Mystery Anthology

Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision - veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?

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.

Every town has its secrets, but no one has a secret like hers. Amber Blackwood, lifelong resident of Edgehill, Oregon, has earned a reputation for being a semi-reclusive odd duck. Her store The Quirky Whisker is full of curiosities, from extremely potent sleepy teas and ever-burning candles to kids' toys that seem to run endlessly without the aid of batteries. The people of Edgehill think of the Quirky Whisker as an integral part of their feline-obsessed town, but most give Amber herself a wide berth.

Sin City. An artificial oasis of pleasure, spectacle, and entertainment, the gambling capital of America has reinvented itself so many times that it's doubtful that anyone knows for sure what's real and what isn't in the miles of neon and scorching heat. Las Vegas is considered the ultimate player's destination, no matter what your game. Las Vegas is the true city that never sleeps, where fortunes are made and lost every day, and where snake-eyes aren't found just on a pair of dice.

When club-hopping bad girl Tiara Kent is found dead in her plush Manhattan apartment, the killing has all the earmarks of a vampire attack. The ever-practical Lieutenant Eve Dallas has to deal with superstitious cops carrying garlic and stakes, as well as the ever-hysterical press.

In the Agatha Christie classic Peril at End House, a young woman who has recently survived a series of very close calls appears to be the target of a dedicated killer—and it’s up to Hercule Poirot to save her life. On holiday on the Cornish Riviera, Hercule Poirot is alarmed to hear pretty...

Hercule Poirot is called on to investigate the murder of a brother and sister, in this classic Agatha Christie mystery now available in an updated edition with a foreword Sophie Hannah. “He was murdered, wasn’t he?” When Cora Lansquenet is savagely murdered, the extraordinary remark she...

I didn’t think they’d dismantle the paranormal military with a wave of their bureaucratic magic wand, but they did. Everything I’d spent the previous 15 years of my life doing and being was ripped away from me in an instant, out of my reach—and now that the paranormal military’s gone, I’ve got nothing left to fight for.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this “terrifically charming” (The Washington Post) collection of short stories, John Grisham takes us back to Ford County, Mississippi—the setting of his timeless first novel, A Time to Kill. “Ford County is the best writing John Grisham has ever done...

A bloodthirsty sheriff is terrorizing a small Texas town where justice has been buried with his victims. Until Nameless arrives - a vigilante whose past is a mystery and whose future is written in blood. Anyone who crosses Sheriff Russell Soakes is dead, missing, or warned. One of them is a single mother trying to protect her children but bracing herself for the worst. Nameless fears the outcome. He’s seen it in his visions. Now it’s time to teach the depraved Soakes a lesson in fear. But in turning predators into prey, will Nameless unearth a few secrets of his own?

In late 19th-century New Zealand, Sergeant Frank Hardy, ex-British soldier, battles for survival and for his own life as he carves out a new existence for himself and his family in the prehistoric but stunningly beautiful bush. An atmospheric and engaging series.This audiobook includes three captivating historical mysteries from New Zealand. The audiobook includes: Not the Faintest Trace, Recalled to Life, and A Dark and Painful Mystery.

A Murder is Announced in a small-town newspaper advertisement—and Miss Marple must unravel the fiendish puzzle when a crime does indeed occur. The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiosity when the Gazette advertises “A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October...

Rachel Hatch has taken the thriller world by storm. Get swept up in the first three explosive books in this pulse-pounding series from Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author L. T. Ryan and former detective Brian Shea.

Shapeshifter Mercy Thompson has friends in high places—and in low, dark, scary ones. And in this must-have collection of short stories, you’ll meet new faces and catch up with old acquaintances—in all their forms... Includes the new stories... “Silver” “Roses in Winter”...

When Lord Edgware Dies a most unnatural death, detective Hercule Poirot must solve a most confounding conundrum: if the obvious killer, the slain peer’s spiteful wife, didn’t do it, who did? A classic from the queen of mystery, Agatha Christie. When Lord Edgware is found murdered the police...

Just when things have finally cooled down for 88-year-old Maud after the disturbing discovery of a dead body in her apartment in Gothenburg, a couple of detectives return to her doorstep. Though Maud dodges their questions with the skill of an Olympic gymnast a fifth of her age, she wonders if suspicion has fallen on her, little old lady that she is. The truth is, ever since Maud was a girl, death has seemed to follow her....

Off Duty is a collection of short stories. It includes the following: Tickets to the Gun Show, When the Road Rises Up, Little Stoics, and Off Duty.

Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.

John Glover reads a selection of unabridged short stories, including "Graveyard Shift," from Stephen King's best-selling collection Night Shift...

Vampire hunter Anita Blake finds her life is more complicated than ever, caught as she is between her obligations to the living-and the undead...