Mystery Anthology

This star-studded anniversary anthology features over twenty-five unforgettable stories from internationally bestselling authors and literary legends. From the Nordic noir of Jo Nesbø and the lyricism of Tennessee Williams to the timeless imagination of Ray Bradbury and the courtroom wit of John Mortimer, these vivid tales reflect the range and tone that have defined The Strand Magazine for a quarter century.

Three perplexing puzzles - and three inimitable Wimsey solutions - told with wit, humor, and suspense. Narrator Ian Carmichael, the quintessential Lord Peter, provides great entertainment with his talented performance of these three stories. In "Striding Folly", a frightening dream provides a haunting premonition. A house numbered 13 is in a street of even numbers, and a dead man was never alive in "The Haunted Policeman." And "Talboys" sees Lord Peter's own children accused of theft.

A thriller writer is embroiled in a real-life whodunit when a friend drops dead with her hatpin impaled in his back. The violation of a sealed West Bank tomb, its rock walls intact, provides a Thebes investigator with a mystifying conundrum. Two sisters take shelter in a shuttered old house at the end of a country road . . . only to discover they're not alone. And the author's most beloved characters, Amelia Peabody and Radcliff Emerson, make an appearance in a newly uncovered tale with a witty nod to Sherlock Holmes.

Life is a balancing act. When you’re a cop, the choices can be deadly. Ed Solomon, long-time police officer in the small town of Mapleton, Colorado, has been ribbed for thinking there’s a ring of assassins out killing deadbeat dads. However, he’s convinced these killers exist and they’re doing their dirty work from behind an innocuous-looking travel blog. Proving the ring exists has been a sideline investigation for him, but it’s shoved further onto the back burner when Ed is forced to assume the duties of Chief.

The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James is an omnibus collection of ghost stories. Many of these stories are time-tested classics. Montague Rhodes James is best remembered for his ghost stories, which some consider among the best in the genre. He redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, his protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests.

Harper Harlow has it all, including an exciting job, a best friend who serves as a constant source of amusement, and a boyfriend who makes her heart pinch...but in a good way. She may hunt ghosts for a living (and help them pass over to the other side), but she often finds it more fun than frightening. Human beings and their penchant for murder and mischief is another story, of course. That doesn’t mean Harper doesn’t find the occasional bout of trouble.

My hand shakes when I read the note. Everyone is here. I think. There are so many people. So many painted faces. How am I supposed to know who is missing? I knew this party was a bad idea. Now, one of my own is in trouble and as the Prez of the MC, I should know not to play a game. But we are on a timer and someone is using us as pawns. It’s up to us to save one of our own.

Detective fans of all races and creeds, of all tastes and fancies will delight in the exploits of this wise and whimsical padre. You will be enchanted by the scandalously innocent man of the cloth, with his handy umbrella, who exhibits such uncanny insight into ingeniously tricky human problems. This collection includes 12 mysteries solved by Father Brown.

LAPD Detective Peter Decker doesn’t know quite what to make of Lilah Brecht. The beautiful, eccentric spa owner and daughter of a faded Hollywood legend, Lilah was beaten, robbed, and raped in her own home—and claims to have psychic powers that enable her to see even more devastating events...

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are widely known as the greatest Russian writers of science fiction, and their 1964 novel Hard to Be a God is considered one of the greatest of their works. It tells the story of Don Rumata, who is sent from Earth to the medieval kingdom of Arkanar with instructions...

Midnight. Some call it the witching hour. Others call it the devil’s hour. Here in the graveyard, midnight is a very special time. It is a time when ghostly spirits are at their strongest, when the veil between our world and theirs is at its thinnest. Legend has it, that while most of the world is asleep, the lack of prayers allow the spirits to communicate under the cover of darkness, among the headstones, their whispers rustling in the leaves of the old oak trees. But if you’re here in the graveyard, you can tell yourself it’s just the wind....

With gimlet-eyed cool and razor-sharp wit, these spare, stylish stories from a master of modern-crime fiction assemble a world of gangsters and con men, of do-gooders breaking bad and those caught in the crossfire. The uncle of an FBI agent spends his life as sheriff in different cities, living too close to the violent acts of men; a cocktail waitress moves through several desert towns trying to escape the unexplainable loss of an adopted daughter; a drug dealer with a penchant for karaoke meets a talkative lawyer and a silent clown in a Palm Springs bar.

Get the first three books in one collection by USA Today best-selling author Mike Ryan. Includes: The Extractor, Past Dead, and Pressure Point.

Rumpole is on the job again, bringing along his taste for claret, his penchant for poetry, and his reputation for a good story. These seven irresistible stories run the gamut from simple thievery to murder and espionage.

Experience the exciting breadth of #1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins’s wild imagination and adventurous spirit in this anthology of his short masterworks, including a new full-length novella featuring Captain Tucker Wayne and his military war dog, Kane, as well as eleven...

From Italy in 1733 to Edinburgh in 1831 to a series of chilling murders in London in 1870 and a lethal game of revenge decades later, a watch touches lives with misfortune - until it comes into the hands of one young woman who might be able to stop it for good. This outstanding collaboration between four outstanding novelists follows characters who are irrevocably linked by fate, each one playing a key role in breaking the curse once and for all.

Fed up after 30 years of teaching, Deena has no idea she’s just traded in lesson plans for lethal weapons and report cards for ballistics reports. It’s been fifty years since her uncle disappeared without a trace, but when science and luck collide, a rookie sheriff’s deputy breathes new life into this cold case. And when Deena’s elderly grandmother asks for her help, how can she say no? After all, she’s just quit her teaching job and is looking for a new challenge.

From the author of the Wayward Pines Trilogy, comes this collection of short stories.

"Searingly honest, brilliant and disturbing. Brad Phillips peels back the skin and bone and stares right into the human soul." (Anthony Bourdain) Brad Phillips' collection of short stories adeptly walks a very thin line between taboo and propriety, with rigorous self-awareness and generosity. By confusing ideas around fiction and autobiography, Phillips writes with painful sincerity about shame, addiction, trauma, and the more troubling outreaches of sexual desire, with wit that is at odds with the subject matter. Brad Phillips is a well-known Canadian artist.

Sherlock Holmes was created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science, and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard. Holmes first appeared in print in 1887's A Study in Scarlet, the character's popularity became widespread with the first series of short stories in The Strand Magazine, beginning with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in 1891.