Short Crime Thriller

Successful attorney Larry Scott checks his watch and realizes that he is still working in his law office at four minutes past midnight which means that Larry has just turned sixty years of age while chained to his desk. He is disgusted with his workaholic ways and decides right then and there to retire from the Indianapolis law firm where he has toiled for his entire thirty-five year legal career. Larry has no idea that a bizarre set of circumstances will soon have him sorting through cryptic clues to solve three very old murders back in his home town of Vevay, Indiana. Can Larry make the ...

When you think of St. Petersburg noir, some of the greatest literary names immediately spring to mind - Alexander Pushkin, Nikolay Gogol, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Modern day St. Petersburg lavishly offers the scenery and conditions for true noir stories, and the writers in St. Petersburg Noir succeed in concocting their own worlds within this city with stories ranging from mystical to outwardly grotesque.

Upon opening a time capsule from 1968, the author finds a letter written by a condemned insurance agent from Texas only minutes before his arrest on capital murder charges. The letter relates this agent's downfall at the hands of a crooked police detective and a twisted woman. Though he was undoubtedly innocent of the crime, history long ago recorded his apprehension, trial and execution. By the time you read his letter, fifty years will have passed, and nothing can be done to save its author. His tale is a cautionary one, however, and so well worth reading. Beware of dames, dives, and death.

Twenty classic authors from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction are brought together in the latest “Bodies from the Library” anthology series of previously unpublished and uncollected stories of crime and suspense.

Emmy award-winning actor Sir Derek Jacobi reads all 12 stories from this last collection to feature Holmes and Watson. The Adventure of the Illustrious ClientThe Adventure of the Blanched SoldierThe Adventure of the Mazarin StoneThe Adventure of the Three GablesThe Adventure of the Sussex VampireThe Adventure of the Three GarridebsThe Problem of Thor BridgeThe Adventure of the Creeping Man

Hercule Poirot is asked by Prince Paul of Maurania to solve the murder of Henry Reedburn, which has greatly distressed the Prince's fiancée, the famous dancer Valerie Saintclair. The only other witnesses seem to be a family of four who were playing bridge near an open window when she staggered in, crying, "Murder!"

Two bloody brilliant short stories from number-one best-selling crime writer Stuart MacBride, featuring DS Logan McRae and his boss, DI Steel. 'Stramash': something fishy is happening on the isle of Jura. DS Logan McRae gets a phone call from DI Steel ordering him to come to the island at once. One freezing night's sleep in a hatchback and two storm-battered ferries later, Logan arrives - but there's no sign of Steel. She's lumped him in the middle of a policing nightmare, with bodies and bullets and tiny, wee boats.

San Francisco Noir lashes out with hard-biting tales exploring the shadowy nether regions of scenic "Baghdad by the Bay". In this superb collection, virtuosos of the genre meet up with the best of SF’s literary fiction community to chart a unique psycho-geography for a dark landscape. From inner city boroughs to the outlands, each contributor offers an original story based in a distinct neighborhood.

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.

Full Beam (The Imogen and Hugh Croft Mysteries) A car is driving too fast along a twisting country road. At the end of a long, straight section, the notoriously lethal bend suddenly looms up out of nowhere. The silence is broken by a deafening screech of brakes. The passengers on board don’t stand a chance… When a nanny is killed and her two young wards badly injured in a road accident, the cause seems clear-cut. Sensing all is not quite as it appears, defence lawyer Penny Mills decides to employ the assistance of her old friend, Imogen Croft. Together, they soon discover the case ...

A fourth floor room, a door locked with the key inside, no way in, no way out. Edgar Allan Poe is the true grandfather of the murder mystery. Decades before Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, Poe gave us C. Auguste Dupin, a man able to solve mysteries through observation and deduction.

When a wealthy politician’s twelve-year-old son disappears, the family’s driver witnesses the aftermath. A field investigator for the World Health Organization travels the globe giving presentations about a biomedical enzyme that will lead to the extinction of the human race. And Father Augusto Saenz, the Jesuit priest and forensic anthropologist from Smaller and Smaller Circles, returns to investigate the murder of a woman whose secretive life holds the key to her death.

When Captain Kellen Adams receives a job offer that sounds too good to be true, she finds herself balanced between fascination and fear. All she has to do is break a code and find a long-lost fortune...or die trying. New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd kicks off her Cape Charade suspense series with Hard to Kill, a short story of treasure, treachery...and murder.

Nobody plays accordion like Dick Contino. His skilled fingers can find beauty in even the schmaltziest Borscht Belt favorites, and with his matinee-idol looks he could be a real star. Right now, though, he’s slumming it as the headliner in a Grade Z teenybopper picture called Daddy-O. He’s too good for this movie, and finishing it is going to take him to a very dark place. Daddy-O and Dick Contino are both real, their stories dredged out of the past by James Ellroy, a master of historical crime fiction. In Dick Contino's Blues he takes us to B-List Hollywood in 1957 - a time when movies were cheerful and dirty secrets lurked just off camera.

Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical students bring a severed foot to a college party. Five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates has made a career of exploring the forbidden corners of human experience, and the stories collected here, spanning her first three decades as a writer, are among her most unsettling and unforgettable works to date.

Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories is a brilliant collection of short stories, personally chosen by Andrea Camilleri, following Inspector Montalbano from his very first case in Vigàta, in which he stumbles upon a young girl lurking outside a courthouse with a pistol in her handbag. When she is taken in for questioning and won't utter a single word, Montalbano must find another way to learn whom she is trying to kill and why.

A wonderful collection of classic thrillers, mystery stories, crime tales and weird accounts of uncanny events.1. Query by “Seamark” 2. The Furnished Room by O. Henry 3.The Dancing Partner by Jerome K. Jerome 4. The Squaw by Bram Stoker 5. The 19 Club by A. J. Alan 6. The Interruption by W. W. Jacobs7. Laura by Saki 8. A Descent into the Maelström by Edgar Allan Poe 9. The Diver by A. J. Alan10. The Man of the Night by Edgar Wallace11. The Burglary by Arnold Bennett

Each of these ingenious tales is a gem, sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, always filled with delightfully unanticipated twists and reversals. For people who have yet to listen to Lippman, get ready to experience the spellbinding power of "one of today's most pleasing storytellers" ( San Diego Union-Tribune). As for longtime devotees of her multiple award-winning novels, you'll discover that you hardly know her.

When Simon Serrailler was a rookie constable with the Met, he did something reckless in the course of a night's work which caused a man's death. But his act was praised by his colleagues, and he was called a hero. Years later, now a detective chief superintendent who has been badly injured in the course of duty, he receives a medal for bravery at Buckingham Palace while recollecting that fateful night of his early career, when chance disguised itself as bravery.

Some of the best-known and most influential pieces of crime fiction have been from African American writers. Be it Walter Mosley's great Detective Easy Rawlins, or the mean streets of Harlem at the hands of Chester Himes, the stories and characters in this anthology have shaped the mystery genre with their own unique viewpoints and styles. Contributors to the collection include Robert Greer, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Cary Phillips, Frankie Bailey, and Richard Wright.