A man did not club you unconscious, bring you to his estate and tie you to a chair in an empty storage shed out back of the place if he merely intended to give you a valentine. Morley had found out about him and Julie.”A short story in the tradition of Fleming or Dahl, “The Steel Valentine” is a gem, exemplifying the suspense writing of Joe Lansdale.

    Was it suicide or was it something else?Spokane County Detective Shane McAfee must unravel the mystery.Discover The 509 Crime Stories with this free short story.Then check out the books The Side Hustle The Long Cold Winter The Blind Trust The Suit What readers are saying about The Side Hustle★★★★★ “… just looking for my next thriller fix, I discovered this gem.” – John Barksley★★★★★ “… a great read! A different kind of police procedural.” – Mickey★★★★★ “This book was hard to put down.” – Amazon Customer★★★★★ “…kept me reading.” – Mary Arnold★★★★★ “Loved my first foray into the 509 series… and Quinn!” – Cynthiareads★★★★★ “The story is well crafted and kept me quickly ‘turning the pages.’” – Sally★★★★★ “Great read.  Very enjoyable.” – Amy Dalton

    But her real dream is to open her own pastry shop, Sweet's Sweets.Life is a little crazy for Sam right now. At one of her break-in properties a dying woman insists that she take a small wooden box. Sam doesn't realize that the old woman was known locally as a bruja, a witch, until she begins to feel some strange effects from the box, herself.Meanwhile, at another property, she finds an unmarked grave and the authorities come to investigate. The property owner disappeared a few months earlier and Sam wonders--who is the body in the grave? A small mural in the house leads to a connection with a famous artist; a bogus will points to possible fraud; and the handsome deputy investigating the case seems completely enchanted with Sam.While Sam scrambles to fill bakery orders and keep her properties in order, she's equally intrigued with the idea of a new romance. It all makes for a delightful romantic mystery with elements of the paranormal.

    . . Is the rising number of abused women who've gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a serial killer targeting this vulnerable group of women? When the Milwaukee Police Department refuses to investigate because no bodies have been discovered, Lisa Rayburn, the clinical psychologist who discovers the anomaly, is drawn into an investigation to discover the cause after one of her own clients goes missing. She finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, TJ Peacock, and the husbands of two of the missing women who may themselves be murderers. When TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is found murdered, they know . . . someone is willing to kill to protect his secret. Can they reveal the killer before he gets to them?

    Now meet John Wallace, the lead of PENDULUM in the exclusive novella RUN.Embedded with the British Army in Afghanistan, recording the devastation that the war on terror has brought to the country, photo-journalist John Wallace's endurance is about to be put to the ultimate test.A planned assault on an insurgent compound has gone wrong with devastating consequences. Now Wallace has only one option if he is going to get justice for those involved. He can expose those responsible. But to do that, he will have to RUN...Also featuring exclusive chapters from Adam Hamdy's PENDULUM, this is perfect for fans of Simon Kernick and Terry Hayes' I AM PILGRIM.The noose is tightening...

    Out of prison, but still on parole, the only thing he wants is to keep his head down, go to work and maybe grab a cold beer at the end of his shift. He doesn't even care that the program stuck him in Essex - a nice, but nowhere small town. With his head already full of bloody and painful memories, he'd like it just fine if his past and future stayed nice and quiet.Too bad the present just got really messy.A body in a tree. A missing briefcase. A Russian hit man. A DEA agent bent on revenge. A corrupt mayor. Not to mention a sheriff with dangerous ambition. A meth lab in the woods. And some pissed off bikers. Things are suddenly very interesting in sleepy Essex county. Bodies are turning up. Secrets are coming out. Questions are being asked. Fingers are being pointed. It's not good being the new guy in a small town.

    A first thriller co-written by Melissa Hill and her husband Kevin.The story is set in Dublin and features forensic investigator Reilly Steel who has moved from the US to Dublin to be close to her father.But what should have been a quiet period filled with training and Irish forensics team turns sinister and violent when body after body is found of people killed in what appears to be a twisted game.

