Crime Thriller Short Stories

Grace had never been more terrified...the pain was relentless. Nothing in her life prepared her for this. She desperately needed somewhere safe...someplace she could hide. Someone she could trust with her life. It was dark...and getting darker. Ronan Hendricks didn’t recognize her voice. Not family...not friends. Probably not an enemy. But he didn’t need the years he’d spent as a detective to recognize what he did hear... Fear. In a desperate moment of hope, a single number saved her life. Then a complete stranger opened his home offering safety yet Grace knew danger surrounded them.....

"I LOVED THE IMAGINATION OF THIS AUTHOR!"~Satisfied Kindle Reader "FIVE STARS!"~ Multiple Fans "Alice Crowley is one of our best living authors!"~ G. Taylor In this searing-hot sexy 14,000-word story, a young woman and an older man go on the adventure of their lifetimes as they begin a passionate intimate relationship. Kiera Harper is a sassy, quick-witted computer hacker living in Chicago when she gets hired for some field work to conduct surveillance. The next thing she knows, she is embroiled in a labyrinthine plot and a grand conspiracy, and the only way to save the day is by starting a...

It starts with a few near-accidents: A car almost swipes Mike Hammer when he’s crossing the street. A junkie robs the notoriously hardboiled detective at knifepoint. A fight on a subway platform comes close to pushing him in front of a train. While any one of these could be a coincidence, together they make a conspiracy—one that Hammer will have to end in order to survive. And when it comes to finishing something—or someone—nobody does it better than Hammer.

Brand-new stories by: Daniel Woodrell, Matthew Eck, Catherine Browder, Nancy Pickard, John Lutz, J. Malcolm Garcia, Kevin Prufer, Linda Rodriguez, Nadia Pflaum, Phong Nguyen, Andres Rodriguez, and others. Kansas City: where East and West collide, where naked ambition meets broken dreams, where blues and the night go together like rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. Yes, Kansas City is a surprising place of grit, gore, and betrayal, at least in the imaginations of our diverse lineup of contributors.

The best noir writers make us feel the heat of the sun, the touch of a lover. Setting can be gritty but can also be sublime, no longer relegated to urban locales and seedy hotel rooms but also mansions and swimming pools. Hence, Palm Springs, which may seem like an odd setting for a collection of dark short stories—it’s so sunny and bright here. The stories in this collection come on like the wicked dust storms common to the area.

Get to Know Jade Harrington You know what they say about “curiosity”… Before she grew up to become a badass FBI agent, Jade Harrington was a curious and precocious child. One day, a mysterious stranger visited her family and changed her life forever. Few Are Chosen is a short-story prequel to the Jade Harrington Series.

In addition to tales from some of today's top stars — including Laura Lippman, Susan Wiggs, Marcia Muller, Carolyn Hart, Nancy Pickard, and Elizabeth George herself — Two of the Deadliest showcases work from an impressive array of exceptional newcomers, as together they explore the dark depths women and men will sink to when driven by passion, avarice, and a lethal hunger for power.

The Black Goat is a short story that takes on a contemporary approach of the legend of Van Hunks and the devil. Jan van Hunks is down and out, a functioning alcoholic who is battling a divorce from his wife. One wintry night, he decides to escape the clutches of his studio apartment in the heart of Cape Town and venture out to find the darkest bar he can. He meets a mysterious character along the way who advises him against his journey.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies. This collection, with voices of French and English writers, visits many neighborhoods and combines them into something that is, if not totally coherent, at least as coherent as the beautiful mess that is Montreal....

The southwestern-most metropolis in the contiguous United States, resting a mere 40 feet above sea level, tends to garner positive national attention. San Diego is home to the world-famous San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park (with its history reaching back to the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition), temperate climes, and a sunny reputation. It is also the home of shooter Brenda Ann "I Don’t Like Mondays" Spencer, disgraced Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and San Diego County medical examiner-turned-killer Kristin Rossum.

My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise... The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's perfect tune Dallas" is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He's just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest?

"I LOVED THE IMAGINATION OF THIS AUTHOR!" ~Satisfied Kindle Reader "FIVE STARS!" ~ Multiple Fans "Alice Crowley is one of our best living authors!" ~ G. Taylor This 5,000-word hyper-sexual paranormal erotica tale is sure to get the juices of your imagination gushing. Angie is an undercover cop with a heck of an addiction: she loves reverse harem situations, with fellow cops and also criminals. Now she is being recruited to a new unit, and she makes her male partners prove themselves to her. Soon, an imprisoned wolf-man joins in the festivities, and Angie begins to suspect her body might not...

In these eight intriguing tales, Holmes and Watson solve cases that range from the suspicious to the downright strange. They encounter mysteries as diverse as vanishing staff, secret plans and eccentric lodgers as Holmes is struck down by a rare tropical disease and, later, lured away from retirement to help his country on the eve of war.

Berlin does not make it easy to write noir fiction - or perhaps Berlin makes it too easy. Noir tradition casts a long, influential, and even daunting shadow. Neither Döblin nor Benn, Brecht nor Lang, catered to any crime fiction traditions. They merely steeped their literary projects in a great deal of noir. And so it is with most of the stories in our anthology: they do not necessarily follow the usual patterns of crime fiction, but regard noir as a license to write as they wish, a certain way of approaching the city, and a prism through which its nature is viewed....

Follow the greatest of the greatest detective in the world in Agatha Christie’s short-story collection Poirot Investigates. Featuring 11 adventures around the world, this collection show’s Christie’s famous character Hercule Poirot at his best as he travels and unravels mysteries of all sorts.

In the wake of San Francisco Noir, Los Angeles Noir, and Orange County Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest California installment, Oakland Noir. Masterfully curated by Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller, the "Czar of Noir", this volume will shock, titillate, provoke, and entertain. The diverse cast of talented contributors will not disappoint.

Short Story for Adults; Romance, Espionage, Sexpionage, International Crime Mystery. Jennifer, for the first time in her career working on sexpionage cases, is allowed to work on U.S. soil and with good reason. Political sanctions create a vacuum for money laundering. An International Money Broker becomes a person of interest when he brokers deals for foreign countries, raising money for guns and weapons. However, as it turns out, the foreign government is not the problem. It becomes clear the danger stems from someone in the U.S. government. Copying the target's cellphone data which is ...

Brand-new stories by: Tom Abrahams, Robert Boswell, Sarah Cortez, Anton DiSclafani, Stephanie Jaye Evans, Wanjiku Wa Ngugi, Adrienne Perry, Pia Pico, Reyes Ramirez, Icess Fernandez Rojas, Sehba Sarwar, Leslie Contreras Schwartz, Larry Watts, and Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton.

Jake Hughes cannot run from the fact that he is entering a head on collision with the Mob! Six weeks earlier Jake Hughes was living the quiet life in America with his wife Emily, They decide to take their annual vacation, walking in England. A chance meeting during the walk awakens a hidden memory in Jake, dragging him into direct conflict with a powerful Mafia Family, catapulting him into a a game of cat and mouse, challenging life or death! He teams up with, Jonty Ball, a retired detective inspector, between them they thread the pieices of an unsolved murder twenty years earlier. Is it ...

In this thrilling selection of stories, a young porter is found dead in a coal tub; Colbeck devises a trap to catch a thief; and a burnt train carriage holds a gruesome secret in a small coastal village. As Colbeck and his trusty aide Sergeant Victor Leeming begin to piece together clues and motives for each crime, it becomes clear the pair must stay a step ahead of the culprits to solve the cases. With a new suspect at every turn, can the duo unearth the real villains?