Short Mystery Thrillers

USA Today bestselling author Tonya Kappes brings you southern and quirky characters in her mystery series. Her stories are charged with humor, friendship, family, and life in small southern towns. Welcome to Normal, Kentucky, where NOTHING is normal.

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 and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture.

At the age of 13, Charlie Quinn's childhood came to an abrupt and devastating end. Two men, with a grudge against her lawyer father, broke into Charlie's home - and after that shocking night, her world was never the same. Now a lawyer herself, Charlie has made it her mission to defend those with no one else to turn to.

USA TODAY and #1 AMAZON bestselling author Jeremy Bates presents the complete collection of the award-winning Midnight Book Club short novels. With fast-paced plots and stunning twists, these stories offer close to 1,000 pages of heart-racing suspense, action, and terror from one of today's most exciting voices in horror. Black Canyon Twelve-year-old Brian Garrett embarks on a weekend camping trip in Colorado’s Black Canyon of the Gunnison, hoping to reconnect with his distant parents. But when his father suffers a brutal accident deep in the chasm, survival takes a sinister turn. Over ...

Wellman’s work will be remembered, and should be preserved because it combines the dark gothic tradition of the American pulps with a detailed snapshot of regional history and culture. This mixture is shown through the lens of the American modernist tradition, revealing something that is larger than the sum of its parts.

Villanelle is the ultimate assassin. Beautiful and heartless, she's been trained to be the best. Her latest target is a firebrand Russian leader whose extreme political theories threaten to unleash global conflict. But lying in wait for Villanelle is intelligence officer Eve Polastri. A hunter by nature, fiercely clever, Eve is ready to pursue her adversary wherever the search leads her. And so starts a deadly game between two brilliant and determined female protagonists…

Motive. Means. Opportunity. Without proof of all three, the guilty can walk free. But even with an alibi, the innocent can still be condemned. For six award-winning, bestselling authors of psychological suspense, truth and lies weave together in a tangle of conflicting loyalties, hidden crimes, and dark secrets. Pull one thread, and there’s no telling what will unravel.

This audiobook collects Wellman’s John Thunstone and Lee Corbet stories, written between 1943 and 1979. These stories combine the mystical and horrific with traditional Southern folk tales and legends. These stories also reveal a post-World War II modernism that make them much more then pulp romanticism. The paranoia and cynicism of modern weird icons, such as The X-files, may well have had their genesis in the pulp musings of Manly Wade Wellman.

Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens is the 5th and final volume of Night Shade Books' five volume "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman." This volume contains all of the John the Balladeer stories (sometimes better known as Silver John), Manly's most famous character.

The Great Detective Library: 101 Legendary Detective Novels & Stories is a captivating anthology that brings together the finest works from the world's most renowned sleuths. Featuring iconic characters such as Hercule Poirot, Father Brown, Nero Wolfe, Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Alan Grant, Albert Campion, Miss Marple, and many others, this collection offers a comprehensive journey through the evolution of detective fiction.

Edgar-award winning author Dana Stabenow is best known for her Kate Shugak novels, but the unifying protagonist of almost all her writing - be it crime, fantasy, horror, or science fiction - is Alaska. This genre-spanning collection of 16 short stories features familiar characters like Kate and Jim, Liam and Wy, and Bill and Moses, but also ranges farther afield than many listeners will expect.

The first three fun, fast-paced Roy Ballard mysteries, now in a single box set. This audiobook includes: Gone the Next, Get Busy Dying, and If I Had a Nickel.

It's not always a question of "whodunit?" Sometimes there's more mystery in the why or how. And although we usually know the unhealthy fates of both victim and perpetrator, what of those clever few who plan and carry out the perfect crime? The ones who aren't brought down even though they're found out? And what about those who do the finding out who witness a murder or who identify the murderer but keep the information to themselves? These are some of the mysteries that we follow through those six stories.

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. Never before in audio, these vintage stories are the darkest of the dark, and the best of the best.

Crime fiction fans old and new will delight in rediscovering these taut, character-rich, heart-stopping tales, now on audio for the first time.

The Akashic Noir series’ forensic study of Southern California sharpens its focus on one of Los Angeles’ most recognized neighborhoods.

Christmas is six days away - and Sarah Booth Delaney has her hands full! To honor a group of international investors, Shaw, Mississippi, resurrects the old custom of drifting miniature, lighted Christmas floats down Silver Bayou. The Italian delegation from Venice may bring much-needed new jobs and commercial opportunities. Among the investors is notorious womanizer, Enzo Aceto. He is handsome, witty, and eager for new conquests. Then Enzo disappears. Rumors of murder are buzzing.

When her father approaches her with an opportunity to serve as an in-house psychic for the opening of his new inn, Clove jumps at the chance. It will be an opportunity for her and Sam to spend some much-needed time alone - and have some fun in the process. Of course, since she's a Winchester witch, nothing goes as planned.

The Sounds of Crime is an exclusive collection of five brand new short stories by some of the best crimewriters around. Using the theme of 'audio', this unique collection features brand new stories by Lawrence Block, Peter James, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham and Christopher Fowler.

A struggling young Persian artist sends Flynn, one of Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars, out to buy provisions for a celebratory dinner. But when he brings the requested groceries to the artist’s wife, her joy quickly turns to fear. Then Flynn returns to the artist’s studio, only to find that disaster has struck. Meanwhile, the National Portrait Gallery enlists the help of Sherlock Homes to investigate the mysterious theft of The Pink Lady. As Holmes sets out to recover the precious painting, he uncovers a dark web of deceit far more complex than he imagined.

This drive through the dark streets of the Motor City “is one of the best in Akashic Books’ noir series. You cannot go wrong with this anthology.”—Reviewing the Evidence From cri….