"How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, "did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?" -- "Oh, one's little flock, you know!" said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows rather blankly. "When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets." Not long after he published Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton moved from London to Beaconsfield, and met Father O'Connor. O'Connor had a shrewd insight to the darker side of man's nature and a mild appearance to go with it--and together those came together to become Chesterton's unassuming Father Brown. Chesterton loved the character, and the magazines he wrote for loved the stories. The Innocence of Father Brown was the first collection of them, and it's a great lot of fun.

    The nine stories that open the book show how fully formed Kinsey was from the beginning. The thirteen stories in the second part, written in the decade following her mother's death, feature Kit Blue, a younger version of Grafton herself, and reflect her troubled family life and the author's journey from anger to understanding and forgiveness.Between the sheets --Long gone --Parker shotgun --Non sung smoke --Falling off the roof --Poison that leaves no trace --Full circle --Little missionary work --Lying game --Eye for an I : justice, morality, the nature of the hard-boiled private investigator, and all that existential stuff --Woman capable of anything --That's not an easy way to go --Lost people --Clue --Night visit, corridor A --April 24, 1960 --Closet --Maple Hill --Portable life --Quarrel --Jessie --Death review --Letter from my father

    Warshawski, "the detective mystery fans have been waiting for" (Time), makes return appearances in a collection of stories that bring new meaning to "ties that bind."  Decked out in her silk shirts and no-nonsense Attitude, V.I. is out to make a living--by the skin of her teeth.In "Grace Notes," V.I. has barely finished her morning coffee when she sees an ad in the paper asking for information about her own mother, long dead.  The paper leads V.I. to her newfound Italian cousin Vico, who's looking for music composed by their great-grandmother.  What's the score?  Clearly it's something to kill for... "The Pietro Andromache" finds V.I.'s friend Dr. Lotty Herschel with motive and means to dispatch her professional rival and steal his priceless statue.  Lotty didn't do it--but does she know who did?  V.I. soon cuts to the art of the case--and it's not a pretty picture at all!Summoned by an old high school friend to a race "At the Old Swimming Hole," V.I. ends up swimming with the sharks--the FBI and a ruthless gambling kingpin--in a pool of blood.... And it's only "Skin Deep" when a relaxing facial transformation transforms a client into a stiff.  V.I.'s pal Sal needs help.  Her beautician sister Evangeline is prime suspect--and V.I. has only eighteen hours to crack the case before it's headline news..."  Three-Dot Po" proves there's nothing like a dog.  Especially a dog on the trail of her mistress's killer, with V.I. in tow...In "Strung Out," love means nothing and V.I.'s quick to learn the score as her old friend's tennis-champion daughter is under suspicion for strangling her father with a racket string.  And there's more, nine stories in all, in this masterful collection of short fiction starring V.I. Warshawski, "the most engaging woman in detective fiction since Dorothy Sayers's Harriet Vane" (Newsweek).

    January cold coming in off two rivers. Hart is broke, freezing, looking for a place to lay low from the cops. If he can't find somewhere soon he might do something rash - like steal an overcoat and accept a wallet containing $11,000 from a man dying from gunshot wounds in the street. Whoever killed him might have a bed, though, even if that means hanging out with a bunch of thieves and drifters while the heat blows over. Lucky for Hart he's handy with his fists. And if he can use his looks and smarts to get in with the gang, maybe he can ride this out and score big on his own. Originally published in 1954, Black Friday is one of David Goodis's leanest, meanest melancholy thrillers. In the character of Hart, it features one of his classic, tortured romantic heroes, a man who becomes mired in circumstances from which there is no escape. In this edition, Black Friday is combined with short stories, unpublished since they were first written for pulp magazines in America over 50 years ago.

    She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945.... Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town.... Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing....John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead....The past isn't dead. It isn't even past...

    Featured writers include Ellen Hart, Judith Guest, William Kent Krueger and Carl Brookins. This is a must-have for mystery buffs.

    A long short story featuring Penn and Tom Cage that fills in a critical period in their past, one that helps to set up the action in the coming trilogy, Natchez Burning, The Bone Tree and Unwritten Laws.

