In fact, it was such a lousy place to live, you could hardly give the real estate away. Populated by gangsters, muggers, grandmothers with baseball bats, and parents working long hours on the wrong side of the law to pay for tenement apartments with no view, the place was also colorful, with memorable characters straight out of a Damon Runyon novel. It was in this live-by-your-wits atmosphere that Dan Fortune grew up. One of his best boyhood friends was Andy Pappas. They broke into the holds of ships together, stealing cargo, watching one another’s back. But things happen. Dan lost his arm in a failed robbery attempt, and decided it was time to figure out another way to make a living. With the people and geography of Chelsea his only areas of expertise, he put out his shingle: Dan Fortune, Private Detective. But Andy liked his life of crime, and power was addictive. Andy stayed the course, killing his way up until he took over the docks. He was boss of bosses, a vicious racketeer. Still, he’d let Dan be familiar, call him by his first name, even give him crap – until now. Now Dan is trying to track down a teenager named Jo-Jo Olsen. It looks like a routine missing-persons case, until Jo-Jo’s friends start dying violently, one by one, just before Dan can question them. Then Andy Pappas warns Dan that unless he cools it on Jo-Jo, he’ll end up on the rapidly growing pile of corpses. It doesn’t make sense. Why does Andy Pappas care about Jo-Jo, and what does Dan need to do to stay alive long enough to find out and save the kid? Act of Fear is the winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel “Collins has the ability to set in motion a sequence of events that moves with the inevitability of a huge boulder rolling down a mountainside.” – New York Times “A master of crime fiction.” – Ellery Queen “Act of Fear is the most interesting private detective novel I have read in a long time. It is a highly original piece of work in a field not noted for much originality. Mr. Collins is a writer to watch and, above all, to read.” – Ross Macdonald

    As the nuclear arms race escalates in the Middle East, the Mossad, KGB, Egyptians, and Fedayeen terrorists will play out the final violent moves in a devastating game where the price of failure is nuclear holocaust...

    Working her first homicide case, rookie cop Emily Thompson comes face-to-face with a twisted serial killer who, determined to make her his greatest trophy, forces her into a nightmarish realm of unspeakable horror where she makes a shocking discovery that is linked to her own past.

     The craving for a new identity and the chance to start again is something they have in common. But the search for a fresh start isn't as easy as they'd imagined. And they soon discover that it doesn't matter where you are or who you are - if you can't lay the past to rest, coincidence, fate and deception have a way of catching up with you when you least expect it.

    Now Frey has written his most exciting novel yet, taking us even deeper into the volatile world of raw ambition, million-dollar deals, and wide-eyed dreamers willing to risk everything for a profit.Hungry to leave his dead-end banking job and to play in the big leagues, Jay West lands a coveted position with the powerful investment firm of Donovan & Lloyd, working for the influential, charismatic Oliver Mason, a deal-maker with the Midas touch, a fierce ally who handpicked Jay for the job. With the incentive of a million-dollar bonus at the end of the year, Jay strives to make his mark, unaware that he is stepping into an elaborate trap--baited with the seductive promise of power and influence.Jay soon suspects that Oliver's stellar track record is more than a result of hard work or good luck. The man seems to have everything--not just fast cars and a luxurious home in Connecticut, but a violent temper, a strained marriage, and a boundless hunger for money and prestige. The stakes are raised when a trusted coworker is brutally murdered and the beautiful Sally Lane joins the team, a mysterious blonde with the ability to coax secrets out of others--while seductively keeping her own.With a conspiracy of deceit and corruption beginning to close around him, Jay races to untangle the sordid lies that have quickly and too conveniently blackened his name. Trusting no one and remaining one step ahead of both the law and his unknown adversaries, Jay must rely on his own cunning and wits to stay in the game--and to stay alive.With breakneck pacing from the opening bell, The Insider is a multilayered, action-packed thriller of wealth and the lust for it, heated passion and ruthless competition, survival and power--no matter the cost.From the Hardcover edition.

    She doesn't need more grief. Then she spies two people dumping a dubious-looking ice chest into the Hudson River, and she has a chilling hunch about what's inside. Not being the kind of girl to let two psychos get away with murder, Sam sets out to unravel a mystery--and is soon being stalked by a sinister, shadowy figure who's wearing one-of-a-kind mirrored contact lenses. Now, aided by a tough (but still very hot) detective. Sam is poking into some unsavory places, and finding out more creepy stuff than she ever wanted to know.

     Before the tragic event that made him seek refuge in a remote corner of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Alex McKnight was a Detroit police officer.  It’s a warm summer night, and Alex is out riding the night shift with his partner Franklin.  There’s no shortage of trouble to be found on the dark streets of Motown.  But on this particular night, Franklin has his own agenda.

