Crime Thriller Short Stories

Criminals will be criminals. Blood soaks the streets. These murderers must be caught before they find their next victim. Deadly skin-walkers, determined vigilantes, dastardly vampires, and many more will leave you on the edge of your seat. Featuring thirty-two stories by Stuart Stromin, Daryl Marcus, Theric Jepson, Stephen A. Roddewig, S.J. Walker, Terry Grimwood, Mario Caric, James Blakey, Tilia Klebenov Jacobs, Steve Liskow, Richard Zaric, Kelly Barker, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Ed Teja, Devin James Leonard, Gregory Scott Matics, Rob Nisbet, J. Aquino, Cassandra Jones, Elliot LeGrange, ...

It started with a brutal stabbing on the beach under a lifeguard tower. But when Attorney Jordan meets the accused, he sees his client’s demeanor doesn’t match up to the gruesome nature of the crime. Listening to his client’s story during the initial interview at the jail, Jordan confronts his own biases as a criminal defense lawyer. Despite a time constraint, Jordan’s curiosity compels him to absorb more of the story as he formulates a defense. But talk of Nazis and white power triggers concerns about his father’s war experience and the moral ambiguities of his profession.

Earl “Winks” Martin is used to being the predator. Not the prey. As Seattle’s most feared enforcer, he’s got a reputation for cold-blooded efficiency—and a body count to prove it. He doesn’t believe in anything except easy money and instant violence. That is, until Christmas Eve, when he’s literally netted off the street by a flying sleigh. Dragged to the North Pole by a very real, very pissed-off Santa Claus, Earl is given a choice. Wait—no, scratch that. He’s given a sentence. Santa knows exactly who’s been naughty. And for Earl, there’s no parole, no second chances,...

Some cases get buried. Vicky Pearce digs them up. Detective Vicky Pearce has a reputation: sharp-tongued, relentless, and unafraid to walk into the shadows others avoid. When a string of missing rough sleepers is dismissed as just another tragedy of the streets, Vicky’s instincts tell her there's more beneath the surface — and she’s determined to uncover it. With a new detective sergeant by her side, still battling his own ghosts, Vicky follows the trail into the heart of a hidden world where society’s most vulnerable vanish without a trace. As the case escalates, her investigation ...

Meet Jeff Case before his world explodes. Former soldier. Defender of the innocent. Case may have left a war zone, but he soon discovers that the streets of America are just as dangerous. It was kill or be killed in combat, but Case is ready to turn his back on his military career and start a new life with his wife, Becky. During a final interview for his first civilian job, Case steps in to help a woman in danger. It is the catalyst that kick-starts the day from hell. A day that Case and Becky may not survive.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, and John D. MacDonald all got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by the magazine.

Movie star Mary Marvell consults with Hercule Poirot after receiving threatening letters that warn her to return her diamond, the famous "Western Star", to its rightful owner. But who does own the diamond, and is it even the genuine article?

Comprising 10 short stories, The Confessions of Arsène Lupin first appeared in 1913. Each story features the eponymous gentleman-burglar, who deploys his remarkable wit and skill to plot a path through aristocratic society, outwitting both police and criminals along the way. This collection contains tales of romance and mystery, with Lupin himself never above performing the occasional good deed, while pocketing his own rewards, in the course of his adventures.

At Mr. and Mrs. Unkerton's party in Greenway's House, Mr. Satterthwaite learns of a haunted window: No matter how many times it is replaced, it always contains the image of a gentleman in a plumed hat. When gunshots are heard, Satterthwaite finds that two of the guests have been shot dead, which is shortly followed by a sighting of the gentleman in the newly-replaced windowpane. Can Mr. Quin shed light on the mystery?

In The Thumbmark of St Peter Miss Marple tells how she was able to help her niece when the poor girl was accused of poisoning her husband. In The Herb of Death foxglove leaves are picked with sage for the dinner with disastrous results, and a burglary at a riverside bungalow sets off an unusual chain of events in The Affair at the Bungalow. In the final story, Sir Henry Clithering, ex-commissioner of Scotland Yard, is staying with his friends Colonel and Mrs Bantry, when news arrives that the village innkeeper's daughter has met her 'death by drowning.'

