Crime Town

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

A small-town mayor's search for his fiancee pulls him into an inconceivable government conspiracy. Mayor Tanner Duncan’s idyllic life in rural Georgia turns mysterious and suspenseful when his fiancée disappears an hour before their engagement party. While his friends and the police brush the no-show off as cold feet, Tanner knows deep down that something is terribly wrong. Determined to find her, Tanner's search uncovers more than he bargained for—a trail leading to a mysterious government project with secrets that has global ramifications. Despite warnings from two U.S. Marshals to ...

Bristol detective DS George Cross, champion of the outsider, the voiceless and the dispossessed. DS George Cross can be rude, difficult and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and dogged pursuit of the truth means his conviction rate is the best on the force. An outsider himself, having been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, DS Cross is especially drawn to cases concerning the voiceless and the dispossessed. Now, Cross is untangling the truth about a young woman who died three days ago.

On the run and with danger tailing him, Beckett races against time to save his niece, Amber, from vicious kidnappers. With deadly threats closing in, he comes to the startling revelation he can trust no one…not even his closest allies. The streets of London become a battlefield as Beckett struggles to stay one step ahead of his enemies and protect Amber—all the while confronting the dark truth about The Consortium, a shadowy organization that will stop at nothing to maintain its grip on power.

In 1919, Delano, Georgia, appoints its first chief of police. Honest and hardworking, the new chief is puzzled when young men start to disappear. But his investigation is ended by the fatal blast from a shotgun. Delano's second chief-of-police is no hero, yet he is also disturbed by what he sees in the missing-persons bulletins. In 1969, when Delano's third chief takes over, the unsolved disappearances still haunt the police files.

For fans of Freida McFadden, Leslie Wolfe, Nicola Sanders, and Lucinda Berry... be prepared for a thrill ride you won’t soon forget. Being the new guy in town is always tough. Luckily, I find a job working for a local attorney named Jack. He has me fixing up his rundown classic cars. Each day I work on the cars, his fiance Tawny makes her way out to the backyard where I’m working and gives me a glass of iced tea. We talk about our lives but not about our secrets. I’m careful not to say too much about myself. It could jeopardize my new employment with Jack. Jack is hard to read because...

In Juneau, a young Native archeologist is sent to protect the ancient burial sites uncovered by an Alaskan gold mining company. He never returns. In Anchorage, a female torso - minus head, hands, and feet - is washed ashore near a jogging trail by the airport. It is not the first. At Alaska’s Fugitive Task Force, Arliss Cutter and deputy Lola Teariki are pulled from their duties and sent to a federal court in Juneau. Instead of tracking dangerous fugitives, Cutter and Lola will be keeping track of sequestered jurors in a high-profile trial.

Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to 12-year-old Cork O’Connor, its rhythms as familiar as his own heartbeat. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself.

Blow is the unlikely story of George Jung's roller-coaster ride from middle-class high school football hero to the heart of Pablo Escobar's Medellín cartel - the largest importer of the United States cocaine supply in the 1980s. Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountains of Mexico took a dramatic turn when he met Carlos Lehder, a young Colombian car thief with connections to the then newly-born cocaine operation in his native land. Together they created a new model for selling cocaine.

Forensic psychologist and rookie FBI agent Alexis Forrest returns to her hometown of Broken Hill to investigate the disappearance of a missing teenage girl. Returning to this snowy New England town is the last thing Alexis wants to do. She has a strained relationship with her divorced parents whose relationship did not survive the disappearance and murder of Alexis’ older sister, or her dad’s prison sentence. The circumstances of this girl’s disappearance are surprisingly similar to her sister’s yet the local police aren’t exactly welcoming to an inexperienced FBI agent sent to ...

