Short Thrillers

Dick Francis has written 36 best selling novels, one autobiography, and one biography. With Field of 13, he turns his hand to the short story. The settings range from the national Hunt at Cheltenham, where a middle-aged owner falls in love with her jockey, to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, where demon drink and wilting willpower take their toll.

In this second collection in the Music and Murder Mystery series, nine award-winning, bestselling authors have written their own interpretations of the Thriller song list. With original work from some of the best mystery authors out there, the anthology includes stories from Heather Graham, Jeffery Deaver, William Kent Krueger, Dahlia Rose, and David R. Slayton, among others. With poignant, frightening, and intriguing stories from some of the best writers in the genre, this eerie collection is sure to keep you up at night—and maybe even haunt your dreams.

Spanning from a mediocre spa in Florida, to New York’s gritty East Village, to death row in Alabama, this collection reveals boundless suspense in small, quiet moments, offering startling twists in the least likely of places. From a powerful response to hateful bullying, to a fight for health care, to a gripping desperation to vote, these stories are equal parts shocking, devastating, and enthralling, revealing the tension pulsing through our everyday lives and affirming that mystery and suspense writing is better than ever before.

Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren confronts the strangest case of her career in this exclusive short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author. D. D. Warren was pretty sure she’d seen it all. Then a man walks into police headquarters, attempting desperately to convince the squad that he’s dead. Explaining to him that he’s very much alive, they finally send him on his way…and then hours later, he turns up actually dead. And it’s on D. D. Warren to figure out how and why the dead man died…twice.

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

The New York Times best-selling author continues his colonial-era thriller series with eight tales of mystery, adventure, and supernatural suspense.

Veronica Ruiz is on the run for the first time in her life—though certainly not the last. After being falsely accused of stealing money from her college sorority, she packs up and heads to her cousin Ramón's apartment, planning to change her name and rebuild start over away from backstabbing girls and university drama (and far, far away from her arrest warrant in Maryland). At the local bank on the first morning of her new life, it occurs to Vero that she'd be a better bank teller than most of the current employees.

Con man Nick Fox is after Garson Klepper’s golden Peruvian relics. For Fox, convincing Klepper to hire him as security for the relocation of the relics to the Getty museum in L.A. was easy. Problem is, Fox wasn’t planning on Klepper also enlisting the help of the FBI. Fox also wasn’t planning on being paired up with rookie special agent Kate O’Hare. She’s smart, she’s tenacious, and when she’s conned, she holds a grudge. Life for Fox and O’Hare will never be the same again.

This new Cyanide Publishing edition contains three classic audiobooks by Maurice LeBlanc as well as background articles.Follow the exploits of Arsene Lupin, the greatest of all white-glove thieves and the original gentleman burglar. Mystery and tension build, but humor prevails throughout as Monsieur Lupin and Chief Inspector Guerchard try mightily to outwit each other. Slapstick humor, witty asides, and some unexpected twists.

Someone is trying to ruin Christmas. Two of the town’s annual traditions have gone sideways so far. Now it’s starting to get personal for Zara Riddle, a witch who’s just trying to enjoy the season with her family. In a small town full of supernaturals, it’s going to be tricky to figure out who or what has been causing such a calamity. Zara has a list of suspects in mind, and the one at the top of the list happens to live under her own roof. Can the Riddle family’s first Christmas in Wisteria be saved?

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. In Hong Kong Noir, 14 of the city’s finest authors explore the dark heart of the Pearl of the Orient in haunting stories of depravity and despair.

A collection of seven short stories, featuring crime-fighting duo Tilly and Poe: The Killing Field, Why Don't Sheep Shrink?, Dead Man's Fingers, Strange Ink, A Permanent Solution, Mondo Bizzarro and Once in a Red Moon.

Deep in the sewers of New York City, the rat population is growing. Dr. Randolph Finch is determined to break the cycle. His new rodenticide, Degenesis, doesn’t kill rats. It sterilizes them from reproducing. But nothing adapts faster than a New York rat.... City exterminators and soon-to-be divorced Chris and Benita Jackson think they know how these rats think. They know how rats breed. And they fear that Degenesis has only made these rats stronger. More aggressive. More intelligent. And more ravenous than ever...

Jo Nesbø is known the world over as a consummate mystery/thriller writer. Famed for his deft characterization, hair-raising suspense and shocking twists, Nesbø’s dexterity with the dark corners of the human heart is on full display in these inventive and enthralling stories.

Undercover to track the assassin who killed his partner, FBI special agent Alex Driscoll accidentally pulls his partner’s widow, Violet Sharp, and her search-and-rescue K-9, Teddy, into the case. Now, with Violet’s life on the line, the only way Alex can protect her is to make her—and her enormous dog—his new cover. But can they stay alive long enough to bring the hit man to justice?

Every nosy neighbor, gossipy friend, and meddling relative is just one good mystery away from becoming a detective. From behind locked doors or out in broad daylight, driven by chance or curiosity, amateur sleuths get in over their heads in these six hair-raising, hilarious stories.

In a forgotten Cold War bunker, a cold-blooded arms dealer counts his cash and watches from a distance as cities collapse into violence. Pledged to stop him is a man without a past, guided by a teenage boy through the tunnels under the corrupted port city. With each stealthy move toward their target, the path ahead grows ever darker.

Dramatisations and readings of five of Josephine Tey's classic mystery novels. Scottish novelist and playwright Josephine Tey was one of the greatest Golden Age crime writers and the author of eight mysteries, including six featuring Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant. The most famous of these, The Daughter of Time, was acclaimed the greatest crime novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association. A full-cast dramatisation of this iconic story is included here, along with adaptations of four of her other much-loved mystery novels.

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?

Stocking stuffers like handknit scarves make the coziest of Christmas gifts—unless they're used as accessories for murder! When grinchy thefts steal the good cheer at a local nursing home, Siobhan O'Sullivan manages to identify one missing item before the tractor parade—a hideous shamrock scarf wrapped around a very dead body. The festivities go cold at Pans 'N' Pancakes the instant a diner dies while knitting a brilliant green scarf. Suspects pile up when frosty-tempered Carys Walnutt is found strangled by a handmade scarf auctioned at Arborville's tree-lighting ceremony.