Short Mystery Thrillers

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

Jack's a retired ex-cop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village to find herself. But their lives are anything but quiet as the two team up to solve Cherringham's criminal mysteries. This compilation contains episodes 34 - 36. "The Secret of Brimley Manor": Brimley Manor, home to an eccentric museum of oddities from its owner's lifetime of exotic travels also holds dark secrets. When a suspicious fire breaks out, the biggest question is... was it just an accident?

Dive into a world where danger lurks in every shadow and secrets are hidden in plain sight. In this gripping thriller anthology, you'll journey through the darkest corners of the human psyche, where the truth is a shifting enigma. Prepare to be on the edge of your seat as each story unfolds, pulling you deeper into a web of suspense, intrigue, and pulse-pounding action. From espionage in a post-apocalyptic world to a young man's desperate attempts to clear his name, these tales will keep your heart racing, your mind guessing, and your instincts sharpened. In this single-author anthology, ...

When the penniless FitzHenrys, proprietors of the rundown Combe Castle Heritage Site, find themselves victims of a threatening campaign to oust them from their ancestral home, Jack and Sarah are called in to track down the culprit. But nothing is what it seems at this castle - from the curious and unnerving waxwork displays of the 'Odditorium' to the in-laws and neighbours who can't wait to see the last of aristocratic couple. Soon Jack and Sarah discover that truth is often stranger than fiction, and in Combe Castle things do indeed go bump in the night.

Linx Maxwell is on the verge of greatness. She's finally graduated from street fairs and hopping chain link to making art that pays the bills. Her family life is...not dull. And it looks like her van might just be able to exist on hope and duct tape. If only she could get rid of the ghost who's plagued her since the eighth grade.

When Jules first meets the handsome artist Kirin, she’s still mourning her husband’s death, but a fairytale romance soon sweeps her off her feet. Now she and her daughter Scout are moving out of the city and into Kirin’s once-lonely mansion. He’s thoughtfully updated and adapted the home to match their personalities. But Scout is determined to keep her father’s memory alive by rejecting the new life her mother and Kirin have spun for her.

Red O’Brien and Billy Don Craddock are finishing a construction project for one of their regular customers when he makes an unexpected request - help him regain custody of his beloved beagle, Teddy. The way they go about it is a howl.

Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses books have fascinated fans and critics alike with their irresistible blend of fantasy, romance, and adventure. Now in Quatrain, she weaves compelling stories in four of the worlds that fans love in "Flight", "Blood", "Gold", and "Flame".

In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.

Alden McCausland and his mother are what they call “accident rich”; thanks to an unexpected life-insurance policy payout and a winning Big Maine Millions scratcher, Alden and his Ma are able to spend their summers down by Lake Abenaki, idly drinking their days away in a three-room cabin with an old dock and a lick of a beach. Across the lake, they can see what “real rich” looks like: the Massimo family’s Twelve Pines Camp, the big white mansion with guest house and tennis court that Alden’s Ma says is paid for by “ill-gotten gains” courtesy of Massimo Construction.

If you’re a fan of fiction that is more than just black and white, this latest story collection from number-one New York Times best-selling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R. R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.

Millie Thorn has been in the paranormal town of Spellbinder Bay for a few months. During that time, she's come to terms with the fact that she's a witch, and she's come to terms with the fact that her familiar, Reuben, is a particularly cheeky cockatiel. She's finding it hard to come to terms with the knowledge that the father she never knew she had lives in the same town as her. When her magical familiar, Reuben, comes up with a plan which may make the delicate situation easier, Millie must decide whether she has the courage to face somebody she never thought she'd see again.

Six months into her marriage, Samantha True she learns her new husband's been killed in a freak accident, she’s inherited his secret PI business, and he had another wife. Broke and devastated, she dives into learning the PI business—how hard can it be? Following a binge-watching how-to session on YouTube, Sam’s ready to take her first case. When mysterious strangers show up at her doorstep demanding information about her dead husband, she realizes she's in over her head. Samantha must discover who he really was. But what if the truth puts her in danger, too?

Summertime—as the temperature rises, so does the potential for evil. From Cornwall to the French Riviera, whether against a background of Delphic temples or English country houses, Agatha Christie’s most famous characters solve complicated puzzles as the stakes heat up. Pull up a deckchair and enjoy plot twists and red herrings galore from the bestselling fiction writer of all time.

Once a privileged heiress, Annabelle Ross is now struggling to hold her home and her life together through the devastation of the War Between the States. But with a forced marriage and a desolate future on the horizon, her hopes are beginning to dwindle. When she discovers an encrypted note on a dying soldier, she seizes the opportunity to use it to deliver a message of her own. Instead, she’s mistaken for a spy and captured. Can she unravel a conspiracy before her secrets cost a man his life? The complete trilogy of exciting Accidental Spy novels.

Taskforce operators Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill are used to traveling all over the world for counterterrorist missions, but this time they're in the Old City of Jerusalem under happier circumstances. Their friends Aaron and Shoshana, former operatives with Israeli Mossad, are getting married, and they've chosen to tie the knot at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. Unbeknownst to them, a cell of Palestinian terrorists has planned an attack against innocent tourists to incite the Arab world to demand that Israel retreat from the holy site.

Legendary Maine woodsman and bush pilot Charley Stevens tries to convince young Mike Bowditch of the dangers awaiting rookie game wardens.

Over the past two decades, Nick Horrigan has built a quiet, safe life for himself, living as much under the radar as possible. But all of that shatters when, in the middle of the night, a SWAT team bursts into his apartment, grabs him and drags him to a waiting helicopter. A terrorist - someone Nick has never heard of - has seized control of a nuclear reactor, threatening to blow it up. And the only person he’ll talk to is Nick, promising to tell Nick the truth behind the events that shattered his life twenty years ago.

If you’re a fan of Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, you won’t be able to pause the compulsively addictive Danny Pearson thriller series.