Short Mystery Collection

It is the early 1600s and the City of London sees Queen Elizabeth living out her dying days as Scottish King James waits in the wings to take to the throne. Meanwhile, in Southwark, along the south bank of the River Thames, Master Hardy Drew, Constable of the Bankside Watch, maintains law and order amongst the cut-throats and smugglers, in the taverns and brothels, as well as with the gentlefolk, who flock across the river to enjoy the latest plays by Shakespeare and Jonson.

The Chinese city of Shunkien is under siege, the Japanese military laying it to waste. In the middle of the city sits the American consulate, a fragile sanctuary packed with refugees, threatened not only by artillery, but by the ravages of starvation and cholera. 200 miles away, on the USS Miami, stands their only hope - Marine Gunnery Sergeant James Mitchell. As tough as Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan - and just as stubborn - if anybody can negotiate a crucial supply of gold and medicine through 200 miles of bullets, bombs and butchery, it’s Sergeant Mitchell.

From literary icon Joyce Carol Oates comes a brand-new collection of haunting and, at times, darkly humorous mystery and suspense stories. These are tales of psyches pushed to their limits by the expectations of everyday life - from a woman who gets lost on her drive home to her plush suburban home and ends up breaking into a stranger's house, to a first-person account of a cloned 1940s magazine pinup girl being sold at auction and embodying America's ideals of beauty and womanhood.

Mary Ann is hosting a party in the heart of a small town called Green Springs, in New York State at her newly opened pie shop in celebration of a business achievement and serving her famous lemon meringue pies. However, the party turns sour when one of her guests (a friend of a friend she invited) falls dead. Mary Ann is one of the suspects as the victim was poisoned - possibly by one of her pies.

Tex Larimee is a grizzled Arizona sheriff who’s leaving the deserts of Cactus County behind, blazing a trail east to mix it up with The Slickers in the canyons of Manhattan. Tex’s welcome to New York is a rude one. Robbed of his cash, gun and badge, he’s locked in a room in back of a run-down bar. Breaking out of the bar, he goes looking for his best friend...only to find him dead, his throat cut. And the cops accuse Tex of committing the murder.

Murder for Love: Murder for Women is a collection of wickedly witty crime-of-passion short stories by some of the best women writers inside and out of the mystery field.

Five more sizzlingly scandalous Sherlock Holmes stories from the pen of Orlando Pearson. Mr. Pearson mixes the canon with elite sport, business high jinks, a musical mystery, a literary mystery, Realpolitik, and in "The Hounding of Peer Baskerville" rolls the most famous of all detective stories on 20 years. A must for traditionalists, lovers of mystery, and anyone who likes a rattling good listen.

Scare Street is proud to present the best in bone-chilling supernatural horror. This volume contains three tales of fickle fate and dark destinies, each guaranteed to have you looking over your shoulder and checking both ways before you cross the street. Life is precious, and accidents happen all the time. None of us are immune to a streak of misfortune. But sometimes, it’s better to accept your fate than to cheat destiny. Because when you try to swindle death, death fights back. And the deck is always stacked against you....

"The case of the missing Mayan Codices". "I do not suppose that you have brought your revolver with you Watson?" I shook my head to indicate that my response was in the negative to his question. He turned his head forward again and led us through the kitchen, past several side pantries. As we cautiously inched forward, Holmes observed that the blood trail consisted of droplets of varying size. "Whomever it came from, they must have been applying intermittent pressure on the wound as they walked."

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Johnny Trescott is as smart, tough, and fearless as they come. But he’s about to lose everything - his boat, his freedom, and his identity. Johnny’s mission is to track down drug runners in the Gulf of Mexico, and he’s got his eye on the biggest fish of all - Georges Coquelin. But an SOS from a downed plane that’s sinking fast leads him straight to disaster. Coquelin springs a trap. Stranding Johnny and the plane’s passengers on a deserted island, the drug smuggler commandeers Johnny’s boat and his name.

