Holiday spirit is everywhere, especially around Mintwood. Charlie is going all out with decorations and celebration. Greer is surly and Lemmi is looking forward to her first Christmas with Jasper. The only thing marring the excitement is the lack of snow. That changes right before Christmas, bringing a ragtag group of unexpected visitors and ghosts to Lemmi's farmhouse, perhaps even including a murderer. This is a short story just over 21,000 words.

    Benny Cooperman, a private eye in Grantham, Ontario, Canada with a hard head and a tender heart, was ready to help her in any way he could. Was her husband Chester having an affair, is her concern. But when Ches commits suicide the day Benny begins his investigation, the detective realizes he may be dealing with something beyond a simple "family affair."Probing into the curious circumstances surrounding the death, Benny finds himself in the midst of a strange group of people--one that involves a mysterious psychiatrist, shady eminent citizens, and soon a few more suicides. Or are they murders?

    A super value boxset! Comprising the fourth, fifth and sixth books in the Detective Chief Inspector John Blizzard series: THE SECRETS MAN, BREACH OF TRUST and DEATH LIST. THE SECRETS MAN Whilst detective John Blizzard looks into a series of drug-related deaths, his nemesis, gangland thug Morrie Raynor, is released from prison. Blizzard becomes convinced Raynor is linked to a new crime spree, but with little evidence other than the ravings of a sick, delirious man, the detective's colleagues suspect his personal feelings are clouding his judgement. A BREACH OF TRUST A corrupt industrialist is found dead. When his family shed crocodile tears, DCI John Blizzard turns the screw. But when their alibis check out, can his team track down the real killer among a long list of likely suspects? DEATH LIST An undercover detective is shot in his home. Later, police officers on a routine patrol are fired at. Someone has a big problem with law enforcement. DCI Blizzard starts a crackdown on his city’s most notorious gangsters. But is he in danger of rubbing the wrong people up the wrong way? Or is he already on the killer’s list? All three of these books are also available separately on Kindle and in paperback. This box set is available FREE with Kindle Unlimited. The first three books in the series, THE LONG DEAD, STRANGE LITTLE GIRL and THE RAILWAY MAN, are also available individually on Kindle and in paperback and as a box set on Kindle. If you enjoy mysteries that have you guessing until they end, you’ll love these books about hard-hitting detective John Blizzard and his team.

    Porritt has no leads until Jane, a young British translator, unwittingly gets caught up with a German spy trying to flee the country. Can Porritt use his Special Branch teams in Glasgow, Yorkshire, London and Belfast to rescue Jane and smash the undercover spy organisation before Churchill’s invasion plans get leaked? This deftly plotted, action-packed spy thriller is full of twists and turns. Carefully weaving fact and fiction, it provides powerful and intriguing lessons that still apply in today’s changing world.

     A deadly game of cat and mouse — but who has the upper hand? Eastern Europe, 1964 Three men and a woman are seated in a train carriage travelling from Istanbul to Vienna. As they cross the Bulgarian border, a fourth man enters and joins them. That man ends up dead. The other passengers get to work transforming a British agent into a Soviet spy – taking the dead man’s clothes and stealing his identity. Under hypnosis, the British agent must forget all memories of his past. That life is gone, and he is now Comrade Dimitri Nickovitch. But will the months of training be enough? Can the British agent infiltrate the Soviet camp? Or could this foray through the Iron Curtain be his last…? THE SPY WHO SWAPPED SHOES is the first classic international Cold War mystery in the Stephen Fletcher espionage thrillers series: intriguing political double-dealing spread over Europe and the Middle East. THE STEPHEN FLETCHER ESPIONAGE THRILLER SERIES: Book One: The Spy Who Swapped Shoes Book Two: Nest of Spies Book Three: The Chessboard Spies

    

    To escape the loan sharks, Barry decides it’s time for one of them to die—or at least to pretend to. As the venue for this insurance fraud, they choose Lola’s home country, Guerrera, where death certificates come cheap and government record-keeping is sketchy at best. There is only one problem: la familia.After Barry’s “death,” Lola returns to the US, leaving her husband in the hands of her family as he begins to assume her brother’s identity. But the South-American hospitality of Lola’s relatives soon wears thin as they realize that their lives might be easier if Barry’s death weren’t just an act. Conning an insurance company is tricky enough, but no matter the country, no one is more dangerous than the in-laws.

    He is the enemy.Stewart hatches a plan to destroy the evidence against him, but what he finds inside those files, is evidence of a vile paedophile ring operating under McCauley’s nose.Now three people are dead and Dave Stewart is the prime suspect.

