Crime Thriller Short Stories

Just when things have finally cooled down for 88-year-old Maud after the disturbing discovery of a dead body in her apartment in Gothenburg, a couple of detectives return to her doorstep. Though Maud dodges their questions with the skill of an Olympic gymnast a fifth of her age, she wonders if suspicion has fallen on her, little old lady that she is. The truth is, ever since Maud was a girl, death has seemed to follow her....

This collection by crime fiction master Raymond Chandler features four long stories in which private eye Philip Marlowe is hired to protect a rich old guy from a gold digger, runs afoul of crooked politicos, gets a line on some stolen jewels with a reward attached, and stumbles across a murder victim who may have been an extortionist.

Jack's a retired ex-cop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village to find herself. But their lives are anything but quiet as the two team up to solve Cherringham's criminal mysteries. This compilation contains episodes 31 - 33.

A heist gone wrong. A city soaked in rain and blood. A tactical team pushed to the edge. In the neon-lit, monsoon-drenched streets of Karachi, Firebird leads a covert crew of elite operatives on a high-stakes mission: infiltrate a secure port, steal a fortune in GPU chips, and vanish before dawn. But in this city of shadows, danger lurks at every turn-and the Oracle’s cryptic warning about “odd lightning” echoes in Firebird’s mind. As loyalties blur and the line between fate and free will unravels, every move could be their last. In a world where every ally could be a traitor, ...

On the 20th anniversary of the publication of Barry Gifford's international best seller, Wild at Heart, as well as the anniversary of the Palme d'Or–winning film adaptation by director David Lynch, Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels presents all of the novels and novellas that comprise the saga of Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune, "the Romeo and Juliet of the South".

Go on vacation with Allison Brennan’s Lucy Kincaid, where she saves a man from drowning, only to discover he is in far greater danger on land. Meet Roxanne St. Claire’s “bullet catcher” - bodyguard Donovan Rush - who may have met his match in the sexually charged “Diamond Drop.” Debut author William Simon shows us what happens when the president's granddaughter is kidnapped. And Lee Child’s pitch-perfect “I Heard a Romantic Story” puts a whole new spin on Love Is Murder.

The house always wins. Unless it falls down… When Bubbles acts as a witness in a high-profile murder case she’s warned to stay low. Taking on a gambling gangster and his henchmen wasn’t in the cards. But then he went and made it personal… HoloCity Hard Boys is the second stand alone mystery novella in the HoloCity Case Files series, a companion collection to the Bubbles in Space series. Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element in this eccentric cyber-noir thriller series about a bleak world ravaged by corrupt leaders, mega-corporations, and crime lords… and the washed-up detective who...

One wrong move, and she'll be feedin' the fishes... When Bubbles Marlowe discovers a jaw-dropping bounty on a pair of stolen diamonds, she agrees to find the jewels and bring the thief to justice. But she soon realizes she’s not the only one after the infamous ice, and the competition is brutal. The case takes a turn for the depraved when she finds out the true reason the diamonds were stolen. By the time she gets wise, she’s in way over her head… **Neon Goldfish is the third stand alone mystery novella in the HoloCity Case Files series, a companion collection to the Bubbles in Space ...

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.

Running from a world which wants him dead, ex-detective Sergeant Jake Pettman journeys to the isolated town of Blue Falls, Maine, home of his infamous, murderous ancestors. But Jake struggles to hide from who he is, and when a child disappears, he finds himself drawn into an investigation that shares no parallels to anything he has ever seen before. Held back by a chief of police plagued and tormented by his own secrets, Jake fights for the truth. All the way to the door of Jotham MacLeoid. An insidious megalomaniac who feeds his victims to a killing pit.

"The Case of the Irate Witness," the mystery which is the star of this collection of 4 novelettes, is the only one that the incomparable Erle Stanley Gardner ever wrote featuring Perry Mason in short story form. Each of the stories revolves around the subject of stolen jewels and each story is a gem in itself.

No one captures the complexities of Appalachia - a rugged, brutal landscape of exquisite beauty - as evocatively and indelibly as author and poet Ron Rash. Winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, two O Henry prizes, and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Rash brilliantly illuminates the tensions between the traditional and the modern, the old and new south, tenderness and violence, man and nature.

Though the lives of Mexico's characters are effected by the corrupt and dangerous subculture of their country, these are much more than simple "crime stories". They are complicated and deeply moving tales that tap into universal and enduringly powerful themes: love and loss, religion, family relationships, government abuse, sexual identity, professional ambition, cancer; they introduce us to characters that feel fully realized in their humanity.

A grand treasure for fans of the grande dame of mystery, The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories brings together nine rare and brilliant Christie tales of murder and detection that span nearly half a century of her storytelling genius. In "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest," Hercule Poirot unravels the psychological conundrums that motivate a killer.... In "The Actress," a great star's shady past becomes the plaything of a blackmailer.... In "The Harlequin Tea Set," Mr. Harley Quin helps a man save his loved ones from the greedy hand of murder.

Hall is approached by a marketing executive, asking him to check in on the man's son who has been acting strange as of late. Though it initially looks like a boring case, marked by possible infidelities, the case quickly spirals out of control, and they soon realize there is more than meets the eye. As Hall and Charlotte investigate, several dead bodies pop up, and they are aided by the mysterious James Rankin, who has his own reasons for helping.

An outlaw private eye meets a woman who has a horribly-blackened eye and offers to do something about it. Unlicensed outlaw private eye Joe Beck stops off at bar in Trinidad, Colorado. Inside, he meets a woman named Brandi, a brunette bombshell who's working behind the bar. She's slim, tanned and attractive. She has it all. Except, her left eye is horribly blackened, something she admits to having been caused by the hand of an abusive ex-boyfriend. Beck offers to deal with the guy, no questions asked in a move that sees him sucked into the dealings of a couple of crooked cops and a local ...

When an improvised explosive device is found outside a hospital, the understaffed Middleton PD knows it’s up against a pro. No one takes credit for the sophisticated device—all that Detective Jake Sloan has to go on is a poem. The cryptic rhyme surfaced shortly after the bomb scare. But ex-soldier and football player Sloan has never been much of a poetry buff. When a second verse turns up, containing a message in code, he solicits the help of English professor Ciara Hawkins.

There is no better hiding place for clues - or red herrings - than inside the pages of a book. With Martin Edwards as librarian and guide, delve into an irresistible stack of tales perfect for every book lover and armchair sleuth, featuring much-loved Golden Age detectives such as Nigel Strangeways, Philip Trent and Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. But listeners should be warned that the most riveting tales often conceal the deadliest of secrets.

"The Big Guys" - Flash fiction, winner of the Derringer Award. "A Fistful of Cozy" - A satire of the mystery cozy genre. "Cleansing" - An ancient crime of biblical proportions. "Lying Eyes" - Solve it yourself, given the clues."Perfect Plan" - Another solve it yourself. Don't you remember One Minute Mysteries and Encyclopedia Brown? "Piece of Cake" - Another solve it yourself, originally featured in Woman's World.

Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch accompanies his old friend and mentor, retired bush pilot Charley Stevens, as he pays a visit to a mysterious woman, the widow of a Vietnam vet, living in isolation in the Maine wilderness. Many years earlier, she had called Charley, then a young game warden himself, for help. She claimed that her badly bleeding husband had been attacked by a rabid bat. But in the succeeding days, despite her husband's increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior, his wife resisted Charley's attempts to help, arousing his suspicions that more was going on than met the eye.