Forensic psychologist and FBI agent Alexis Forrest is on the hunt for a serial killer who has been terrorizing New England for decades. Years ago, her teenage sister fell victim to this predator, but the wrong person was convicted and sent to prison and the real killer is still out there. The eerie calm of Broken Hill, Alexis's hometown, is shattered when a string of brutal killings resurfaces, echoing the nightmare of her past. For years, everyone thought he was gone and then he strikes again. After her father's house is burned down and her mother receives threats, Alexis knows she's ...

Detective Sara Hirst has moved from London to Norfolk Police's Serious Crimes Unit. She wants to know the truth about her father, who has connections to the area. Her mother won't tell her the real story. A new job. A new place. Same old problems. Sara's first call-out is to a decomposing body discovered in a ditch on a local farm. How does the murder relate to a recent spate of thefts? Who wanted the victim dead? Then the case grows very personal.

Holt Davidson, a Kansas firefighter, hasn’t been back to his hometown of Thompsonville, Colorado, for more than two decades, but when he learns that his estranged mother has taken her own life, he returns for the funeral, hoping to make peace with her memory. He spends the night at his childhood home, rummaging through each room, exploring the past. But instead of nostalgic souvenirs, he discovers a gun, a love letter, and a Polaroid photograph of a man lying in his own blood. Who is the dead man? Was his mother the one who killed him, and, if so, why? Who sent the love letter?

Plans for a town pantomime are thrown in the air after one of the actors is murdered. The victim is local gossip, nosy parker and aspiring manipulator Ivor Gladwin. Reviled by many and ignored by more, the list of people who could have wanted rid of him seems to grow by the minute. Despite having overstepped the mark in past cases, because of her familiarity with the individuals involved, ex police officer Fabia Havard is actually tasked by her boyfriend, and serving DCI, to look into the matter on the side.

Dr. Carder Stout's clientele includes Oscar-, Golden Globe-, Emmy-, Tony- and Grammy-winners, best-selling authors, and billionaires. He may not be able to share their dark secrets, but for the first time, everyone will know his. At the age of 34, Carder would have gladly pawned the silver spoon he was born choking on for a rock of crack. His downfall was as swift as his privilege was vast - or had he been falling all along?

After years of war, Army Ranger Quinn Colson returns home to the rugged, rough hill country of northeast Mississippi to find his native Tibbehah County overrun with corruption, decay, meth runners, and violence. His uncle, the longtime county sheriff, is dead. A suicide, he’s told, but others - like tomboy Deputy Lillie Virgil - whisper murder. In the days that follow, it’s up to Colson to discover the truth, not only about his uncle, but about his family, his friends, his town, and himself.

When she finds out that the man convicted of killing her sister may be innocent, FBI agent and forensic psychologist Alexis Forrest goes on the search for the real culprit. Evidence of her sister’s murder was found in a remote cabin, along with traces of dozens more young women. A serial killer has been stalking these woods for decades and he’s still out there. Alexis had returned to Broken Hill, the snowy New England town where she grew up, to investigate another case. But after finding the serial killer’s cabin with evidence of other victims, she will do anything to track him down. ...

The Lost Country centers on Edgewater, who's recently been discharged from the navy, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish who takes him under his wing as they both search desperately for a forgotten past and a future that may never come. The Lost Country cements Gay as one of the strongest voices in Southern literature, alongside Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner.

Having just graduated from the Law Enforcement Academy, Sheriff Robert Trent Jr returns home to find a new and lethal drug has invaded the county and there have been fatal overdoses. Within days, rumors start that claim the Sheriff is taking payoffs and is a part of the criminal activity. As Trent tries to understand this new challenge, a dead body is dropped next to the Yellowstone River. Once again, Bobby is in over his head.

China Bayles gave up jurisprudence to settle down in small-town Texas and set up shop as an herbalist. But crimes that need solving keep coming her way, so China's back in action in this seventh book of the best selling, critically-acclaimed herbal mystery series. The story centers around an annual chili cook-off where a judge dies of a severe allergic reaction...to a peanut. Everyone knows peanuts don't belong in a bowl of Texas chili, so it's up to China to uncover the truth.