Short Stories Mystery Thrillers

Detective Paige Whiskey is about to set off on a path that will change the course of her family’s lives forever. The Whiskeys are a powerful family in the paranormal community, but there’s a lot they don’t know. As they blunder down their path of discovery, they find shape-shifters, vampires, and much more that falls in their wheelhouse. The old days of witchcraft and demons is disappearing fast. By helping others, they're re-opening a war between witches and shifters. Do they help the shifters? Or prevent a war?

It's been one year since a virus triggered junk DNA and people all over the world started changing, becoming something else, craving blood. It's been 10 months since the word vampire stopped being something from old monster stories and Hollywood movies. It's been six months since our world and theirs erupted into war, two since an uneasy peace was signed, and one hour since that peace was shattered. The war is here again - the vampire war.

John Meredith & Patsy Hodge are a detective duo who are excellent in their jobs but often secretive and conflicted in both their working and personal relationship. However, nothing gets in the way of them solving a case. Discover them and their world in this three book box set, full of murder, mystery, twists and turns and find out why over 60,000 readers have downloaded M K Turner’s popular series.

Books included in this collection: BOOK 4—DEATH’S KISS, BOOK 5—DEATH’S TASTE, and BOOK 6—DEATH’S ANGEL.

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.

A young man’s attempts at breaking parole end in a night of horror. A child realizes that his Christmas gift might be a lot more sinister than he originally thought. An editor unveils his client’s sinister plan to cleanse the world of all evil. And a woman’s walk home is accompanied by a strange presence that promises a gruesome end. Scare Street’s authors Ron Ripley, David Longhorn, Sara Clancy, and A. I. Nasser come together to bring you some of the most horrifying short stories in a single collection.

Linx Maxwell is on the verge of greatness. She's finally graduated from street fairs and hopping chain link to making art that pays the bills. Her family life is...not dull. And it looks like her van might just be able to exist on hope and duct tape. If only she could get rid of the ghost who's plagued her since the eighth grade.

In a near-future San Francisco ravaged by pandemics and wildfires, Abigail is an ER physician on the brink. The daily trauma of her work, compounded by the birth of her own son, forces her to leave the front lines. She finds a new role at a tech startup building artificial intelligence designed to answer any question with flawless certainty. But Abigail soon realizes the true danger isn't in wrong answers, but in perfect ones—a world without doubt, pain, and mystery is a world where humanity itself begins to fade.

When a hopeful pair settles into their idyllic new residence, they quickly discover that their tranquil haven is anything but. Nestled in a quaint and seemingly serene town, their picturesque abode holds a sinister history that refuses to stay buried. As the couple confronts spine-chilling supernatural occurrences, they find themselves entwined in a harrowing unsolved enigma that has haunted the community for generations. Will they unveil the truth in time, or are they destined to join the tragic fate of those who ventured too close to the darkness before them?

The best noir writers make us feel the heat of the sun, the touch of a lover. Setting can be gritty but can also be sublime, no longer relegated to urban locales and seedy hotel rooms but also mansions and swimming pools. Hence, Palm Springs, which may seem like an odd setting for a collection of dark short stories—it’s so sunny and bright here. The stories in this collection come on like the wicked dust storms common to the area.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler is back with a new anthology that has gathered the intel on the world's greatest secret agents, declassified here for the first time.

This wry collection of Hanukkah noir features eleven stories by critically acclaimed authors that run the gamut from hardboiled to heartfelt, curated by New York Times bestselling author Tod Goldberg. Across eleven stories, award-winning authors spin tales of family, corruption, buried treasure and delightful yet twisted capers that will entertain listeners through all eight nights of the Festival of Lights.

In Agatha Christie’s “The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan,” Poirot and Hastings are called on to solve the case of Mrs. Opalsen’s missing set of pearls, apparently stolen during a stay at the Grand Metropolitan Hotel. The two suspects are Mrs. Opalsen’s maid and the hotel chambermaid, but both blame the other. Who is the real thief? This short story originally appeared in the March 14, 1923 issue of The Sketch magazine.

Even if you think you don't know him, you know him. Few in the Hollywood orbit have had greater influence; few have experienced more humiliating failure in their lifetime. Thanks in part to the biopic directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp, and bearing his name, Ed Wood has become an icon of Americana. Perhaps the purest expression of Wood's théma - pink angora sweaters, over-the-top violence, and the fraught relationships between the sexes - can be found in his unadulterated short stories.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies. This collection, with voices of French and English writers, visits many neighborhoods and combines them into something that is, if not totally coherent, at least as coherent as the beautiful mess that is Montreal....

When CIA officer Craig Norton glimpses an unexplainable object in the sky over Mongolia, he can’t quite believe it. Frankly, he isn’t sure Langley will either. Despite his misgivings, Craig reports the sighting in a cable to headquarters detailing the incident. Fast-forward fifteen years. Craig is still reeling from the report that tanked his career and his personal life. That fleeting moment on the Mongolian steppe made him a pariah at the Agency, and he still hasn’t recovered. At this point, he doubts he ever will.

In a town where the corrupt are protected, a bereaved mother seeks retribution for an arsonist’s crimes. Only Nameless can help ease the burden of her grief - and satisfy her rage - in part four of this thrilling series. After a suspicious house fire, Regina Belmont lost her two children, was left disfigured, and was abandoned by her gutless husband. Brokenhearted and bullied into silence by corrupt officials, Regina’s only recourse for truth and justice is Nameless. There’s something about this case that’s breaking Nameless’s heart as well. But can he bear to remember why?

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.

Kathleen Paulson has her hands full in Mayville Heights, Minnesota, running the public library and taking care of her two uncanny cats, Hercules and Owen. Kathleen's good friend Maggie says items are being stolen from the local artists' co-op. She doesn't want to call the police, because the main suspects are all close friends. Luckily, Kathleen and her faithful felines are there to put their paws on the truth!

Eve has a fake ID, a .38, and a violent lover receding in the rearview mirror. He’ll never find her at the isolated motel, and its kindly manager is happy to ease her fears. But if Eve is the only guest, whom does she keep hearing on the other side of the wall? Eve won’t get a good night’s rest until she finds out.