Short Mystery Collection

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by #1 New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Jess Walter and series editor Steph Cha.

The victims are the most popular girls in school, each murdered and arranged in a grim fairy-tale tableau. To find the killer, rookie detective Callum Pederson has gone undercover where the Princes hold court. He’s found enough secrets among the bros to bring them in for questioning - but he could very well get lost in the games the Princes play.

All 26 fiendish tales from the best-selling series, A-Z of Horror, by Iain Rob Wright. From neighbourhood yetis to military robots, this terrifying collection has it all and will leave you sleeping with the lights on!

Lawrence Block's 17 Matthew Scudder novels have won the hearts of readers throughout the world - along with a bevy of awards including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe (Germany), and the Maltese Falcon (Japan). But Scudder has starred in short fiction as well, and it's all here, from a pair of late-'70s novelettes ("Out the Window" and "A Candle for the Bag Lady") through "By the Dawn's Early Light" (Edgar) and "The Merciful Angel of Death" (Shamus), all the way to "One Last Night at Grogan's", a moving and elegiac story never before published.

Neighbors are shocked when Harold Pardee reports his wife dead. No one even knew the eccentric TV repairman was married. Within hours, horrible rumors spread about what that poor woman must have endured for 30 years. Until the Pardees' carefully guarded world is exposed. New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh delivers an endearing short story about our misguided perception of strangers, the nature of love, and the need for secrets.

A collection of short stories including: The Maid and the Wine Glass; The Perfect Alibi; What are You Doing in Jail Mom?, What's for Dinner? Six and Out. and Roses for Her Birthday. These edgy stories combine humor with irreverence. They are a perfect mix of humor and mystery for afternoons at the beach.

The best mysteries have one thing in common: a memorable perpetrator. For every Sherlock Holmes or Sam Spade in noble pursuit, there's a Count Dracula, a Lester Leith, or a Jimmy Valentine. These are the rogues and villains who haunt our imaginations - and who often have more in common with their heroic counterparts than we might expect. Now, for the first time ever, Otto Penzler gathers the iconic traitors, thieves, con men, sociopaths, and killers who have crept through the mystery canon over the past 150 years, captivating and horrifying readers in equal measure.

BIG, HARD, and READY for action! These three books and packed full of hot young men and their first gay experience. When they meet their lovers, there is no turning back. It turns out, man on man action is just what they needed. This bundle contains: 1. My Gay Doctor 2. A Ride On His Stallion: The Gay Cowboy's Lover 3. Small Town, Secret Desires Warning: These stories contain filthy, naughty action that might be too hot to handle. Adult readers only.

The handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the most determined of gumshoe gals, from debutant detectives like Anna Katharine Green's Violet Strange to spinster sleuths like Mary Roberts Rinehart's Hilda Adams, from groundbreaking female cops like Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly to contemporary crime-fighting PIs like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, and include indelible tales from Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells, Edgar Wallace, L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace, Sara Paretsky, Nevada Barr, Laura Lippman, and many more.

Do you love to read children's mysteries? If so, you will find The Pleasantville Junior Detective Agency enjoyable. It's about a 9-year-old boy named Perry Winkle who becomes the neighborhood junior detective. Test your detective skills and see if you can solve the case before neighborhood junior detective Perry Winkle.

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.

As the owner of a quirky bakery in the heart of Manhattan, Ella juggles a playful bet with her friends that pushes her to step outside her comfort zone—one wild fling at a time. When a sexy, mysterious plumber shows up to fix her latest disaster, she finds herself caught in a whirlwind of unexpected chemistry, witty banter, and simmering tension. But James isn’t just another notch on her belt. Beneath his rugged charm and magnetic smile lies a tangle of dark secrets that could upend everything Ella thought she knew. As their connection deepens, she must decide if she’s willing to risk...

Some of the best-known and most influential pieces of crime fiction have been from African American writers. Be it Walter Mosley's great Detective Easy Rawlins, or the mean streets of Harlem at the hands of Chester Himes, the stories and characters in this anthology have shaped the mystery genre with their own unique viewpoints and styles. Contributors to the collection include Robert Greer, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Cary Phillips, Frankie Bailey, and Richard Wright.

A secret lies within the Kingston mansion's walls, a secret that’s about to bring the past into the present … Inside the Kingston mansion, Nelly Fisher, a curious housekeeper left to finish her duties during a bustling wedding, is surprised to find the door to Mr. Kingston’s office unlocked. The office is off-limits to staff. But today, Nelly can’t resist peeking inside. Nelly enters and soon finds a hidden drawer beneath Mr. Kingston’s desk. The drawer is locked, but it’s not long before Nelly finds the key. As she riffles through the drawer’s contents, Nelly’s shocked when...

A collection of thrilling tales from H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos by one of horror's biggest legends, this volume contains the very best of Brian Lumley's Mythos short stories.

Ivy Bloom wants to believe you can go home again and so she does, leaving her work as a writer in NYC and returning to Hydrangea Bay on Cape Cod to start the next chapter of her book-loving life. She and her sister Gigi work to turn the rambling old mansion they have inherited into a bookstore. Baby books in the nursery, entertaining books in the dining room and romance reads in the ladies boudoir. It looked like it would work out great right up until the moment that the leader of a local religious cult turned up dead in the driveway. Soon his wife is dead as well. Through no fault of her ...

When her husband dies unexpectedly, Maggie Royal is struck with sinister visions that foretell danger for her and for her five-year-old daughter. Her mother and grandmother were said to have “the sight,” but it was never like this. With no one alive to turn to, Maggie must move quickly to uncover the meaning of her visions before her candle is snuffed out.

Orlando Pearson, Dr. Watson's successor as the assistant to Sherlock Holmes, was entrusted by the doctor with notes on cases too controversial to publish during Holmes's career. The three complete stories in this volume were withheld respectively due to the threat they posed to national security, the disclosure of a scandal in a foreign Royal family, and the exposure of excessively close links between Government ministers and industry.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, the busiest time of the year at Beechy’s Sweets, where the Amish gifts of love and faith are even sweeter than the home-made candy. This audiobook includes three stories: The Sweetest Courtship by national best-selling author Emma Miller, The Sweetest Truth by national best-selling author Laura Bradford, and Nothing Tastes so Sweet by award-winning author Mary Ellis.

"Mrs. Latimer Had a Fat Cat" by Bart J. Gilbertson is the first place winner in Cozy Cat Press’s recent Cozy Mystery Poem Contest. This anthology contains this winning poem and all of the many other finalists selected from 266 entries. With over 100 selections, this volume is filled with poems about many different types of mysteries––scary, funny, silly, frightening, sad, and enlightening. The entrants come from around the world and their interpretations of “mystery” will leave you enchanted, delighted, and––hopefully––mystified!