of classic mysteries alike.

Archie Goodwin has his hands full when three baffling murders make him the recipient of a poisonous lunch, the fall guy for a beautiful woman, and the target of the U.S. Federal Government.

In this riveting and emotional conclusion to the thriller-romance Janie series, which started with The Face on the Milk Carton, all will be revealed as listeners find out if Janie and Reeve’s love has endured, and whether or not the person who brought Janie and her family so much emotional pain and suffering is brought to justice.

It's autumn in Painter's Mill, and 14-year-old Katie Burkholder has been tasked with picking apples in Zimmerman's Orchard with her brother. It's just another day filled with chores - until her best friend, Mattie, arrives to help. Somehow boredom transforms into fun and games whenever the girls are together. The innocent fun comes to an end when Billy Marquardt and his gang of friends interrupt. Katie is no prude, but she knows better than to associate with the older English boys.

Now available in one volume! The original Peyton Brooks mystery series box set! Get all eight of the popular Peyton Brooks' Mysteries in a single box set, including the prequel, Murder in the Painted Lady. The Peyton Brooks' Mystery series follows the career of San Francisco Homicide Detective Peyton Brooks and her partner Marco D'Angelo as they fight crime in the City by the Bay.

Interlude is a collection of short stories spanning the complete timeline of the Snow & Winter series, beginning with The Mystery of Nevermore to after the conclusion of The Mystery of the Bones. They feature the point of view of Sebastian Snow and Calvin Winter and consist of mini mysteries, as well as scenes from daily life.

From the New York Times best-selling duo comes a gripping and suspenseful short story about a blind detective who uses her heightened senses to discover life-threatening secrets.

Charles Waters has 30 days to live. Those days pass in a blur and he dies a quiet, unnoticed death. He opens his eyes back in the doctor's office as he is told, "I'm sorry to say, but you have 30 days to live." Thus begins The Many Short Lives of Charles Waters, who has to live the same 30 days over and over while he finds out what it is to be alive.