Crime Thriller Short Stories

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. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by the magazine.

Veronica Ruiz is on the run for the first time in her life—though certainly not the last. After being falsely accused of stealing money from her college sorority, she packs up and heads to her cousin Ramón's apartment, planning to change her name and rebuild start over away from backstabbing girls and university drama (and far, far away from her arrest warrant in Maryland). At the local bank on the first morning of her new life, it occurs to Vero that she'd be a better bank teller than most of the current employees.

The Cambodian Curse: When an ancient and supposedly cursed Cambodian sculpture disappears from an impenetrable museum, and the carving's owner is killed by an invisible assailant while a witness is a few feet away, historian Jaya Jones and her old nemesis Henry North team up to solve the baffling crime. Additional stories include: "The Hindi Houdini", "The Haunted Room", "The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn", "The Curse of Cloud Castle", "Tempest in a Teapot", "A Dark and Stormy Light", "The Shadow of the River", plus the bonus novella Fool's Gold.

The Dark Yorkshire Series are fast-paced crime fiction stories featuring DI Nathaniel Caslin. Books four to six in this best-selling series are brought together for the first time in a great value collection. Includes: Blood Money, Fear the Past, and The Sixth Precept.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. In Hong Kong Noir, 14 of the city’s finest authors explore the dark heart of the Pearl of the Orient in haunting stories of depravity and despair.

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

A blinding snowstorm - and a homicidal maniac - traps a small party of friends in an isolated estate. Out of this deceptively simple setup, Agatha Christie fashioned one of her most ingenious puzzlers, which in turn would provide the basis for The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history. From this classic title novella to the deliciously clever gems on its tail (solved to perfection by Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple), this rare collection of murder most foul showcases Christie at her inventive best.

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 34 - 36. "The Secret of Brimley Manor": Brimley Manor, home to an eccentric museum of oddities from its owner's lifetime of exotic travels also holds dark secrets. When a suspicious fire breaks out, the biggest question is... was it just an accident?

Best-selling authors Jeffery Deaver and Anne Perry join rising stars like Dana Chamblee Carpenter and Paul Gail Benson in a collection that proves Music City is a deadly place to be when your song gets called. Featuring stories by Donald Bain, Robert Dugoni, Jefferson Bass, Mary Burton, Jonathan Stone, Steven James, Maggie Toussaint, Clay Stafford, Heywood Gould, Jaden Terrell, and more....

USA TODAY and #1 AMAZON bestselling author Jeremy Bates presents the complete collection of the award-winning Midnight Book Club short novels. With fast-paced plots and stunning twists, these stories offer close to 1,000 pages of heart-racing suspense, action, and terror from one of today's most exciting voices in horror. Black Canyon Twelve-year-old Brian Garrett embarks on a weekend camping trip in Colorado’s Black Canyon of the Gunnison, hoping to reconnect with his distant parents. But when his father suffers a brutal accident deep in the chasm, survival takes a sinister turn. Over ...

The oldest mystery specialty bookstore in the world, The Mysterious Bookshop, has for most of its forty-five-year history commissioned an original short story as a holiday gift for its customers. Written exclusively for the store, the stories were given as a holiday gift to its customers as a thank you for their business, handed out or mailed between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

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.

The expected never happens... a man calls unexpectedly on his mistress and sees another man leaving her flat. Accusing her of being unfaithful, he quarrels with her, strikes her. She dies. Leaving unseen, he tips off the police so that the other man is arrested and charged... Has he achieved "The Perfect Murder"? A tantalising opening to "A Twist in the Tale", a fantastic collection of short stories from bestselling author Jeffrey Archer.

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. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” ( Booklist).

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. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, and John D. MacDonald all got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by the magazine.

Red O’Brien and Billy Don Craddock are finishing a construction project for one of their regular customers when he makes an unexpected request - help him regain custody of his beloved beagle, Teddy. The way they go about it is a howl.

The Sounds of Crime is an exclusive collection of five brand new short stories by some of the best crimewriters around. Using the theme of 'audio', this unique collection features brand new stories by Lawrence Block, Peter James, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham and Christopher Fowler.

The Akashic Noir series’ forensic study of Southern California sharpens its focus on one of Los Angeles’ most recognized neighborhoods.

Con man Nick Fox is after Garson Klepper’s golden Peruvian relics. For Fox, convincing Klepper to hire him as security for the relocation of the relics to the Getty museum in L.A. was easy. Problem is, Fox wasn’t planning on Klepper also enlisting the help of the FBI. Fox also wasn’t planning on being paired up with rookie special agent Kate O’Hare. She’s smart, she’s tenacious, and when she’s conned, she holds a grudge. Life for Fox and O’Hare will never be the same again.

Raised off the grid by survivalists, Mercy Kilpatrick believed in no greater safeguard than the backwoods of Oregon. Unforgiven by her father for abandoning the fold for the FBI, Mercy still holds to her past convictions. They’re in her blood. They’re her secrets—as guarded as her private survival retreat hidden away in the foothills. In a cabin near her hideaway, Mercy encounters a young girl whose grandmother is dying from multiple knife wounds.