Short Stories Crime Suspense

We think of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, but far more seductive is the pairing of Holmes and Professor James Moriarty, 'the Napoleon of crime' - a rivalry unparalleled in the world of crime fiction. Fiercely intelligent and a relentless schemer, Moriarty is the super-villain as megastar.

When Janice steps off the plane in New York City with her new husband, Mike, she can barely contain her excitement knowing Alexandra is waiting at the gate. It's been nearly a year since Janice saw her glamorous, fashion model older sister, whose busy workload even kept her from attending Janice and Mike's wedding.

Elijah Benjamin is a hired gun. A hitman who has used almost every killing method known to man, Elijah has grown tired of methodical assassinations. He wants his marks to see him coming. More importantly, he wants to have a conversation with those on his hit list. As the holidays approach, Elijah is called upon to take out an entire criminal organization. When he finds out the reasons their deaths have been ordered, he sets aside some time to get to know his targets. Soon, he issues final warnings. How his prey reacts to the news will determine their fates, but someone else is watching to ...

CAUTION! Do not approach a body of water... The last ones didn’t come back. Ghosts. Hidden mysteries. A world of silence awaits. Eric continues his maddening quest to reveal the truth of his childhood friends’ demise. He’s tired, and each new discovery pushes him further to the edge. But he is staying to fight the mystical being that’s been collecting the souls of Swanton children for decades. With Sherriff Dunning and Eloise Carter, he’ll dive deep into a swamp of murders, ancient curses, and hidden secrets that should’ve stayed that way. Scary beings, ouija boards, a lost ...

This follow-up to the national best-seller A Study in Sherlock is a stunning new volume of original stories compiled by award-winning Sherlockians Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger.

A personal advertisement written in code attracts the attention of Tuppence Beresford. When Tuppence suspects that the code involves the Three Arts Ball, she persuades Tommy to attend dressed in costume. Tuppence's suspicions prove to be correct when a murder takes place, but as all of the guests are dressed in masquerade, identifying the killer may be more difficult than first thought....

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.

In this collection of Rumpole stories the comic, courageous, and corpulent 'great defender of muddled and sinful humanity' is joined by a winning cast of villains and victims in tales whose wry humour and sparkling wit deftly send up the legal system. In Rumpole and the Angel of Death our hero achieves resounding triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness. Rumpole and the Way through the Woods involves Rumpole in the world of hunters and the hunted, animal rights and human wrongs.

San Francisco Noir lashes out with hard-biting tales exploring the shadowy nether regions of scenic "Baghdad by the Bay". In this superb collection, virtuosos of the genre meet up with the best of SF’s literary fiction community to chart a unique psycho-geography for a dark landscape. From inner city boroughs to the outlands, each contributor offers an original story based in a distinct neighborhood.

"What could go wrong?" is what a group of teenagers wonder about before breaking into an abandoned house at the edge of town. They seal their fates on the darkest night of the year, Halloween. Listen as history comes alive in front of their own eyes in a series of terrifying events. Broken families, lives tortures by those that had happened in the past. And in the middle of it, is the one person that was never supposed to come back in the first place. Allowing her to roam free is what will cause the demise of them all. But what if there is a way?

Fiona’s old college chum, Priscilla Conroy, has recently moved back to the Pittsburgh area after a most unpleasant divorce. Fiona was looking forward to reconnecting with her friend to help cheer her up and the two had made plans to meet at the bank where her friend worked after it closed—only Priscilla never shows up for the lunch date. Thinking the worse, Fiona is beside herself and spends the entire Memorial Day weekend searching for her friend. Did her ex-husband abduct her? Has she been murdered? Somehow Fiona knows that the key to Priscilla Conroy’s disappearance lies within the...

Dangerous or not, Logan Hendricks plans on being a lot more involved in his newly-formed detective agency’s current investigation. A brazen crime has already been committed and he wants to be part of finding out who’s responsible. As always, his grandsons have a different view of how things are supposed to work. They want him to sit back and manage everything that needs to be done to identify the individual responsible for the violent attack on the Ingramm Research Center in Alaska. He wants to be in the thick of it, doing the detecting his detective agency is meant to do. And that ...

A collection of 15 stories, 11 of which have never been previously published, from the early career of best-selling American master Elmore Leonard.

A young, newlywed couple. A new custom home. A good life. Yet nothing can ever be perfect. When the man of the house begins to experience bizarre nightmares involving a disturbing, pantomime face appearing in his wife's voluminous closet night after night, his sanity becomes an issue. Though their evenings at home are filled with playful lovemaking in the first months spent in their lavish new dwelling, a chill begins to settle over them with the passage of time. When disturbing images and inexplicable disappearances plague a young couple in their new home, they begin to question every ...

Bryce’s fellow attorney and partner in their firm, Tom Middleton, experience the death of his son who is found out to be a mule for a drug cartel trading arms for drugs. The boy is killed in a violent way, and Middleton finds out that one of the firm’s biggest clients is involved. Middleton confronts the owner and later is accused of his murder. Bryce begins to investigate the murder. As he investigates, he discovers that lots of other people had the motivation to kill the deceased. This is the Series 2 of Bryce Palmer Mysteries. First, recommended reading The Gateway series.

At the Tan Yards, Victor Prizeman bends everyone to his will. Then he surprises them by saying his forefathers worked there as tanners. Next the narrator tells a tale about the Prizeman clan, and how their patriarch met his end. And back in the present, history appears to be repeating itself when Victor demands that he light the annual Halloween bonfire. The Tan Yards is a story that will delight fans of horror, as well as those with a special place in their hearts for Halloween. Now with a Five Star editorial review from Readers' Favorite

Now that I'm the respected Don of the Kingsley Crime Family, people in the family are lined up to meet me, wondering what I'm going to do next. Others wonder if I really did what the rumors say. Others are wanting to try their luck against the new Don. But you can't be the boss without ruffling a few feathers, right? Sure, I like money, but if there's one thing I hate, it's making money off the backs of others... literally. So, when I decide to replace our trafficking business with the best sex club in New York, let's just say that not everyone is on board with my vision. Eli and I are ...

Murder for Love: Murder for Women is a collection of wickedly witty crime-of-passion short stories by some of the best women writers inside and out of the mystery field.

What marks life in Addis Ababa are the starkly different realities coexisting in one place. It's a growing city taking shape beneath the fraught weight of history, myth, and memory. It is a heady mix. It can also be disorienting, and it is in this space that the stories of Addis Ababa Noir reside....

Wayne Sharp newer expected his life to turn like that. Dishonorably discharged, he tries to build his life from the beginning in Clayton, New Mexico. He never expects to be attracted so deeply to the woman in trouble, in trouble beyond hope… Trying to help her, he becomes involved in the dark secrets of the town. Just what can a man do?