Short Thrillers Suspense

When a $3 million Bulgari diamond necklace disappears into thin air during a locked photo shoot, the suspects are all on set. There’s the magazine’s new editor-in-chief with much to prove, the tarnished photographer she’s indebted to, the fallen star who swooped in when her young rival got sick, and the grandiose stylist. But it’s the lowly assistant who must solve the case—and find the gems before taking the blame.

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 25 - 27. SECRET SANTA: Bill Vokes has played Santa at the children's Christmas show for years. But with the show just hours away, he vanishes with no explanation. The whole village is baffled. Did something bad happen to loveable Bill: upstanding citizen, churchgoer, life and soul of the party and the holiday season?

Containing over 47 stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train - a bullet couldn't pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes.

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.

Christmas in Paris… What could possibly go wrong? Ava Sext, an amateur sleuth and transplanted Londoner who sells books from an outdoor stand that overlooks the Seine, has vowed that this Christmas will be the best Christmas ever. It has to be! It's her first Christmas in Paris as a Parisian. But when someone pushes a book dealer in the Seine at a Christmas Fair leaving him between life and death, Ava, with the help of her fellow bookseller, Henri DeAth, a former notary in a country where notaries are a powerful caste, sets out to solve the crime before someone else dies. A little Paris ...

In the title work in this collection of novellas, Poirot and Inspector Japp collaborate on the investigation of a suspicious suicide. The supernatural is said to play in the disappearance of top secret military plans in The Incredible Theft—an incredible claim, indeed, as Poirot will prove. The bullet that kills Gervase Chevenix-Gore shatters a mirror in Dead Man's Mirror—just the clue Poirot needs to solve the crime.

Robert A. Heinlein's The Long Watch is a powerful and emotional science fiction short story that explores themes of duty, sacrifice, and the moral courage of an individual standing against tyranny. First published in 1949, this story is part of Heinlein's Future History series and remains one of his most poignant and enduring tales. The story follows Lieutenant John Dahlquist, a young officer in the Space Patrol, who finds himself in a critical moral dilemma.

Commander Kurt Kins loves a challenge. But this might be the one he and his crew can’t beat. By 2039, the United States is a year and a half into World War III. Submarine meets submarine beneath the waves, and one out of every three American subs deployed isn’t coming home. Commander Kurt Kins and USS Darter, however, seem to have a magic touch—they’ve been among the best of the best from the start. Kins loves action and he’s never backed down from a challenge. Faced with clever Russian enemies who are out to make their nation a superpower once more, he knows he has his work cut out for him.

Do you love a good whodunit? Detectives and mobsters, newshawks and murderers–all ingredients for disaster in this murder mystery collection. Whether it was sending a detective after missing ships at sea or chasing down grisly headhunters at a carnival, Ron knew how to thrill readers and keep them guessing until the end.

A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan’s terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore.

A deadly black widow has eliminated three husbands and counting. But Nameless knows her one weakness. To bring truth and its consequences to her crimes, the vigilante must spin a web of his own in part three of the Nameless series. Lucia - current last name, Rickenbah - has made a fortune by marrying rich men who tend to drop dead. But the superstitious blonde believes in more than money and murder. Nameless’s job is to scare a confession out of Lucia, and as the psychological warfare escalates, even he may be in for a shock.

FBI special agent Kate O’Hare has made it her mission to nail international con artist Nicolas Fox. When she discovers his plot to plunder a venture capitalist’s 20th-story Chicago penthouse of all its cash and treasures while the self-proclaimed "King of Hostile Takeovers" is getting married, Kate is 85 percent - okay maybe 92 percent - sure that she’s finally going to bag Nick Fox. Problem is, first Kate has to convince her boss, building security, and maybe even herself, that wedding planner Merrill Stubing is actually Nicolas Fox. Second, she has to figure out how to corner and capture him without disrupting the event of the year.

Internationally best-selling author Lyndsay Faye became enamored with tales of Sherlock Holmes and his esteemed biographer, Dr. John Watson, as a child and later began spinning these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction - from her acclaimed debut novel, Dust and Shadow, which pitted the famous detective against Jack the Ripper, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the very first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891.

On a diplomatic mission to discuss possible E&E assistance to the European Union, Donald Jefferson falls victim to an international assassin. With the intelligence community at a loss, Noah and Team Camelot are called on to track down the elusive criminal kingpin - known only as Spear - and bring his powerful murder cartel to an end. Trouble follows, though, when Renée seems to have turned against the team. With Marco insisting that Renee would never turn traitor, Noah has to decide whether to obey the order to eliminate her, or risk everything to bring her back.

First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond...then came the "suicide" that was murder...the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat...a suspicious death in a locked gun room...a million-dollar bond robbery...the curse of a pharaoh's tomb...a jewel robbery by the sea...the abduction of a prime minister...the disappearance of a banker...a phone call from a dying man...and finally, the mystery of the missing will. What links these fascinating cases? Only the brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot!

Three years have passed since Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Moriarty vanished into the abyss of the Reichenbach Falls. In that time the criminals of London have been able to sleep safe in their beds. But the capital has never been in greater need of its protector.

Nikki and the grannies have learned there’s no such thing as quiet golden years. Who’d want that anyway? When things are quiet at the retirement home, they go looking for danger, and find it everywhere. Even at the bowling alley. They will have to uncover devious plots, decipher codes, and take a road trip to one of America’s favorite vacation destinations to make sure the criminals get their just desserts. Stories Included: Living on a Spare, Crack the Code, and Road Trip.

Hot Mr. Scrooge is my neighbor. Hope The man loathes Christmas. What person doesn’t warm up to the best holiday of the year? The cabin I purchased mentioned it needed light work, not a gut renovation. Looks nothing like the picture. The brooding beast next door said he’d help spruce up the place if it will get me to leave him alone. Deal. Because who wants to be around the Grinch longer than they have to? Even if he’s tall. Has a gorgeous face you can stare at all day. And a body you’d love to mount on your sleigh repeatedly. Then I wondered could I help Mr. Non-Christmas ...

At age 26 Agatha Raisin has already come a long way. She has clawed her way up since leaving the Birmingham slum where she was born. She's lost her Birmingham accent, run away from her drunken husband, and found a job at a public relations office as a secretary. Then her boss asks Agatha to go to the home of Sir Bryce Teller to tell him that he is soon to be arrested for the murder of his wife and that the agency no longer wants to represent him.

This bundle includes Tracing a Killer, Search and Detect, and Christmas K-9 Guardians.