    Paul, Minnesota, 1939. The body of a beautiful dime-a-dance girl is found on a hillside, and Police Lieutenant Wesley Horner, struggling and alone after his wife's recent death, heads the investigation into her murder. His chief suspect is Herbert White, an eccentric recluse and hobby photographer who spends his days recording his life in detailed journal entries and scrapbooks. In Mr. White's Confession, Robert Clark illuminates the complex relationships between truth and fiction, past and present, faith and memory.

    At its head was one of the wealthiest men in the world, a man who has just died in a mysterious accident and left his only daughter, Elizabeth, in control of the company. Now as this intelligent, tough, and beautiful young woman dares to save -- not sell -- Roffe and Sons, she will have to outwit those who secretly want her power, and the unknown assassin who wants her life.

    Malcolm Ainslie takes a phone call he would have been better off ignoring. The caller is the chaplain at Florida State Prison, delivering a message from Elroy Doil, the serial murderer Ainslie helped put on the prison's death row. On the eve of his execution, Doil has asked to make a confession. But there is a condition: he will deliver it only in person to Ainslie.Ainslie has no choice. Doil was convicted of a double murder, but he was suspected in ten more. No homicide detective could turn down the opportunity to close ten murder cases in a single night. What Ainslie learns from the condemned man, however, propels the ex-priest-turned-cop into an investigation that reaches into the most elite levels of his own department and the Miami city government. And it tests as never before his skills as a cop and his character as a man.Master storyteller Arthur Hailey is legendary for the scrupulously researched authenticity and electrifying realism of his novels, for taking readers inside the places where men and women endure and sometimes crack under the pressures of jobs that shape our lives and world. Bristling with the sights, sounds, and true-to-life details of a contemporary urban homicide division, and with all the narrative suspense that has made him one of the best-selling fiction writers of our time, Detective is the novel Arthur Hailey was destined to write.

    High-level friends at police headquarters were dangling clues from a recent murder case in front of him, stringing him along. Reluctantly investigating the slaying, Taylor was led to the offices of Minnesota gubernatorial candidate and media darling Carol Catherine Monroe. She needed Taylor's help to diffuse a scandal that could rattle the skeletons in her closet. But the murder of an innocent campaign worker hit Taylor where it hurt and taught him a simple truth: Some sins can never be forgotten - or forgiven...

    This short story was originally published in Joe Hill's collection 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS.Eddie Carroll is sick to death of editing the collection America's Best New Horror, sick of reading through second-rate stories in order to find the few "best new." But one afternoon he stumbles across a new story so remarkable that he soon embarks on a quixotic quest to find its author - a quest he may not live to regret.

    WuMorning Terrors — Peter CrowtherMisadventures in the Skin Trade — Don D’AmmassaCircle of Lias — Lawrence C. ConnollyWatching the Soldiers — Dirk StrasserOne in the A.M. — Rachel DrummondA Side of the Sea — Ramsey CampbellPainted Faces — Gerard Daniel HournerMonotone — Lawrence GreenbergDead Leaves — James C. DobbsFrom the Mouths of Babes — Bentley LittleThe Late Mr. Havel’s Apartment — David HerterUnion Dues — Gary BraunbeckEarshot — Glenn IsaacsonFee — Peter Straub

    The deadly. The damned...For a thousand years, an unimaginable treasure has rested on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, hidden by swift blue currents, guarded by deadly coral reefs, and even deadlier school of man-eating great white sharks. Harry Fletcher, a former soldier turned fisherman, is now being pulled into a murderous mystery by men willing to kill and a beautiful woman willing to lie for what rests far beneath the sea. Now, Harry has no choice but to enter full bore into an international battle to raise an extraordinary object from the deep. Because possessing this treasure isn't just about getting rich--it's about staying alive... in Wilbur Smith's The Eye of the Tiger.

    But not in the way he expects. Jason Stafford is a former Wall Street hotshot who made some bad moves, paid the price with two years in prison, and is now trying to put his life back together. He’s unemployable, until an investment firm asks him to look into possible problems left by a junior trader who died recently in an accident. What he discovers is big – there are problems, all right, the kind that get you killed. But it’s not his only concern. Stafford has another quest as well: to reclaim his five-year-old son, “the Kid,” from his unstable ex-wife, and then learn just what it means to make a life with him. The things Stafford discovers about himself in the process are every bit as gripping as his investigation, and when the two threads of his life come together – the results are unforgettable. Black Fridays marks the arrival of a remarkable new writer.