    . . ." The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal. Stories is a groundbreaking anthology that reinvigorates, expands, and redefines the limits of imaginative fiction and affords some of the best writers in the world—from Peter Straub and Chuck Palahniuk to Roddy Doyle and Diana Wynne Jones, Stewart O'Nan and Joyce Carol Oates to Walter Mosley and Jodi Picoult—the opportunity to work together, defend their craft, and realign misconceptions. Gaiman, a literary magician whose acclaimed work defies easy categorization and transcends all boundaries, and "master anthologist" (Booklist) Sarrantonio personally invited, read, and selected all the stories in this collection, and their standard for this "new literature of the imagination" is high. "We wanted to read stories that used a lightning-flash of magic as a way of showing us something we have already seen a thousand times as if we have never seen it at all." Joe Hill boldly aligns theme and form in his disturbing tale of a man's descent into evil in "Devil on the Staircase." In "Catch and Release," Lawrence Block tells of a seasoned fisherman with a talent for catching a bite of another sort. Carolyn Parkhurst adds a dark twist to sibling rivalry in "Unwell." Joanne Harris weaves a tale of ancient gods in modern New York in "Wildfire in Manhattan." Vengeance is the heart of Richard Adams's "The Knife." Jeffery Deaver introduces a dedicated psychologist whose mission in life is to save people in "The Therapist." A chilling punishment befitting an unspeakable crime is at the dark heart of Neil Gaiman's novelette "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains." As it transforms your view of the world, this brilliant and visionary volume—sure to become a classic—will ignite a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional fiction.

    The graduating class includes such rising stars as Robert Gregory Browne, Toni McGee Causey, Marcus Sakey, Derek Nikitas, Marc Lecard, JT Ellison, Brett Battles, Jason Pinter, Bill Cameron, Sean Chercover, Patry Francis, Gregg Olsen, and David White. Each of the short stories displaying their talents are introduced by their Killer Year mentors, some of which include bestselling authors Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen and Jeffrey Deaver, with additional stories by Ken Bruen, Allison Brennan and Duane Swierczynski. Bestselling authors Laura Lippman and MJ Rose contribute insightful essays. Inside you'll read about a small time crook in over his head, a story told backwards with a heroine not to be messed with, a tale of boys and the trouble they will get into over a girl, and many more stories of the highest caliber in murder, mayhem, and sheer entertainment. This amazing anthology, edited by the grandmaster Lee Child, is sure to garner lots of attention and keep readers coming back for more. Includes:Introduction by by Lee ChildThe class of co-opetition by by M. J. RosePerfect gentleman by by Brett BattlesKilling justice by by Allison BrennanBottom deal by by Robert Gregory BrownTime of the green by by Ken BruenSlice of pie by by Bill CameronA failure to communicate by by Toni McGee CauseyOne serving of bad luck by by Sean ChercoverProdigal me by by J. T. EllisonThe only word I know in Spanish by by Patry FrancisTeardown by by Marc LecardRunaway by by Derek NikitasThe crime of my life by by Gregg OlsenThe point guard by by Jason PinterGravity and need by by Marcus SakeyDeath runs faster by by Duane SwierczynskiRighteous son by by Dave WhiteCoda by by Laura LippmanThe travellin' show by Douglas HutchesonEdison's dead men by Ed Turner

    This collection includes thirteen lean and mean stories from the fingertips of Garnett Elliott, Glenn Gray, John Hornor Jacobs, Patricia Abbott, Thomas Pluck, Brad Green, Ron Earl Phillips, Kent Gowran, Amy Grech, Benoit Lelievre, Kieran Shea, David Cranmer, and Wayne D. Dundee and a boiled down look at hardboiled fiction in an introduction by Ron Scheer. Edited by David Cranmer and Scott D. Parker.

    It pulls the reader in and holds on! I cannot wait for more from this writer! Wish I could give her ten stars myself!" When headmaster James Leibinger finds one of his teachers dead, the police write it off as suicide. After all Dorian Jones had plenty of problems. However James is convinced Dorian was murdered, but how can he prove it? The he remembers a chance encounter with a female private detective – Jayne Belmont. Would she be able to solve this mystery? Jayne is faced with an entire staff of teachers and an ex-wife who would all like to see the back of Dorian. What's more they all seem to have had opportunity. Jayne slowly narrows down her suspects, but when another body falls to their death and all the suspects were in the same room, the case becomes impossible to solve. Or does it? Join Jayne on her ups and downs in this murder mystery set in the city of Palmerston in Australia's torrid Northern Territory where the heat and humidity combine with circumstances to test Jayne's wits almost to breaking point. Scroll up, buy now and see if you can find out who did it!

    Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story.Since his first collection, Nightshift, published thirty-five years ago, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection he assembles, for the first time, recent stories that have never been published in a book. He introduces each with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it.There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. “Afterlife” is about a man who died of colon cancer and keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Other stories address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, the names of people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win.Magnificent, eerie, utterly compelling, these stories comprise one of King’s finest gifts to his constant reader—“I made them especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.”

    This is Koontz's spellbinding collection of takes interconnected by the strange highways of human experience: adventures, terrors, failures and triumphs.

    Inside this anthology you'll find a mix of classic mystery and suspense, full-blown action, and blood-curdling suspense. There are tales of vengeance and redemption, good versus evil, and more than a few laugh-out-loud moments. The ebook edition also includes a fully hyperlinked Table of Contents, which gives you a brief synopsis and page count for each story - making it easy to choose what you want to read next. You'll also find a short bio for each author, along with a web link where you can find out more. ~~ Nick StephensonPaydown - by Nick Stephenson. When a high-flying Wall Street investment banker is found brutally killed, what started out as a simple fraud case turns into expert criminologist Leopold Blake's first ever murder investigation. As the glamor of Wall Street is stripped away by a series of catastrophic discoveries, Leopold will have to decide how much he is prepared to risk in order to uncover the truth - and whether it's a price he's willing to pay. Loose Ends - by David Vandyke. There's not much left that can surprise private investigator California "Cal" Corwin any more, especially since the accident. But after a young girl is kidnapped and feared murdered, Cal is drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse that will stretch her skills to the ultimate limit. With danger at every turn and with more questions than answers, Corwin must scour the streets of San Francisco to track down the culprits before it's too late - and the clock is ticking... Mr. Mockingbird Drive - by Robert Swartwood. Julio and Tyshawn are far from professional thieves, but they get by. After weeks spent researching the perfect mark, the boys are ready to strike - and the payout is going to be unbelievable...Mr. Mockingbird Drive is a cleverly deceptive piece of flash fiction. The story first featured in Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Winter 2012. Ladies Weekend - by Ryan King. A trip to the Gulf Shores with her three sisters-in-law was not exactly Cathy's idea of a good time. With a dark secret to protect, a weekend stuck with the meddling Biddle sisters might have been too much to bear - but, thankfully for Cathy, there's nothing a little "medicine" can't fix...This delightfully twisted story was first published in 2012. Veritas: Concubine - by R.S. Guthrie. How far would you go to find the truth? Shale Veritas is not his real name, but that's not important. What's important is why he's taken an interest in you - and what you've done to deserve it...This dark, atmospheric tale of revenge, justice, and redemption is not for the faint-hearted. You have been warned. Divide and Conquer - by Kay Hadashi. Nobody ever told June Kato that babysitting could be such hard work ... As a world-class neurosurgeon, June is used to dealing with high-pressure situations. But when a trio of violent thugs invade her home while her four-year-old nieces are staying over, nap time suddenly takes on a whole new meaning. A thrill-ride from start to finish. Recidivist - by Alan McDermott. Something needs to be done about Steven Howe. Even though he's yet to see his twelfth birthday, after 97 arrests the police and social services have had enough. Forced to attend a state-sponsored retreat for troubled youths, Steven is about to find out just how far the government is prepared to go to meet their targets - starting with him. Return of the Bride - by Micheal Maxwell. Tradition has it that Al-Qurnah is the site of the Garden of Eden. But for Phillip Sear, a man who has lived with sin his entire life, it has an entirely different significance. On a journey to redeem himself for a lifetime of selfish choices, Sear will finally learn how to keep his promises - but at what cost?

    To find the killer, rookie detective Callum Pederson has gone undercover where the Princes hold court. He’s found enough secrets among the bros to bring them in for questioning—but he could very well get lost in the games the Princes play.