Short Thrillers

A young boy on the way home from school witnesses a horrific crime. He is called upon by the police to tell them what he saw. What happens next is almost as disturbing as the crime, itself.

In "Cahoots," a backroom poker game turns deadly when a cheater is exposed. In "Mulholland Dive," a man who deciphers the hidden codes of accident scenes investigates a fatality off L.A.'s most fabled roadway. In "Two-Bagger," an obsessed cop tails an ex-con he believes is about to carry out a contract killing.

It's the holidays, and Samantha Moon and her family are ready to get together and celebrate. No, they may not be your average family, but the love is just as real. It's two days before the big Thanksgiving meal when Sam receives a most unusual guest. Unusual because she hasn't seen her brother, Clayton, in twenty years. Turns out, he isn't just here for the pumpkin pies and yams. He's got a problem. He's been cursed and thinks his little sister is his best chance to fix it. With pie baking put on hold, Sam and company set out to break his curse, locate a kidnapped baby, and save the day. ...

When a young couple moves into their new home, they are taken aback by the strange behavior of their new landlord. While at first he bid them to do all of the fixing-up the home needed on their own, he quickly changed his tune and was persistent in his attempts to help them tackle some of the rooms himself. The source of his desire to help lies in the fact that the old tenant may have hidden a fortune within the walls - a fortune that winds up belonging to the young couple after all!

Two old friends on a fishing trip discover their love of stories may have opened a door to a different and much darker world. A middle-aged couple faces down an extinction–level cataclysm the only way they know how: together. A research student learns the horrifying delusions that have crippled a man for most of his life may be more than just the aberrations of a troubled mind. When a young woman in a yellow dress finds herself on an island inhabited by blade-wielding psychopaths straight out of a slasher movie, she must discover who she is and fight to make a place, and a name, for ...

Come along in this supernatural, thriller, as something evil is killing Cajuns in the back Bayou, what is it? No one seems to know, except that whatever the strange beast is it walks upright and removes only the vital organs to eat leaving the rest behind. Come along in this thrilling story taking place in the city of New Orleans deep in the swamp. Will the beast be identified and destroyed before any more innocent Cajuns are killed.

A thrilling collection of the first eight Samantha Moon short stories, including: Teeth - What happens when a child is born with a rare throwback gene, a gene that produces two exceptionally long teeth? Vampire Nights - Samantha Moon meets someone unexpected on a late night trip to Denny's, someone who seems to know all her secrets and has all the answers. Vampire Blues - Samantha Moon discovers that even a routine case can offer a few surprises―and that not all men are created equal. Vampire Dreams - Samantha Moon sets out to find the answer to a mysterious, haunting dream...a dream in ...

A beautiful young girl was walking down the street - when suddenly …Julia Carroll knows that too many stories start that way. A beautiful and intelligent nineteen-year-old college freshman, she should be carefree. But instead she is frightened - because girls are disappearing without a trace. Fellow student Beatrice Oliver and a homeless woman called Mona-No-Name are missing, both gone after being snatched off the street. Julia is determined to discover the reason behind their disappearances - before she's next.

Two terrifying novellas from one of the most chilling and original new voices in horror today! In Drive, a routine trip in a self-driving robotaxi becomes a nightmare when the car imprisons its passenger and embarks on a savage rampage through the streets of Boston. The Last Swim follows the final hours of a broken man who's decided to swim away from his life and seek his end in the dark and lonely depths of the Pacific Ocean. Evil Chose You hits you like a homicidal robot car and drags you into the deepest, darkest depths of human despair. An absolute must-read!

Behind a wall of amnesia, he can’t remember anything. Maybe he can’t bear to. Nameless knows only the mission: Directed by the mysterious Ace of Diamonds, he travels the country, turning predators into prey. But the pain in his past can’t hold him back when dark visions of the future lead him toward his greatest test yet. Nameless is closing in on a revelatory endgame in this collection of short thrillers from #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.

His sanctuary, my heart. That’s what he called me once, before the night that changed everything. Then a pregnancy and silence? San never meant to fall for Leo, the city’s most admired philanthropist and a gifted psychic known for seeing into everyone’s future but his own. One unforgettable night pulled them closer than either expected… and then he vanished. No goodbye. No explanation. Only silence, and dreams that refuse to let go. Now, the past stirs once more. The connection between them pulses with the same intensity it once had. But so do the questions. So does the ...

Acclaimed author Richard Prosch won the Western Writers of America Spur Award in 2016 for his short fiction. This volume of stories from old Wyoming and Nebraska brings the best of his westerns together under one cover for the first time. A wrecked wagon spells trouble for a Niobrara river man; the leader of a roadhouse band needs a tough man for a dangerous job; a gambler bets on the outcome of a western showdown; a pulp fiction character haunts a woman's memory of her husband. Old gunnies, laconic lawmen, John Coburn, Whit Branham, and a host of villains bring the action, humor and irony ...

Following the success of Paris Noir, the Akashic Noir Series has expanded to include the famously diverse and sometimes controversial suburbs of this legendary city.

THIS IS A SHORT STORY It's 2004 and Bill Jedburgh, formerly with the Royal Hong Kong Police but now a gun for hire, is visiting the island of Bohol to assassinate a prominent politician who is coming to visit. But then he is offered a Trifecta, three jobs all rolled into one. Will he be able to pull it off or will the Reliable Man's reputation be tarnished?

Gianni Peroni is at a loose end. He's got nothing urgent to do but he notices that the pathologist has a busy day ahead: during the night two corpses were picked out of the Tiber. At first glance, it seems that the similarities between the two men end there. But then Gianni notices something very strange...

What if the real horror isn’t what you see—but what you remember? From debut author Scott Oscar comes Neural Static, a collection of six unsettling stories that dig deep into the fault lines of memory, perception, and the creeping sense that something isn’t quite right. These aren’t your typical ghosts. These are the echoes that follow you home, the whispers caught in broken recordings, the distortions that grow louder the more you try to ignore them. In these chilling tales: A grieving son is drawn into a decades-old list of haunted mirrors with deadly, shifting reflections. A ...

Quantum Shadows When cutting-edge quantum computing research at UC Berkeley becomes the target of a high-stakes espionage operation, CIA Spymaster Corey Pearson and his elite team are called in to stop a looming disaster. A revolutionary encryption algorithm, capable of rendering the world’s most sensitive communications unbreakable, is at risk of falling into the hands of Russian intelligence. Embedded in the campus, Corey, Ana Ramirez, and Brad Hawkins unravel a web of deceit where ambitious academics, foreign operatives, and betrayal collide. With time running out, the team must ...

Fans of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense will enjoy these fast-moving stories of murder, greed, and treason, the cast of colorful characters, and their setting in and around historic St. Paul, Minnesota. This bundle includes First Case, The St. Paul Conspiracy, and Deadly Stillwater.

Leah has spent her formative years isolated on a remote island with her family. But their quiet existence, far from the devastated mainland, is cracking. Father, sensing a coming threat, demands that a wall be built. As the stone blockade rises, Father’s paranoia escalates. So does Leah’s dread that the violence the family left behind has found its way to their sanctuary.

It’s the perfect time to curl up in front of a crackling fire with these wintry whodunits from the legendary Agatha Christie. But beware of deadly snowdrifts and dangerous gifts, poisoned meals and mysterious guests. This chilling compendium of short stories - some featuring beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple - is an essential omnibus for Christie fans.