Short Stories Crime Suspense

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.

Joyce Carol Oates, a queenpin of the noir genre, has brought her keen and discerning eye to the curation of an outstanding anthology of brand-new top-shelf short stories (and poems by Margaret Atwood!). While bad men are not always the victims in these tales, they get their due often enough to satisfy listeners who are sick of the gendered status quo, or who just want to have a little bit of fun at the expense of a crumbling patriarchal society. This stylistically diverse collection will make you squirm in your seat, stay up at night, laugh out loud, and inevitably wish for more.

INSTA-LOVE LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN . . . ANNABELLE WINTERS STYLE! Why am I still here, standing under a streetlamp, my heart pounding, knees weak, head spinning from what just happened? I should be long gone by now. The guy is a freak at best, a criminal at worst. I'm a fourth-grade teacher! I'm a role model! I'm . . . I'm . . . I'm . . . I'm his. OMG, I'm his! A scorching hot new series from Annabelle Winters featuring curvy women and the studs who can't get enough of them! If you've read my novels, you know what to expect: Drama, madness, and over-the-top steam! Twists, turns, and a happy ...

Akashic Books’ acclaimed series of original noir anthologies has set a high standard for portraying cities and their neighborhoods in all their dark and violent splendor. Now, Mexico City Noir surpasses that standard with phantasmagorical tales of double-dealing, corruption, violence and self-delusion.... This collection is such a varied literary feast.

No one captures the complexities of Appalachia - a rugged, brutal landscape of exquisite beauty - as evocatively and indelibly as author and poet Ron Rash. Winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, two O Henry prizes, and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Rash brilliantly illuminates the tensions between the traditional and the modern, the old and new south, tenderness and violence, man and nature.

Reflecting a city still divided, Belfast Noir serves as a record of a city transitioning to normalcy, or perhaps as a warning that underneath the fragile peace darker forces still lurk. Featuring brand-new stories by: Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Arlene Hunt, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Steve Cavanagh, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar, and Gerard Brennan.

From the No. 1 bestselling author of THE MISSING AND THE DEAD comes the short novel: 22 DEAD LITTLE BODIES, plus two short stories: STRAMASH and DI STEEL'S BAD HEIR DAY, and a novella: THE 45% HANGOVER, all featuring his most popular characters – DS Logan McRae and DCI Roberta Steel. They say ‘small is beautiful’, but as Stuart MacBride demonstrates in these four tales, it can also be dark, violent, disturbing, and sometimes really quite rude.

On the 20th anniversary of the publication of Barry Gifford's international best seller, Wild at Heart, as well as the anniversary of the Palme d'Or–winning film adaptation by director David Lynch, Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels presents all of the novels and novellas that comprise the saga of Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune, "the Romeo and Juliet of the South".

An original short story about Jack Reacher, available exclusively in digital format (ebook and audio), following the success of last year's "Second Son". Early in his military career, Jack Reacher is ordered undercover in Washington, to discover which one of four women, all staff officers on fast track careers, is leaking secrets. The suggested method: get close to each in turn. The obvious problem: the most receptive will be the guilty one, with an agenda of her own - to kill the investigation ... and the investigator.

Young Heathrow Airport employee John Woods seems to have it all – a career he loves and the girl of his dreams. But all is not what it seems in this aviation love triangle... John’s life is turned upside down when his beloved Sandra announces she’s leaving him for a dashing pilot employed by the same international airline John works for. When John is blamed for a mid-air incident that has catastrophic consequences for one of the airline’s aircraft, he and Sandra are reunited in a way neither could ever have imagined.

Behind enemy lines in Iran, CIA Officer Branch Collins is saved by a dead woman. Sky Harmon was one of the best spies Langley ever produced and the love of his life until she disappeared eight years earlier while on a mission in Iraq. Sky suddenly appears in the midst of a fierce firefight that claims Branch’s entire unit. On the run from the enemy, while Sky physically resembles the woman he knew, she has no memory of him or the attack that ended in her capture. Is she a hero or a traitor? Branch had better figure it out soon, because the stakes have never been higher.