"What could go wrong?" is what a group of teenagers wonder about before breaking into an abandoned house at the edge of town. They seal their fates on the darkest night of the year, Halloween. Listen as history comes alive in front of their own eyes in a series of terrifying events. Broken families, lives tortures by those that had happened in the past. And in the middle of it, is the one person that was never supposed to come back in the first place. Allowing her to roam free is what will cause the demise of them all. But what if there is a way?

In this collection of Rumpole stories the comic, courageous, and corpulent 'great defender of muddled and sinful humanity' is joined by a winning cast of villains and victims in tales whose wry humour and sparkling wit deftly send up the legal system. In Rumpole and the Angel of Death our hero achieves resounding triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness. Rumpole and the Way through the Woods involves Rumpole in the world of hunters and the hunted, animal rights and human wrongs.

When Janice steps off the plane in New York City with her new husband, Mike, she can barely contain her excitement knowing Alexandra is waiting at the gate. It's been nearly a year since Janice saw her glamorous, fashion model older sister, whose busy workload even kept her from attending Janice and Mike's wedding.

Mark Sullivan, the co-author of James Patterson’s Private Games, has, in Robin Monarch, created a compelling new hero. Monarch is a world-class thief and a highly skilled operative - a man with skills, a rigid code of honor, powerful friends, and implacable enemies. In The Art of Rendition, Monarch is an agent for the CIA, called upon to use his unique skills to kidnap and interrogate a Russian nuclear scientist suspected of selling technology to the Iranians. But that’s only part of the challenge....

The Rules have allowed Andrew Phillips to commit the most heinous of crimes for decades. He meticulously plans and executes kidnappings, murders, and other unspeakable acts to children. No one has ever come close to solving the atrocities he perpetrates every few months. Phillips thinks he's successfully committed the perfect crimes. And then he meets Asher Benson.

We think of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, but far more seductive is the pairing of Holmes and Professor James Moriarty, 'the Napoleon of crime' - a rivalry unparalleled in the world of crime fiction. Fiercely intelligent and a relentless schemer, Moriarty is the super-villain as megastar.

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Brand-new stories by: Wilfredo J. Burgos Matos, Ernesto Quiñonez, Mayra Santos-Febres, José Rabelo, Luis Negrón, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Ana María Fuster Lavín, Janette Becerra, Manolo Núñez Negrón, Tere Dávila, Edmaris Carazo, Alejandro Álvarez Nieves, Charlie Vázquez, and Manuel A. Meléndez. Translated by Will Vanderhyden.

The Floating Admiral was the first of the Detection Club's collaborative novels, in which 12 of its members wrote a single novel. Eighty-five years later, 14 members of the club have once again collaborated to produce The Sinking Admiral. The Admiral is a pub in the Suffolk seaside village of Crabwell, the Admiral Byng. The Admiral is also the nickname of its landlord, Geoffrey Horatio Fitzsimmons, as well as the name of the landlord's dinghy.

Elizabeth Haynes' new psychological thriller is a brilliantly suspenseful and shocking story in which nothing is at it seems, but everything is at stake. Sarah Carpenter lives in an isolated farmhouse in North Yorkshire, and for the first time after the death of her husband some years ago and her children, Louis and Kitty, leaving for university, she's living alone. But she doesn't consider herself lonely. She has two dogs, a wide network of friends and the support of her best friend, Sophie.

A girls’ trip to Peru sounds like the perfect escape for Samantha Moon—just her kids, best friend, and a promise to play tourist instead of vampire detective. But Machu Picchu isn’t just a breathtaking ruin. It’s a powder keg of ancient magic waiting to blow. When Sam and Tammy sense something dark stirring among the Incan stones, they realize their mere presence is awakening a centuries-old anchored curse. If left unchecked, it will open a gateway to something monstrous—hungry for human souls. By night, they return to the ruins, battling ghostly warrior spirits, navigating ...