Short Crime Thriller

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.

Peter Robinson pens thrilling tales rich with keen observations, pitch perfect dialogue, and shocking plot twists that have fascinated listeners all over the world and made him one of the greatest suspense novelists alive. His acclaimed novels featuring Detective Inspector Alan Banks rank among the most celebrated police procedural series in modern fiction. In Not Safe After Dark and Other Stories, Robinson showcases once again his extraordinary talents with a collection of 20 stories, including three featuring Inspector Banks.

From tales of chilling horror, to heart-stopping stories of suspense, Warped is best-selling author Jeff Menapace's ultimate collection of short fiction. Warped contains currently published tales of the macabre like "Princess" and "The Straw Man and a Murder", the currently out of print and award-winning "Sugar Daddy" and its sequel, "Sugar Daddy 2", and the author's preferred version of his controversial "Torment".

Seventeen-year-old Amish boy Noah Kline is struck by a car as he walks alongside a dark country road late one night in Painters Mill. Seriously injured, he lapses into a coma. Initially, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder believes it’s a straightforward hit-and-run, a driver that panicked and fled. But evidence soon emerges that the incident wasn’t accidental at all - and Kate uncovers a story of teenage passion and jealousy that may have led to attempted murder.

It's autumn in Painters Mill, and Chief of Police Kate Burkholder and John Tomasetti are taking a much-needed vacation at a small bed and breakfast an hour outside of town. After closing a difficult case, they're looking forward to some down time, but their relaxation is cut short by rumors that the old house where they're staying is haunted by a girl who disappeared twenty years earlier, leaving nothing behind but some bloody clothes by the river and rumors of a volatile relationship.

Here for the first time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin, Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina White that inspired Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, and a complete short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some of the world’s most popular classic crime writers contains something for everyone.

Toni West is a recent college graduate looking to make her way in the big city when she gets a call that her beloved aunt has passed away. Toni must return to a town she hates to say goodbye to the one family member she loved. When she gets there, she's surprised by an enticing new friend, Jenna Styles, and an unexpected inheritance that causes additional unwanted friction within an already broken family. Fire and romance don't always mix - Will Toni and Jenna find a way to be together? Or will their desire for one another not be enough to keep the flames burning? **This book is an intimate...

Family meant everything to Ayden Stratton. It always had even when he didn’t always allow it to show. Because of that, he understood the fury in Tobias Blaise’s eyes when they learned that his sister had been dragged out the backdoor of her restaurant despite every effort to stop her from being kidnapped. Fury didn’t begin to describe what he saw in his brother’s face. Cassidy Blaise might be Tobias’s sister, but she was Benjamin’s entire world. Tobias Blaise never expected to find any woman he wanted to spend his life with, let alone one who looked at him the way Ellis did, ...

From acclaimed International thriller and crime writer Ido Graf comes a gripping new mystery… A prominent barrister is found brutally murdered within the hallowed grounds of the Inns of Court — the historic heart of Britain’s legal world, where the City of London meets Westminster. The motive? Unknown. The killer? Still at large. Was it a calculated act of revenge? A ruthless grab for power? A crime of passion, or the work of a deranged mind? The list of suspects is as long as the barrister’s list of enemies — and time is running out. Detective Inspector Cahill is assigned to the ...

A fourth floor room, a door locked with the key inside, no way in, no way out. Edgar Allan Poe is the true grandfather of the murder mystery. Decades before Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, Poe gave us C. Auguste Dupin, a man able to solve mysteries through observation and deduction.

At an annual party to celebrate the success of the racing season, everything seemed to be running well to form, including the need for more champagne. Then a runaway horsebox ploughed into the marquee. A witness to the terrible death and destruction, wine merchant Tony Beach knows it is just one of those tragic accidents. But when his expert advice is called into play over sub-standard alcohol in a local night club, connections start to click, and another person dies, horribly.

Nobody plays accordion like Dick Contino. His skilled fingers can find beauty in even the schmaltziest Borscht Belt favorites, and with his matinee-idol looks he could be a real star. Right now, though, he’s slumming it as the headliner in a Grade Z teenybopper picture called Daddy-O. He’s too good for this movie, and finishing it is going to take him to a very dark place. Daddy-O and Dick Contino are both real, their stories dredged out of the past by James Ellroy, a master of historical crime fiction. In Dick Contino's Blues he takes us to B-List Hollywood in 1957 - a time when movies were cheerful and dirty secrets lurked just off camera.

He's a serial killer. A murderer of young women, all killed in brutal attacks. But despite Hamish Wolfe's conviction, he's always stuck to his story - he's innocent, and he's been wrongly imprisoned. And now he wants someone to investigate and, more importantly, to write his story. Maggie Rose is a notorious defense attorney and writer whose specialty is getting convictions overturned. At first Maggie is reluctant to even acknowledge Hamish's requests to meet, ignoring his letters. But this is a very charismatic and persuasive man, good looking and intelligent.

Diverse, provocative, eerie, and twisted, this collection of Jeffery Deaver's best crime stories exhibits amazing range and the signature plot twists that have made him a perennial best seller. With nods to O. Henry and Edgar Allen Poe, these beautifully crafted pieces are suspenseful spoonfuls of Deaver at his best. Listeners will be surprised by the subtlety of some of these stories and, as always, by the plot surprises.

After more than a decade, the handsome amateur detective Xavier Kilgarvan has returned to Winterthurn just in time to see the fifth young woman’s body carried from Devil’s Half Acre. A brutal fiend has left her mutilated body in this desolate plot of land filled with hulking boulders, quicksand, and twisted trees. Can detective Kilgarvan discover the forces motivating the mysterious “Gentleman Suitor” who has lured five innocent women to their deaths?

Henrietta and her daughter, Mary Grace, are sold and taken to Charleston, South Carolina, to be auctioned. Separated from her husband, Henrietta now faces an uncertain future and the possibility of becoming estranged from her child. Luckily, fortune shifts in her favor when Olivia Hendricks—the wife of a wealthy planter—purchases her as a nursemaid for their unborn infant. During her years at Livingston Plantation, Henrietta finds sanctuary and safety in the big house, eventually becoming a caregiver to both Mrs. Hendricks and her child.

Of the real-life serial killers whose gruesome acts have been splashed across headlines, none has reached the mythical status of Jack the Ripper. In the Ripper's wake, terror swept through the streets of London's East End in the fall of 1888. As quickly as his nightmarish reign came, Saucy Jack vanished without a trace - leaving future generations to speculate upon his identity and whereabouts. He was diabolical in a way never seen before - a killer who taunted the police, came up with his own legendary monikers, and, ultimately, got away with his heinous crimes.

New York Times best-selling author Sara Paretsky is the master of twisting suspense and propulsive plot. She has been hailed by the crime community as "a legend" (Harlan Coben) and "one of the all-time greats" (Karin Slaughter). Her acclaimed novels featuring detective V.I. Warshawski rank among the most celebrated crime series in modern fiction. Now in this spellbinding collection, Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents with 14 short stories, eight of which feature the indomitable detective - and a new V.I. story.

Take a crime-filled tour of Manhattan with this collection of all-new mystery stories compiled and edited by Mary Higgins Clark - with contributions by Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver, Ben H. Winters, and others.

Poirot Investigates is the enthralling third book in the Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot mystery series. In this collection of classic whodunit stories, Christie takes the listener down a dark and lonely road to solving some of the most exciting mysteries in the Poirot series. Although Poirot Investigates is listed as the third book in the series, this is a collection of short stories, each focusing on a different case, ranging from a robbery at sea to pharaoh’s curse. If you like mysteries, this book will keep you entertained for hours.