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From the Civil War-era south, to 1950's New York, to the present day's gritty cities and seemingly innocuous suburbs, the 18 stories in this anthology edited by the award-winning mystery writer Harlan Coben chart the complications - always surprising, sometimes deadly - that arise between lovers, dear friends, and even complete strangers coming together for a single, shocking encounter.

Lieutenant Mike Nicholson is operating out of Malta. Captaining the submarine Ursa, he's part of the fleet deputed to disrupt the flow of war supplies from Italian ports to Rommel's Afrika Korps. Although Ursa is small, under armed and frustratingly slow, she succeeds, on her 17th Mediterranean cruise, in sinking a German tank-transporter. That triumph puts Mike at the top of the league - he has now sunk more tonnage than any of his contemporaries.

The Extravaganza of the Seas is a 5,000 ton cash cow, a top-heavy tub whose sole function is to carry gamblers three miles from the Florida coast, take their money, then bring them back so they can find more money.

Twenty-six-year-old cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland and sent to the Siberian Gulag. In the spring of 1941, he escaped with six of his fellow prisoners, including one American. Thus began their astonishing trek to freedom.