A drug rip turns terribly wrong for four hapless men. A bored housewife plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse with her retired neighbor. A father learns the realities of street life while searching for his daughter. A cop breaks the law to find a missing child. These are just a few citizens embracing mayhem as a part of their lives. Many more wait in the shadows, around the corner, or down the next alley. It’s time to see the 509 in a way you never expected.

Rye Gannon, a private investigator hanging her shingle in Denver, Colorado, discovers she has a talent for sensing magic. The Harpocrates Society, a secret organization, hires her to use that talent to find and secure magical items, keeping them from endangering the innocent. These never before published tales of an Empress’s Opal, a lucky coin, a miner’s pick, a necklace of human teeth, and a love locket, all tell the beginning of Rye Gannon’s investigative adventures in this new Urban Fantasy Mystery series.

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are famous for solving murder mysteries. But there are many other intrigues in the pages of Hazel's casebook, from the macabre Case of the Deepdean Vampire, to the baffling Case of the Blue Violet, and their very first whodunit: the Case of Lavinia's Missing Tie.

Dirty Laundry in Paradise. For a moment, my estimation of the good Mr. Brae had increased somewhat, as I gathered he didn’t want one of his servants taking the blame for a deed the poor soul hadn’t perpetrated. I glanced at Holmes to determine his take on the situation, but I wasn’t surprised that he had taken little notice of Mr. Brae. “Would you pass the milk, Watson?” Ignoring the man completely as one could ignore a bumbling buffoon, as Holmes had dubbed him after our previous encounter. Dutifully, I passed him the cream which he slowly poured into his tea.

Few characters have the loyal readership of Bill Pronzini's "Nameless Detective." The 14 stories in this collection span his entire 35-year life on the printed page. They include "It's a Lousy World," where Nameless proves that a friend did not commit the crime he was accused of; "Dead Man's Slough" and "The Ghosts of Ragged-Ass Gulch," which take him out of San Francisco into the hinterlands; and "Souls Burning," where he tries to help an old friend make one last try at setting things right.

He’s a lady’s man, a man’s man—and a wanted man, on the run in 1930s Europe.... Meet Blacky Lee, ruggedly handsome with a quick wit and a roguish charm—with larceny in his heart and a price on his head. A price put there by the German Gestapo. But Blacky’s always got an angle, and this time it’s as audacious as they come. He’ll hide in plain sight, impersonating the crowned head of a Balkan kingdom. He’ll become The Iron Duke.

Follow the Arceneaux family, a group of white tiger shifters in Louisiana where they find love... and heart-stopping danger in other species of supernatural beings. Full of romance, suspense, and gritty drama, this red-hot collection is sure to entertain! Desirable The last time he saw her he promised to spank her curvy derriere. This time, he may do a lot more than that! Curvalicious Natalya thought she’d never have to grow up. And then she met Lézare. The man who makes her want to be the woman she’s never been. Except his family hates her, and as far as she knows, he does to. So the ...

C.T. Ferguson wishes his parents would get off his case. Forced to use his brilliant hacking skills to play detective, he hopes that each investigation is a cinch. But a body near a Baltimore chapel is only the beginning, and the better the rich kid gets at his job, the more dangerous his work becomes….

Amateur sleuth Clarissa Montgomery Hayes loves her loyal canine partner, Paw. Together they sniff out crime and dig up clues to solve mysteries. Can a dog be a detective? He sure can. The dog detective is on the case in this collection of the first five cozy mystery short stories in the Dog Detective Series. In “The Mystery of the Blue Dolphins,” Clarissa’s amateur sleuth uncle has died. Or was it murder? And what has happened to the stolen jewels he was investigating? Clarissa and Paw are on vacation at the beach in “The Mystery of Aunt Carol’s Disappearance” where their ...

James needs money. Now. Then he learns Mickle doesn't seem to keep much track of his seemingly limitless weed inventory. Mickle won't notice if James snags just one small brick of skank, will he? James tells himself he'll take just a little, just enough to get his child support, his probation officer, his sister, his grandmother, and his baby mama off his back. Besides, a total dweed like Mickle couldn't do much about it even if he did find out? Right? Wrong!