The 14 stories of The Dogs of Detroit each focus on grief and its many strange permutations. This grief alternately devolves into violence, silence, solitude, and utter isolation. In some cases, grief drives the stories as a strong, reactionary force, and yet in other stories, that grief evolves quietly over long stretches of time. Many of the stories also use grief as a prism to explore the beguiling bonds within families. The stories span a variety of geographies, both urban and rural, often considering collisions between the two.

    Five members of the Halliday family have been brutally killed. Wylie’s rare talent is an ability to read a crime scene, consider the evidence seen and unseen, and determine what’s likely to have happened. The police are soon convinced that the deaths were a murder-suicide carried out by a broken and desperate Chafin Halliday, but Wylie’s not so sure.As Wylie begins his own investigation with the help of his friend Bay Lettique—a poker-playing sleight-of-hand artist with links to the Everglades County underworld—he discovers a web of corruption involving the police union, Ponzi-scheming lawyers, county politicians, and the Russian mob. What follows is a heart-stopping, edgy novel that introduces a completely original crime solver.

    The first novel, The Sins of the Fathers, appeared in 1975, and A Drop of the Hard Stuff - the 17th and most recent - was published in 2011. Over the years Scudder has also been featured in 11 short works of fiction. The Merciful Angel of Death is the fifth of these; it frst appeared in 1993 in The New Mystery, Jerome Charyn's anthology of stories by members of the International Association of Crime Writers.The story was written during the depth of the AIDS epidemic, and reflects its time.The Merciful Angel of Death is included in The Night and the Music, my collection of all 11 Matthew Scudder short stories, available for Kindle or in handsome trade paperback form.

    She never overcame her humble beginnings and when Willie Eubanks rescued her from the orphanage by marrying her, she ended up right back where she started. Living in the same cabin, she was born in twelve and a half years earlier. However, she grew to love Willie and was determined that she and Willie were not going to end up as her parents had. In addition, she wanted to make sure her children were not going to have to suffer through the same experiences she had.

    A simple touch sending currents of electricity flowing through a body. The feeling of coming home. Friends become lovers. Strangers become soulmates. The chemistry ignited when two people are falling in love is undeniable. Over the course of five short stories, follow these couples on journeys of passion and discover what happens when they decide to let sparks fly…

    Sort of. When Brad Williams is offered a lot of money to take on a case for sly banker Jonas Baxter, he is in no position to refuse. Jonas has been charged with the attempted murder of local prostitute Tina Jade, but it quickly becomes evident that it is not the reason why the prosecution wants Jonas behind bars. So why are they still pressing ahead with the charges? What is Jonas guilty of? This thrilling legal short story will take you for a ride through the courtroom and leave you with twists and turns that you didn’t see coming.

    But he discovers that there is more than a ghost causing mayhem. The Mansion is a fast-paced supernatural story about 10,000 words long.

    While the bricks with which Chinquee constructs her fictions - failed or failing relationships, childhood friendships, and the intricacies of family life - are not uncommon, the architecture she creates with them is rare indeed: stories now full of light, now somber, now opening the reader's eyes to an utterly new space.

    Can you imagine Draupadi in a Brothel house? How did she end there and who is responsible for that? Read this short story to meet her and know about her life.

     As she contemplates the pleasure of artistic labor, finding solace and safety within the woods, and the joyful and rhythmic beating of wings, Oliver intimately shares with her readers her quiet discoveries, boundless curiosity, and exuberance for the grandeur of our world. This radiant collection of her work, with some pieces published here for the first time, reaffirms Oliver as a passionate and prolific observer whose thoughtful meditations on spiders, writing a poem, blue fin tuna, and Ralph Waldo Emerson inspire us all to discover wonder and awe in life's smallest corners.

    He's worked a number of years in Montana as a rangeman and wants to live where there's no snow in the winter. So he sets out for New Mexico, a place where he's heard the weather is mild and the living is easy. But getting there may be tougher than he thinks.In the Wyoming town of Derby, Lockwood is wounded in a gunfight and has to stay long enough to recuperate...and meet the pretty widow, Lady Barlow, owner of the Barlow ranch. The ranch is in need of a ramrod, but Lockwood refuses the job. After all, Wyoming isn't much warmer than Montana. But it looks like Fate—or someone else—doesn't want Lockwood to leave town. When he tries, he's ambushed and forced to stay again. It seems to Lockwood like his journey's ending, but sometimes life leads you down trails you never expected. Some mighty dangerous trails.

    Late one evening she is brutally beaten, robbed and left to die.A few days later two bodies are found in the same house the assault took place. Others follow and a sewer of corruption contained beneath the razzamatazz of a General Election leads to shattering revelations and murderous passions; causing her well-organised world to turn into an arena of pursuit and terror, and where the only certainty is that nothing is certain.Bursting with penetrating insight into the seedy, sleazy world of political funding, Foxy Lady breathlessly leads the reader into the dark and sordid twilight world which lurks beneath the glamorous surface of the upper echelons of society. Revealing the true depths of the corruption which taints the lives of those who stride the corridors of power.

    Menacing and at times darkly humorous there are echoes of Roald Dahl and Daphne du Maurier in these stories, many of which have been specially commissioned for Radio 4.From the commuter who bitterly regrets falling asleep on a late-night train in Last Train to Helsingør, to the mushroom hunter prepared to kill to guard her secret in The Chanterelles of Østvig.Here, the land of ‘hygge’ becomes one of twilight and shadows, as canny antique dealers and property sharks get their comeuppance at the handsof old ladies in Conning Mrs Vinterberg, and ghosts go off-script in TheWailing Girl.Scandi noir at its finest.

    They know there are whole worlds out there that have never been seen, some as distant as the Amazon rain forest, others as close as a neighbor’s house, the curtains left open. Laura van den Berg helps us discover these worlds, blending the mundane and routine with the strange and unexpected. The search won’t always end with the stories—these restless narrators will always be left with mysteries unsolved, questions unanswered and hidden aches not quite healed—but what they see along the way will be nothing short of marvelous.Order here.

    Two stories from this collection have been adapted into the films Viscosity and A F*ckload of Scotch Tape.