Short Thrillers

Summertime—as the temperature rises, so does the potential for evil. From Cornwall to the French Riviera, whether against a background of Delphic temples or English country houses, Agatha Christie’s most famous characters solve complicated puzzles as the stakes heat up. Pull up a deckchair and enjoy plot twists and red herrings galore from the bestselling fiction writer of all time.

With heart-stopping stories by Zane, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes, Joy M. Copeland, Robert Fleming, Terence Taylor, Francine Lewis, Brandon Massey, and 12 other established or up-and-coming writers, Dark Dreams is a must-have contemporary anthology for fans of the supernatural.

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

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.

As the summer break begins, lifelong friends Norah and Daisy are looking forward to one last summer together. That is until they fall under the spell of charismatic newcomer Jack Hannay. But as the summer draws to a close, Daisy refuses to accept that it is over. She insists on one last visit to Jack's boat, where something so horrific happens, it leaves them suffering the effects for years to come....

Ever since Stieg Larsson shone a light on the brilliance of Swedish crime writing with his acclaimed and best-selling Millennium trilogy, listeners around the world have sought out and devoured the crime fiction of his countrymen (and women), many of whom have proved to be some of the greatest masters of the genre. In this landmark and unique publication, Sweden's most distinguished and best-loved crime writers have contributed stories to an anthology that promises to thrill even the most jaded mystery listener.

This Audiobook contains the following works: "The Builder" [Frank L. Packard], "The Man Who Didn't Count" [Frank L. Packard], "Red Petals" [Frederick Merrick White], "The Other Man's Story" [Frederick Merrick White], "The Shebeeners" [Frederick Merrick White], "The Waterwitch" [Frederick Merrick White], "The Brand of the Wild" [G.B Lancaster], "A Fair Smuggler" [George Newnes], "A Castaway of the South" [Gilbert Parker], "As Deep As the Sea" [Gilbert Parker], "The Gift of the Simple King" [Gilbert Parker], "The Treasure of Sacramento" [Nick Guy Boothby].

It had been a typical New Year's Eve party. But as midnight approaches, Mr. Satterthwaite - a keen observer of human nature - senses that the real drama of the evening is yet to unfold. And so it proves when a mysterious stranger knocks on the door. Who is this Mr. Quin? Mr. Satterthwaite's new friend is an enigma. He seems to appear and disappear almost like a trick of the light. In fact, the only consistent thing about him is that his presence is always an omen - sometimes good, but sometimes deadly....

If you’re a fan of fiction that is more than just black and white, this latest story collection from number-one New York Times best-selling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R. R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.

It starts with a few near-accidents: A car almost swipes Mike Hammer when he’s crossing the street. A junkie robs the notoriously hardboiled detective at knifepoint. A fight on a subway platform comes close to pushing him in front of a train. While any one of these could be a coincidence, together they make a conspiracy—one that Hammer will have to end in order to survive. And when it comes to finishing something—or someone—nobody does it better than Hammer.

Lawrence Block's 17 Matthew Scudder novels have won the hearts of readers throughout the world - along with a bevy of awards including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe (Germany), and the Maltese Falcon (Japan). But Scudder has starred in short fiction as well, and it's all here, from a pair of late-'70s novelettes ("Out the Window" and "A Candle for the Bag Lady") through "By the Dawn's Early Light" (Edgar) and "The Merciful Angel of Death" (Shamus), all the way to "One Last Night at Grogan's", a moving and elegiac story never before published.

A blinding snowstorm - and a homicidal maniac - traps a small party of friends in an isolated estate. Out of this deceptively simple setup, Agatha Christie fashioned one of her most ingenious puzzlers, which in turn would provide the basis for The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history. From this classic title novella to the deliciously clever gems on its tail (solved to perfection by Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple), this rare collection of murder most foul showcases Christie at her inventive best.

This bundle includes books four, five, and six in the Nine Lives Magic Mysteries.

The Man in the Brown Suit is Agatha Christie at her best, as a young woman makes a dangerous decision to investigate a shocking “accidental” death she witnesses at a London tube station. In Agatha Christie’s classic crime adventure novel, They Came to Baghdad, a bright young adventure seeker in the Middle East finds more excitement than she bargained for when a wounded spy expires in her hotel room.

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.

From the authors of the best-selling series "Cherringham". This compilation contains episodes 1-3. "A shot in the dark": Sussex, England, 1929. Mydworth is a sleepy English market town just 50 miles from London. But things are about to liven up there considerably, when young Sir Harry Mortimer returns home from his government posting in Cairo, with his unconventional American wife - Kat Reilly. "A little Night murder": A young poacher is found shot dead in the woods of a grand estate near Mydworth. A sad accident it would seem.

Here in one recording is every Sherlock Holmes story ever written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally appearing in serial form, these famous stories are here presented in the order in which they were first published beginning in 1887. Included in this definitive, award-winning collection are four novels and 56 short stories, a total of 60 titles. The 56 short stories are aggregated into five named collections, just as they were originally published in book form.

The Big Four: Framed in the doorway of Hercule Poirot’s bedroom stands an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man stares for a moment, then he sways and falls. Who is he? And what is the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Cards on the Table: Mr. Shaitana is famous as a flamboyant party host. Nevertheless, he is a man of whom everybody is a little afraid. So when he boasts to Hercule Poirot that he considers murder an art form, the detective has some reservations about accepting a party invitation.

Five haunting tales from Benedict Ashforth, the best-selling author of Abbot's Keep.

Before Area X, there was Ambergris. Jeff VanderMeer conceived what would become his first cult classic series of speculative works: the Ambergris trilogy. Now, for the first time ever, the story of the sprawling metropolis of Ambergris is collected into a single volume, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.