Selected by Jeffrey Deaver and Raymond Benson, this is a collection of mystery/thriller short stories from some of today's top writers.

Nuclear brinksmanship, psychological warfare, spies, double agents, femmes fatales, and dead drops…

The Cold War - a terrifying time when nuclear war between the world's two superpowers was an ever-present threat, an all-too-real possibility that could be set off at the touch of a button - provides a chilling backdrop to this collection of all-new short stories from today's most celebrated mystery writers.

Bestselling authors Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson – the only American writers to be commissioned to pen official James Bond novels - have joined forces to bring us twenty masterful tales of paranoia, espionage, and psychological drama. In Joseph Finder's "Police Report", the seemingly cut-and-dried case of a lunatic murderer in rural Massachusetts may have roots in Soviet-controlled Armenia. In "Miss Bianca" by Sara Paretsky, a young girl befriends a mouse in a biological warfare laboratory and finds herself unwittingly caught in an espionage drama. And Deaver's own "Comrade 35" offers a unique spin on the assassination of John F. Kennedy - with a signature twist.

The list of narrators includes Tom Weiner, Stephen R. Thorne, Meredith Mitchell, Barry Press, Angela Brazil, Mark Peckham, Charli Thurston, Rachel Dulude and Amanda Dolan.