When he believed there was little time left, there were only two people he wanted to talk to while he still could. One was the only woman he’d ever loved. And always would. Rendon was seriously wounded…in searing pain, and up until the last hour, exposed as he’d never been before. Getting himself to the little known and forgotten small town in the middle of nowhere had been a risky choice, and taken the last of his quickly dwindling strength. It was the last place anyone would think to look. He never expected to survive. After a brazen rescue, Rendon is determined to be part of the ...

Nairobi Noir is an act of excavation, rediscovering the city's ossified past and infusing life to preserve it for future generations. It is also an act of celebration, reminding listeners of the brilliance of the best-known writers to emerge from this part of the world, and heralding the birth of new writers whose gifts, we can safely predict, will shine brightly in the years ahead.

Seventeen-year-old Amish boy Noah Kline is struck by a car as he walks alongside a dark country road late one night in Painters Mill. Seriously injured, he lapses into a coma. Initially, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder believes it’s a straightforward hit-and-run, a driver that panicked and fled. But evidence soon emerges that the incident wasn’t accidental at all - and Kate uncovers a story of teenage passion and jealousy that may have led to attempted murder.

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. Tom asks Bryce to be a part of his legal team. Bryce begins to investigate the murder. As he investigates, he discovers that lots of other people had the motivation to kill the deceased. Bryce finds out that Mrs. Juarez was more involved than ...

Hot on the heels of Best Cases of the Continental Op comes Honest Gain: Dicey Cases of the Continental Op, another original compilation from Skyboat Media. The Continental Op is back on the case, tracking down thieves and murderers from the steep streets of San Francisco to the rough and tumble Wild West in Arizona. These six stories featuring the Continental Op show that this private eye is not afraid to get his hands dirty in order to get the job done right, or get himself hurt in the process.

Take a crime-filled tour of Manhattan with this collection of all-new mystery stories compiled and edited by Mary Higgins Clark - with contributions by Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver, Ben H. Winters, and others.

A beautiful heiress has been found dead on a train. A playboy has been stabbed through the heart during a costume ball. An elderly woman suspects that she is being slowly poisoned to death. A prince fears for his reputation when his fiancée is embroiled in another man's murder. A forgotten recluse makes headlines after he is shot in the head. Who but Agatha Christie could concoct such canny crimes? Who but Belgian detective Hercule Poirot could possibly solve them? It's a challenge to be met - in a triumph of detection.

Alex McLeod paid dearly during the war for independence from Earth. It left the detective disfigured, jaded and alone. In the aftermath of victory, Alex seethes as criminal factions and cold-blooded killers clash over control of the newly-liberated confederation. In his crusade for justice in the free states, he's willing to break more than a few rules along the way...

The only home Alex knows is the slums of Slab, an orbiting city teeming with lowlifes, back-stabbers and gene-spliced monstrosities. From the grimy streets of his city to the lawless Asteroid Belt, Alex goes toe-to-toe with a sharp-clawed vigilante, a mythical serial killer, and a gorgeous vampire with an ominous message. His quest won't end until his homeland earns the freedom it was promised…

But even Alex may not be able to stop the impending Reckoning and a voyage to the one place he swore he'd never return: Earth...

A crime-based adventure set in Middle Earth territory in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. Young Kiwi drifter Arch Quaid thinks he has landed the contract of his life when he’s hired to cull deer on a high country property in the South Island of New Zealand. He quickly changes his mind when he discovers he’s the hunted, not the hunter. Caught up in the middle of it all is his new love Janine, a beautiful Maori girl, who will likely be the killer’s next target if Arch doesn’t overcome the most daunting of odds. HIGH COUNTRY CONTRACT is a thrilling, fast-paced read brought to you by ...