    Leo Desroches doesn't look like a native, but his mother was Cree, and he understands the problems of indigenous Canadians of the First Nations. Which is probably why the Edmonton newspaper he writes for decides he should be their Aboriginal Issues reporter.He has his own issues to deal with: his compulsive gambling that he couldn't stop even after it cost him his wife and children; his alcoholism; the risk-taking that threatens to derail him every time he starts to get his life back together.When he's assigned to cover the murder of a young native prostitute, it's just one more story...until the cop in charge lets him view the corpse, something the Edmonton police never do. When Leo writes his article, it starts a chain of events that leads him to discover a much, much bigger story, one that could bring down the entire police department...if it doesn't get him killed.

    Five students have survived, although they remember nothing. Chase a local hero cop in Austin, from catching the "Sorority Killer" a few years earlier, is on the case. He's trying to locate Bill the professors teaching assistant who has disappeared, especially now that it seems he's still assisting by killing off the remaining five students. It's a race against the clock to find Bill, and the visits to Professor Holland in jail aren't helping anyone but him. Chase won't be the only one surprised at how it will end.

    Worst of all, they've stolen it right from her house! The Diamond & Kulniki Detective Agency must get right to work. Unfortunately, all of their super sleuthing leads Stevie and her partner Jesse right to their apartment building's garbage bin. Will they ever be able to get through the banana peels, ketchup packs, and rotten, smelly trash to solve the crime?

    Accustomed to tracking down missing pets and cheating lovers, he is about to have his world change completely when a new case requires him to tail actress Shailaja Kapoor. What seems like a simple request turns into a dramatic dive into her murky past, wading through which is not going to be easy. Or safe. Soon Prachand and his wife, and partner against crime, Vidya, fall under the glare of the police as Shailaja Kapoor is abducted right before their eyes. Now he must put his skills to the test before they become victims at the end of a dark and dangerous game.

    The author of the enormously popular series featuring Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan as well as three critically lauded stand-alone novels, Lippman now turns her attention to short stories—and reveals another level of mastery.Lippman sets many of the stories in this sterling anthology, Hardly Knew Her, in familiar territory: her beloved Baltimore, from downtown to its affluent suburbs, where successful businessmen go to shocking lengths to protect what they have or ruthlessly expand their holdings, while dissatisfied wives find murderous ways to escape their lives. But Lippman is also unafraid to travel—to New Orleans, to an unnamed southwestern city, and even to Dublin, the backdrop for the lethal clash of two not-so-innocents abroad. Tess Monaghan is here, in two stories and a profile, aligning herself with various underdogs. And in her extraordinary, never-before-published novella, Scratch a Woman, Lippman takes us deep into the private world of a high-priced call girl/madam and devoted soccer mom, exploring the mystery of what may, in fact, be written in the blood.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 read Lippman, get ready to experience the spellbinding power of "one of today's most pleasing storytellers, hailed for her keen psychological insights and her compelling characterizations," (San Diego Union-Tribune), who has "invigorated the crime fiction arena with smart, innovative, and exciting work" (George Pelecanos). As for longtime devotees of her multiple award-winning novels, you'll discover that you hardly know her.

    Not only is she left with unanswered questions about his violent death but she is also left without any means of support. At the urging of her housekeeper and best friend, the new widow decides to take advantage of the strange gifts she has always possessed and embarks on a career as a clairvoyant. As Rosélie builds a new life for herself and seeks the truth about her husband's murder, acclaimed Caribbean author Maryse Condé crafts a deft exploration of post-apartheid South Africa and a smart, gripping thriller. The Story of the Cannibal Woman is both contemporary and international, following the lives of an interracial, intercultural couple in New York City, Tokyo, and Capetown. Maryse Condé is known for vibrantly lyrical language and fearless, inventive storytelling -- she uses both to stunning effect in this magnificently original novel.

    The past is what you leave as you go. There is nothing more to it.Vasantha retired early, bought himself a van with his savings, and now works as a driver for hire. As he drives through Sri Lanka, carrying aid workers, businessmen, and families and meeting lonely soldiers and eager hoteliers, he engages them with self-deprecating wit and folksy wisdom—and reveals for us their uncertain lives.On his journey from the army camps in northern Jaffna to the moonlit ramparts of Galle, in the south, Vasantha begins to discover the depth of the problems of the past—his own and his country’s—and the promise the future might hold.From the writer praised by The Guardian for the “vivid originality” of his vision, here is a wonderful collection—perceptive, somber, finely tuned—that draws a potent portrait of postwar Sri Lanka and the ghosts of civil war.