American Mysteries

In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.

Brianna and Shan couldn't be more different. From her $1,200 weave to her closet full of Gucci, Prada, and Chanel, Brianna believes that men were born to bankroll her lifestyle. Shan likes to make her own money by working for a living at a men's prison - and prefers Sean John, Baby Phat, and Fubu to Jimmy Choo. Still, despite appearances, Shan and B are sisters where it counts - or so they think....

Sheriff Walt Longmire is enjoying a celebratory beer after a weapons certification at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy when a younger sheriff confronts him with a photograph of 25 armed men standing in front of a Challenger steam locomotive. It takes him back to when, fresh from the battlefields of Vietnam, then-deputy Walt accompanied his mentor Lucian to the annual Wyoming Sheriff's Association junket held on the excursion train known as the Western Star, which ran the length of Wyoming from Cheyenne to Evanston and back.

Now that she’s returned to New Orleans for Thanksgiving break, Viva is charged with figuring out the truth behind a mysterious bout of illness traced back to a local creole restaurant called Madame Bouchard’s. Were customers poisoned on purpose, or was it a simple cooking mistake? And who could be behind the chaos? Viva only has a week to solve the culinary mystery, and to do so, she’ll have to contend with a longtime rivalry, rumors of voodoo magic, and Thanksgiving dinner with her extended family!

When Lolo Long's niece, Jaya, begins receiving death threats, Tribal Police Chief Long calls on Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire along with Henry Standing Bear as lethal backup. Jaya Longshot Long is the phenom of the Lame Deer Lady Stars High School basketball team and is following in the steps of her older sister, who disappeared a year previously, a victim of the scourge of missing Native Woman in Indian Country.

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.

One of the most viewed paintings in American history, Custer's Last Fight, copied and distributed by Anheuser-Busch at a rate of more than two million copies a year, was destroyed in a fire at the 7th Cavalry Headquarters in Fort Bliss, Texas, in 1946. Or was it? When Charley Lee Stillwater dies of an apparent heart attack at the Wyoming Home for Soldiers & Sailors, Walt Longmire is called in to try and make sense of a piece of a painting and a Florsheim shoebox containing a million dollars, sending the good sheriff on the trail of a dangerous art heist.

Two Native American boys have vanished into thin air, leaving a pool of blood behind them. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police has no choice but to suspect the very worst, since the blood that stains the parched New Mexican ground once flowed through the veins of one of the missing, a young ZuNi. But his investigation into a terrible crime is being complicated by an important archaeological dig and a steel hypodermic needle.

𝑺𝒂𝒓𝒂 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒆𝒙𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒓, 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔. 𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝑴𝒂𝒓, 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒊𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒐𝒇 ...

Dive into a gripping murder mystery series that seamlessly combines the charm of a cozy small-town setting with the relentless determination of crime fighters in the tight-knit community of Kickapoo. In this town where secrets are as rare as privacy, crime-solving is in Katrina Jacobs' DNA. For Katrina Jacobs, a good night's sleep after a long day is all she craves, but that wish remains elusive tonight. A cold-blooded killer roams the streets of Kickapoo, and it falls upon her and her trusty sidekick, Regina, to bring this malefactor to justice. What haunts Detective Katrina Jacobs most ...

The Baptiste sisters, Chante, Darla, and Whitney, all have their own lives to live, but there’s one secret that the three have been keeping from everyone since the night their father disappeared. Can the three keep their secret hidden, or will they be exposed for the crime they committed? Chante the oldest of the Baptiste sisters. She was considered the mother figure and has protected Darla and Whitney since their mother passed away ten years ago. While she has a family of her own, she is always bailing out her sisters, which puts a strain on her marriage to DeMarcus. But what could ...

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.

This story began in 2005. The year Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Kanye West dropped Diamonds & the year Barack Obama took office as a US Senator from Illinois. The streets were still eating leftovers from the 90s, and Quiet Money illustrates one of the many couples caught up in the game. Trinity Jones, daughter of a Chicago 80s fly girl and Detroit's biggest Kingpin of the 70s and 80s, is a hopeless romantic. After a devastating breakup, Trinity meets Pharaoh, a local, up and coming dope boy with a never-ending flow of cash, cars, and clothes. After an unexpected robbery, life ...

The transporting stories in this year’s The Best American Mystery and Suspense are populated by those who exist on the fringe of our society and want more than what life has dealt them: A haunted veteran turned career criminal is on the run. An injured fighter turned bouncer seeks vengeance for his lost love. An assassin on his last job finds himself questioning his life choices and breaks all the rules to understand his final victim.

At twenty-nine years the beautiful Deja Rayne has only been in three serious relationships. With her last two relationships leaving her brokenhearted, Deja never imagined herself dating, or engaged to a drug dealer. After months of being pursued, Deja could no longer say no, to Prime irresistible sex appeal or his bad boy charm. Now three years, and a baby later Deja is starting to regret her decision. Prime is spending less time with his family, and more time in the streets. What Prime doesn’t know breaking Deja's heart comes with deadly consequences. She promised herself if Prime is in ...

Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different....

In order for Suzette's papa to stay with his Ojibwe family year round, he must win the fur-trapping competition at Fort LaPointe Island in Lake Superior. But a troublemaker is sabotaging the competition-and making it seem like her papa's fault! To keep her family together, Suzette must use both her French and Ojibwe heritage to solve a dangerous mystery in this thrilling mix of historical fact and fiction.

J. M. Adovasio has spent the last thirty years at the center of one of our most fiery scientific debates: Who were the first humans in the Americas, and how and when did they get there? At its heart, The First Americans is the story of the revolution in thinking that Adovasio and his fellow archaeologists have brought about, and the firestorm it has ignited.

On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife.

With few other options, African American classical musician Gethsemane Brown accepts a less-than-ideal position turning a group of rowdy schoolboys into an award-winning orchestra. Stranded without luggage or money in the Irish countryside, she figures any job is better than none. The perk? Housesitting a lovely cliffside cottage. The catch? The ghost of the cottage's murdered owner haunts the place.