    It’s made her sympathetic to the missing and their families.Starting her new life, Abigail moves to small town and buys a fixer-upper house left empty when old Edna Summers died. Once it was also home to Edna’s younger sister, Emily, and her two children, Jenny and Christopher, who, people believe, drove away one night, thirty years ago, and just never came back.But in renovating the house Abigail finds scraps of paper hidden behind baseboards and tucked beneath the porch that hint the three could have been victims of foul play.Then she finds their graves hidden in the woods behind the house and with the help of eccentric townspeople and ex-homicide detective, Frank Lester, she discovers the three were murdered. Then she and Frank try to uncover who killed them and why…but in the process awaken the ire of the murderer. ***

    He is in control. This is his revenge—and he’s only just begun.Three university scientists are found dead in a gruesome murder-suicide, and the only suspect in the case, Victor Lazar, is quickly captured. When the spate of violent suicides follows him to prison he is moved to solitary confinement, reserved for the highest-risk inmates. And then his assigned psychologist inexplicably takes his own life.Alex Madison, a former forensic psychologist turned private therapist, is brought in to interview Victor. He suspects that Victor is controlling his victims, somehow coaxing them into a suggestive trance. It seems like science fiction, but as Alex digs deeper he uncovers a frightening reality of secret research and cruel experimentation—and the perpetrators are closer to home than he could ever have imagined.Too late, Alex learns the true extent of what Victor is capable of—and who he’s after. With everything he holds dear at risk, can Alex take control of a dangerous mind—before it takes control of him?

    A year after the death of her son Alex, Mary Towne is convinced she's seen him alive - and wants missing persons investigator David Raker to find him. Reluctant at first, but haunted by a loss of his own, Raker eventually agrees.

    This was the challenge we put to three Penguin authors - Nicci French, Time Weaver and Alastair Gunn. How different would the stories be? And how would the authors cope, with so much of the detail out of their hands? #Youdunnit Three very different murders and three unique takes on your travel photographer turned reluctant sleuth, Lucinda Berrington. Deep in the suffocating British countryside, the gangland streets of Cape Town or the glossy world of professional cycling, Twitter followers are meeting an unsavoury demise.Maybe next time you log in you'll wonder... Are you following them, or are they following you? This ebook is brought to you free of charge by Penguin, in association with Specsavers. Look out for other titles by all three authors: Thursday's Children by Nicci French, follows Blue Monday, Tuesday's Gone and Waiting for Wednesday as the fourth in the Frieda Klein series.Richard & Judy book club pick Never Coming Back is the fourth David Raker thriller by Tim Weaver, author of Vanished,Chasing the Dead and The Dead Tracks. Alastair Gunn's debut crime novel, The Advent Killer, is available from Penguin from November 2013, and introduces DCI Antonia Hawkins.

     Only one person has ever survived a visit to this place long enough to tell about it. His name is Jack Kenney. Thirteen years old at the time of the event, Jack and his family were forced to flee Carlsdale and head north to the larger city of Tuscaloosa. The menace from their former home left them in peace for nearly eight years. But after the brutal murder of a noted archaeologist and teacher at the University of Alabama, everything changed. Jack and his older brother, Jeremy, attend the University and are close friends of the late professor. Within days of his death, they are abducted by the FBI, held against their will in a secret holding facility near Manassas, Virginia. Frustrated by the brothers' seeming refusal to cooperate, the agency's interrogations become increasingly violent, until Jack gains a welcome reprieve when Special Agent Peter McNamee arrives from the FBI's Richmond office. He befriends Jack and gains his trust, drawing upon a similar supernatural event from his own youth. Willing, finally, to talk after so many years spent in sworn silence, Jack leads Peter on an extraordinary roller-coaster ride involving a mystical and deadly realm located in America's Deep South....

    Lila is charmed by the people of Auburn, from the blue-eyed lawyer with the southern drawl to the little old lady who unceasingly tries to set Lila up with her grandson. But when strange things begin to happen, Lila realizes some of her new friends are guarding a secret like it's a precious family heirloom. It's a dangerous secret, and it has come back to haunt them. Lila is caught in the middle, and her life may depend on uncovering it. But even if she can, can she stay in Auburn when not everyone is what they seem, and even the house wants her gone?

    More abductions and killings soon follow. Justin Riddley, recently transferred to the island’s small college, faces growing evidence that one of his new friends and fellow students may be the murderer. John Marshall, redemption-seeking captain of the local police force, leads the frantic murder investigation and struggles to figure out whether the killings are tied to the island's dark and violent past. Tormented by tragic wartime memories, and more convinced with each day that it is humanity’s fate to destroy itself, Marshall races against both the murderer and the specter of his own mental breakdown. As blood continues to spill, Riddley and Marshall wonder whether there may be a dark, universal force that drives evil deeds great and small, and whether the nature of one’s childhood might sometimes, in the end, be all that separates the saint from the psychopath.

    They didn't kill her — and they'll soon regret it.When DEA agent Jack Thorne's house is stormed by vengeful drug lords, both he and his wife are shot dead. Only his daughter Louie survives — by using a terrifying power that defies reason.Piecing together a life in his absence, Louie embraces her gift and her rage under the force of a single need: revenge.She will destroy the men that took her family. No matter the cost, no matter how many bullets, she won't stop until justice has been well and truly served.