Classic Thrillers

The elf had been murdered, that much was evident... Christmas is only days away, and Santa is facing the greatest crisis of his career. Pinkie Merryvale, head of the elves' union, has been brutally murdered, the most obvious suspect none other than Santa himself - for years he and Merryvale had clashed over the working conditions of the North Pole's workforce. The elves, worked to exhaustion, issue an ultimatum in response. If Santa can't find the killer and prove his innocence before Christmas Eve, they STRIKE, and Christmas worldwide will be ruined.

What else did they have to do with their days? They ambled around casually. From time to time, they paused, not because they were out of breath but to admire a tree, a house, the play of light and shadow, or a face. While taking a much-needed rest cure in Vichy with his wife, Maigret feels compelled to help with a local investigation, unravelling the secrets of the spa town's elegant inhabitants.

From the acclaimed master of action and suspense. The all-time classic. Paul Sherman of Interpol's Narcotics Bureau flies to Amsterdam on the trail of a dope king. With enormous skill the atmosphere is built up: Amsterdam with its canals and high houses; stolid police; psychopaths; women in distress; and above all, murder.

Nicolai Gogol's classic ghost story set in the streets of St. Petersburg in the 19th century.

Philip and Margaret Waverton and their friend Roger Penderel are driving through the mountains of Wales when a torrential downpour washes away the road and forces them to seek shelter for the night. They take refuge in an ancient, crumbling mansion inhabited by the strange and sinister Femm family and their brutish servant Morgan. Determined to make the best of the circumstances, the benighted travelers drink, talk, and play games to pass the time while the storm rages outside. But as the night progresses and tensions rise, dangerous and unexpected secrets emerge.

The terrible spectacle of the beast, the fog of the moor, the discovery of a body: this classic horror story pits detective against dog. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the wild Devon moorland with the footprints of a giant hound nearby, the blame is placed on a family curse. It is left to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to solve the mystery of the legend of the phantom hound before Sir Charles' heir comes to an equally gruesome end.

First published in 1911, The Innocence of Father Brown contains stories involving one of the greatest characters in the history of detective fiction: Father Brown. He is a Roman Catholic priest who has an uncanny insight into human evil. Rather than the large serial villains in, for example, Sherlock Holmes stories, the mysteries Father Brown solved were more local murders by small-town crooks, narrowing the suspect list down to those in the area of the crime.

Jim Thompson's classic The Grifters is one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for the critically acclaimed film by Stephen Frears and Martin Scorcese. To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

Inspector Maigret must untangle the web of lies left behind by a murdered man whose family didn't know him as well as they thought. When a man is found stabbed to death in an alley off Boulevard Saint-Martin, his identity card shows a workplace that had gone out of business three years earlier. As far as his wife knew, he still worked there, and she insists that the shoes and a tie he was wearing when he was killed 'couldn't be his'.

The classic vampire story by Bram Stoker revolves around a struggle between good and evil, tradition and modernity, and lust versus chastity. The author didn’t invent vampires, but his novel has so captured the public’s imagination that he is rightly considered their popularizer. Listen and you will meet not only the Count himself, but heroes Jonathan Harker and Abraham Van Helsing, plus an array of madmen, psychiatrists, and fair maidens who cross paths with the fanged menace.

Who is Vee? Where did she come from? And what is the darkness the fae can see inside her? Xander's reaction to these questions drives a bigger wedge between the fae and the Horsemen. His move isn't popular with the others because right now they need help from the fae more than ever. A bloody message and a series of murders lead to a search for a threat from the past. Instead, the Horsemen encounter something new and dangerous. The race is on to find out what the creatures are and how big a threat they are to an already chaotic world.

Con man Joe Berlin was used to scoring easy cash off of gullible women. But that was before he met Mona Brassard - and found himself holding a stolen stash of raw heroin. Now that Joe has fallen hard for Mona, he's got to pull off the most dangerous con of his career: one that will leave him either a killer - or a corpse. Block's debut novel under his own name is a classic example of prime pulp fiction, with an ending that will astonish even the most jaded crime-fiction fan.

In a town where it's not safe to be out after dark, student Claire Danvers and her friends have had their fair share of thrills. But Morganville still has a few secrets left to tell. Now, in this collection, you can venture down the town's strange streets, revisit all the tales you've come to love, and experience six new stories featuring your favorite Morganville residents - both human and vampire.

Three humans are dead, and the search is on for the surviving member from Vee's online group. If he's alive, Seth could hold the key to who's behind the attacks - and why the group are targets. Thanks to their broken alliance with the fae, the Four Horseman and Vee must turn to others for help and are pulled deeper into the supernatural underworld. The danger the world faces is greater than they imagined, and someone is determined the Horsemen will fail.

Ewan's shock revelation sends Vee's life further into chaos, and she faces an uncertain future in a secret world she never knew existed. The Four Horsemen now have their missing link and will each do anything to protect and support her, but Vee's determined to show them she can be their equal. When Vee joins the Four Horsemen's hunt for those behind the plot to murder a fae queen, she discovers society faces bigger dangers than she realised. One night changes everything and increases Vee's determination to harness her power and step into her new role.

Kelly Jackson, manager of the Redwood Cove Bed and Breakfast, is fond of the Doblinsky brothers, Ivan and Rudy, members of the Silver Sentinels, a crew of crime-solving senior citizens in their Northern California seaside hamlet. After she discovers a jewel-encrusted dagger - with what appears to be dried blood on the blade - on their fishing boat, they share their family history with Kelly, and she learns that the knife may be part of a set from their childhood in Russia. Its sudden reappearance is eerie, but the mystery grows much more serious when a body is found on the boat.

Homicide detective Kara Gillian has a special talent: she can sense the "arcane" in our world, and there's quite a bit of it, even in Beaulac, Louisiana. She's also a summoner of demons, and works on a task force that deals with supernatural crimes. Her partners are attractive and smart FBI agents, but they're not summoners, and they're not telling Kara why they are on this special force with her.

Written in diary entries from a Polish scholar, this short story features a mysterious femme fatale, Medea, who is responsible for the deaths of five men, including her husbands. The scholar is soon cast under her spell from behind the grave.

This story is based on the actual murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers, a crime that paralyzed New York because of the unprecedented violence that the murderer turned on her. Mary Cecilia Rogers was born in Connecticut in 1820 and disappeared on October 4, 1838, in unclear circumstances. Some days later the newspapers announced that she had been found and had fled to marry a naval officer. The case was closed, but three years later, on July 25, 1841, Mary Cecilia Rogers disappeared again. Her lifeless body was found floating in the Hudson River

In the 21st century, magic has advanced with the times and gone digital. But when Ravirn - a computer savvy sorcerer - is thrown into a parallel world where magic runs on a different operating system, he'll need mad skills to get out alive.