Short Mystery Collection

If you like your cozy mysteries with a bit of humour, small town Canadian life, a hint of romance, a close circle of quirky, lovable characters that you wish you knew in real life, dogs and cats, and free knitting patterns, there's something in this series for you.

Listen and relive exciting tales from Highlights, now on audio! Learn about children who borrow their uncle’s time machine to get desserts and a boy who hunts for his lost teddy bear at bedtime, along with other stories about mystery and adventure.

Bringing together six short stories - two of which are previously unpublished - One Last Dram Before Midnight is perfect for fans of Denzil Meyrick. These tales take us from Jim Daley's early days pounding the beat in Glasgow as a young constable to a lighthearted whisky smuggling romp involving Hamish and some ghostly pipers.

Kurt Reid may be innocent of the murder he's charged with (and of grand larceny, for that matter), but he's got no time to be thrown in jail and defend himself. Instead, Reid flees to pre-Communist China and Shanghai, the exotic city of mystery and death. Reid takes refuge in a tea house where he meets a Russian woman, Varinka Savischna, whom he manages to rescue from certain death. As beautiful as she is smart, she recruits him in her crusade against Chinese intelligence services.

The terror at Hotel Caligula continues, as ghost-hunting enthusiasts explore its sinister corners. Ancient forces of nature turn the table on a lonely old man. And bullied teenagers discover that supernatural vengeance comes with a deadly price. Scare Street welcomes you to this spine-tingling collection of a dozen frightening tales. There’s a dark, cozy room waiting just for you - a perfect place to start listening. But as you lose yourself in terror, you hear creaking outside your door. You try to turn the knob, but the room is locked from the outside! There is no escape.

Decipher. Deduce. Deliver. Sherlock Holmes, the most cerebral of detectives, finds his deductive powers put to the test in this intriguing collection of cases. Each adventure presents a web of secrets, clues, and deceptions. Only his highly honed observational skills lead him to the truth. In a locked-room murder, did the victim succumb to “The Curse of Kisin?” And how had the daughter of Squire Northridge disappeared from her own locked bedroom? Can Holmes, an ocean away, determine if a missing treasure hunter ran off with Jean Lafitte’s fabled buried plunder? The disappearance of a ...

Sixteen delightful holiday short stories by some of your favorite Soho crime authors! This captivating collection of short mysteries and crime capers - which features New York Times best-selling authors, Crime Writers Association Gold and Diamond Dagger winners, and Edgar Award nominees - contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season.

From the pen of a multiple award-winning author... From the depths of the Taklamakan desert in Mongolia, a priceless emerald has been stolen. Through circuitous paths, it makes its way to a baseball diamond in St Louis, Missouri. A thoughtful conversation between three friends sees the mystery unfold, and the whereabouts of the emerald finally revealed. Step up to the plate to read, "The Emerald in the Diamond." Also included is the prequel to this story: the same three friends recount the murder of a woman in a Malaysian condominium, where the murderer's identify is divined through ...

Deadly Reunion is a collection of short stories. The first story, Deadly Reunion, tells of five women who reunite at a school reunion. A few months later they are invited to one of the women's lakeside cabins for a girl's weekend. Unfortunately for them they have been lured into a trap, this reunion does not go well. Who's you Daddy is the story of two young children whose mother dies leaving them orphaned. Having never known who their father was or if he was even still alive, they run off in the hopes of finding some relatives to live with rather than being split up and placed in separate ...

Few characters have the loyal readership of Bill Pronzini's "Nameless Detective." The 14 stories in this collection span his entire 35-year life on the printed page. They include "It's a Lousy World," where Nameless proves that a friend did not commit the crime he was accused of; "Dead Man's Slough" and "The Ghosts of Ragged-Ass Gulch," which take him out of San Francisco into the hinterlands; and "Souls Burning," where he tries to help an old friend make one last try at setting things right.

Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.

After Scarlett Chase is fired from her dream job, she is stuck working temp jobs while she figures out what to do with her life. Her current job of the week might be the most boring of them all, until a flash of lightning during a spring storm plunges the entire office building into darkness.

Clark’s investigation begins with cocaine and leads to cold-blooded murder - the discovery of one, and then another, headless corpse. Who is behind the slaughter? Are the killings tied to the drug traffic? Or is a deeper, darker, and even more sinister conspiracy unfolding in the carnival?

A teenage girl’s unnatural obsession with an ancient coin leads to bloodshed. Supernatural evil bides its time, as it lurks within the gears of an old grandfather clock. And a new bride discovers her mother-in-law is willing to go to terrifying lengths to build the perfect family....

An aging woman sacrifices more than she bargained for in her quest for eternal youth. A group of kids explore a decrepit slaughterhouse only to find that one of them won’t be coming home. And when a deep freeze strikes a small town, one man discovers something sinister lurking beneath the ice and snow....

When Samantha Moon gets a late-night visit from Max—the 500-year-old alchemist who runs the Light Warrior Academy—she’s expecting talk of demons or cosmic threats. Instead, he shows her a silver hammer that mysteriously appeared in his hand after meditation. Worse, he’s gripped by a terrifying compulsion: to kill three victims, just like the lyrics of the old Beatles song. But murder isn’t on Sam’s agenda. Together with Max and her telepathic daughter, she hunts for the real target: not innocent people, but something much worse stirring in local cemeteries. Silver Hammer is a ...

A collection of short stories that covers several genres including romance, grief/loss, mystery, suspense, sci-fi, fantasy and paranormal. This book is dedicated to a courageous friend who passed this year. The first story is specially created for her and is the inspiration for the title of this book.

Four enthralling, distinctive novellas representing the diverse genres of: historical adventure; political thriller; science fiction and murder mystery. Plus exclusive Extras: an alternative, extended ending and a bonus ghostly story to explore - if you dare...

Scare Street is proud to present 13 tales of supernatural horror in one volume, guaranteed to make your skin crawl. This bone-chilling collection awaits, luring listeners of the macabre deeper into the shadows.

A young girl’s dollhouse comes alive at night, and its tiny residents possess a terrifying power. Fate stalks a young cult survivor as she struggles to escape a premonition of her own death. And a beautiful antique jewelry box reveals a dark hunger that threatens to consume its new owner....