Short Stories Mystery Thrillers

Lies, infidelity, and murder... what is a little mayhem among friends?

At the luxurious Roarke Palace Hotel, a maid walks into suite 4602 for the nightly turndown - and steps into her worst nightmare. A killer leaves her dead, strangled by a thin silver wire. He's Sly Yost, a virtuoso of music and murder. A hit man for the elite.

New York Times best-selling author Linda Castillo is known as a “master of the genre” (People) for her pulse-pounding mystery series set in Amish country. Now, together for the first time in print, A Simple Murder features six original short stories starring whip-smart chief of police, Kate Burkholder.

Best-selling authors Jeffery Deaver and Anne Perry join rising stars like Dana Chamblee Carpenter and Paul Gail Benson in a collection that proves Music City is a deadly place to be when your song gets called. Featuring stories by Donald Bain, Robert Dugoni, Jefferson Bass, Mary Burton, Jonathan Stone, Steven James, Maggie Toussaint, Clay Stafford, Heywood Gould, Jaden Terrell, and more....

First appearing in print in 1890, the character of Sherlock Holmes has now become synonymous worldwide with the concept of a super sleuth. His creator, Conan Doyle, imbued his detective hero with intellectual power, acute observational abilities, a penchant for deductive reasoning and a highly educated use of forensic skills. Indeed, Doyle created the first fictional private detective who used what we now recognize as modern scientific investigative techniques.

Throughout her distinguished career, Ann Granger has penned an array of hugely entertaining and gripping short stories. From a nosy neighbour who trusts no one to a jealous nephew protecting his inheritance, and from a ghostly apparition on a cruise ship to an Oxford undergraduate who cannot escape his past, Ann's short stories transport listeners from the Highlands of Scotland to the rugged coast of Cornwall and from the Victorian era to the present day.

A man is murdered in a back alley. Renowned forensic detective Lincoln Rhyme and his partner, Amelia Sachs, are left with a veritable mountain of evidence collected from the trash-filled alley, and their only lead is a young eyewitness: the man's eight-year-old son, who was riding along on his father's delivery route.

Legendary Maine woodsman and bush pilot Charley Stevens tries to convince young Mike Bowditch of the dangers awaiting rookie game wardens.

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.

The costume Valentine's party is the hot ticket in the Mississippi Delta. But Tinkie's title of Queen Bee of Delta Society becomes jeopardized when her Valentine's guests are all robbed. There's nothing for it but that Tinkie and Sarah Booth Delaney find out what happened to the very handsome Cupid (who failed to appear at the party) and where the short, hairy, Pan-like Cupid (who crashed the party) came from. Certainly not Central Casting.

Elsa Gardner's career as a con artist has seen better days. After a string of failures, she's broke and racked with self-doubt when another con man, Eddie, enters her life, providing a ray of hope. He offers her an opportunity that could resolve her financial issues forever. But her heart has other plans, and soon she must make a difficult decision - risk following her heart or take the safe path, no matter what the cost.

Seabury Quinn's most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave. The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, presents all 93 published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero. The third volume, The Dark Angel, includes all Jules de Grandin stories from "The Lost Lady" to "The Hand of Glory", as well as The Devil's Bride.

Louis L'Amour's world is built on those dramatic moments when men and women cast their fears, doubts, and pasts behind them and plunge into the unknown. Nowhere is that more evident than in this latest collection of stories set on the American frontier. These selections include "The Nester and the Piute"; "Big Man"; "Waltz Him Around Again"; "Shadow"; "Barney Takes a Hand"; "When a Texan Takes Over"; and "No Trouble for the Cactus Kid".

The Dark Yorkshire Series are fast-paced crime fiction stories featuring DI Nathaniel Caslin. Books four to six in this best-selling series are brought together for the first time in a great value collection. Includes: Blood Money, Fear the Past, and The Sixth Precept.

Off the blustery streets in the medieval heart of Budapest, Captain Tucker Wayne and his war dog, Kane, rescue a mysterious woman fleeing three armed men. The secret she holds will unlock a terrible treasure, one steeped in blood and treachery, tied to a crime going back to the fall of Nazi Germany and a heritage of suffering and pain that reaches out from the past to wreak havoc today.

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.

Miss Marple meets Oscar Wilde in this new series of cosy mysteries set in the picturesque Cotswolds village of Bunburry. Here, fudge-making and quaffing real ale in the local pub are matched by an undercurrent of passion, jealousy, hatred and murder - laced with a welcome dose of humour. This compilation contains episodes 7-9. "Sweet Revenge." Alfie is back in London - but even a wild social whirl with his best friend Oscar can't disguise the fact that he misses Bunburry. And then a cry for help reaches him - Liz and Marge are in trouble, and Alfie races back.

It is the early 1600s and the City of London sees Queen Elizabeth living out her dying days as Scottish King James waits in the wings to take to the throne. Meanwhile, in Southwark, along the south bank of the River Thames, Master Hardy Drew, Constable of the Bankside Watch, maintains law and order amongst the cut-throats and smugglers, in the taverns and brothels, as well as with the gentlefolk, who flock across the river to enjoy the latest plays by Shakespeare and Jonson.

Read the best mystery and adventure short stories. Be it cozy, historical, detective or murder mystery stories; our collection includes them all: The Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Arrow of Heaven by G. K. Chesterton, The Sign of the Broken Sword by G. K. Chesterton, The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe, The Master of Mystery by Jack London.

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 and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture.