Fearsome Magics


Jonathan StrahanGenevieve Valentine - 2014
    Fearsome Magics, the second New Solaris Book of Fantasy, is all these things and more. It is, we think, one of the best books you will read all year. Award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan has invited some of the best and most exciting writers working in fantasy today to let their imaginations run wild and to deliver stories that will thrill and awe, delight and amuse. And above all, stories that are filled with fearsome magic! Authors set to take part in Fearsome Magics include Christopher Priest, Garth Nix, Catherynne M. Valente, Ellen Klages, Isobelle Carmody, Nalo Hopkinson, Frances Hardinge, Scott Lynch, Robert Shearman, Justina Robson, Christopher Rowe, Karin Tidbeck, K J Parker, and Justina Robson.Table of Contents:“The Dun Letter” by Christopher Rowe“Home is the Haunter (A Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz story)” by Garth Nix“Grigori’s Solution” by Isobelle Carmody“Dream London Hospital” by Tony Ballantyne“Safe House” by K J Parker“Hey Presto!” by Ellen Klages“The Changeling” by James Bradley“Migration” by Karin Tidbeck“On Skybolt Mountain” by Justina Robson“Where Our Edges Lie” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman“Devil’s Bridge” by Frances Hardinge“The Nursery Corner” by Kaaron Warren“Aberration” by Genevieve Valentine“Ice in the Bedroom” by Robert Shearman

The Widow


K.L. Slater - 2021
    No matter what they say…The day my husband, Michael, stepped in front of a lorry after being questioned by the police, my world fell apart. He was devoted to me and our six-year-old daughter. But they’d connected him to the disappearance of a young mother from our tiny village.Now I stand at Michael’s funeral, clutching my little girl’s hand, with tears in my eyes as I insist to all our friends that he died an innocent man. Yet the questions have started, and nothing I say will stop them digging for the truth.But none of them can read the secrets in my heart, or know about the phone I found hidden in his toolbox…I’m determined that my daughter will not remember her father as a monster. I will erase any hint of wrongdoing in this house whatever the cost.Because to keep my daughter safe, the last thing I need is for people to start looking at me…A completely gripping psychological thriller from the author of the number one bestseller The Marriage. If you like Gone Girl, The Girl on The Train and The Wife Between Us then you will love The Widow.

The Best American Mystery Stories 2002


James EllroyJoe Gores - 2002
    For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. In his introduction to this year's collection, James Ellroy explores the differences between the novel and the short story. Included here are experts at both forms. Featuring renowned novelists like Stuart Kaminsky, Michael Connelly, Joe Gores, and Robert B. Parker, as well as veterans of this series like Brendan DuBois, Michael Downs, Joyce Carol Oates, and Clark Howard, this edition will delight readers with its wide variety and peerless quality.

Every Man a Menace


Patrick Hoffman - 2016
    Now he returns with his second novel, Every Man a Menace, the inside story of a ruthless ecstasy-smuggling ring.San Francisco is about to receive the biggest delivery of MDMA to hit the West Coast in years. Raymond Gaspar, just out of prison, is sent to the city to check in on the increasingly erratic dealer expected to take care of distribution. In Miami, the man responsible for getting the drugs across the Pacific has just met the girl of his dreams—a woman who can't seem to keep her story straight. And thousands of miles away in Bangkok, someone farther up the supply chain is about to make a phone call that will put all their lives at risk. Stretching from the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia to the Golden Gate of San Francisco, Every Man a Menace offers an unflinching account of the making, moving, and selling of the drug known as Molly—pure happiness sold by the brick, brought to market by bloodshed and betrayal.

Berlin Noir: March Violets / The Pale Criminal / A German Requiem


Philip Kerr - 1993
    We first meet ex-policeman Bernie Gunther in 1936, in March Violets (a term of derision which original Nazis used to describe late converts.) The Olympic Games are about to start; some of Bernie's Jewish friends are beginning to realize that they should have left while they could; and Gunther himself has been hired to look into two murders that reach high into the Nazi Party. In The Pale Criminal, it's 1938, and Gunther has been blackmailed into rejoining the police by Heydrich himself. And in A German Requiem, the saddest and most disturbing of the three books, it's 1947 as Gunther stumbles across a nightmare landscape that conceals even more death than he imagines. (For a review of Kerr's latest novel, The Grid, see our Thrillers section.)

Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases


Andrea Camilleri - 2014
    Each novel in this wholly addictive, entirely magical series, set in Sicily and starring a detective unlike any other in crime fiction, blasts the brain like a shot of pure oxygen... transporting. Long live Camilleri, and long live Montalbano."--A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window Set on the Sicilian coast, a collection of eight short stories featuring the young Inspector MontalbanoIn 1980s Vigta, a restless Inspector Montalbano brings his brash yet clear-sighted investigative style to eight enthralling cases. Death at Sea finds the detective seeking to bring justice to crimes--from those involving jilted lovers and deadly family affairs to an encounter featuring the assassination attempt against the Pope to murders in unexpected places--always with the mafia not far behind. This collection is an essential addition to any Inspector Montalbano fan's bookshelf and an excellent way to introduce new readers to Andrea Camilleri's unforgettable slice of Sicily.

London's Glory


Christopher Fowler - 2015
    In every detective’s life there are cases that can’t be discussed, and throughout the Bryant & May novels there have been mentions of some of these such as the Deptford Demon or the Little Italy Whelk Smuggling Scandal.Now Arthur Bryant has decided to open the files on eleven of these previously unseen investigations that required the collective genius and unique modus operandi of Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit - investigations that range from different times (London during the Great Smog) and a variety of places: a circus freak show, on board a London Tour Bus and even a yacht off the coast of Turkey.And in addition to these eleven classic cases, readers are also given a privileged look inside the Peculiar Crimes Unit (literally, with a cut away drawing of their offices), a guide to the characters of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, and access to the contents of Arthur Bryant’s highly individual library.

The Four Just Men


Edgar Wallace - 1905
    A device in the members' smokeroom and a sudden magnesium flash that could easily have been nitro-glycerine leave Scotland Yard baffled. Even Fleet Street cannot identify the illusive Manfred, Gonsalez, Pioccart and Thery - FOUR JUST MEN dedicated to punishing by death those whom conventional justice can not touch.

Fade to Blonde


Max Phillips - 2004
    She had nice straight shoulders. There was nothing wrong between them and her open-toed shoes, so I guess the trouble must have been somewhere behind those blue-gray eyes. They'd be trouble, of course. She looked up and called, 'Is your name, Corson?' " From the first paragraph, Max Phillips's pitch-pure ear sets the tone; we have entered a back-alley world where men are tough and women are easy; where dirty secrets clog the citadels of power. With its staccato dialogue and its strip-club fusion of sex and vengeance, Fade to Blonde ironically recalls a more innocent age.

Let the Old Dreams Die


John Ajvide Lindqvist - 2011
    Now at last, in “Let the Old Dreams Die,” the title story in this absolutely stunning collection, we get a glimpse of what happened next to the pair. Fans of Let the Right One In will have to read the story, which is destined to generate much word of mouth both among fans and online.“Let the Old Dreams Die” is not the only stunner in this collection. In "Final Processing," Lindqvist also reveals the next chapter in the lives of the characters he created in Handling the Undead. “Equinox” is a story of a woman who takes care of her neighbor’s house while they are away and readers will never forget what she finds in the house. Every story meets the very high standard of excellence and fright factor that Lindqvist fans have come to expect. Totally transcending genre writing, these are world class stories from possibly the most impressive horror writer writing today.

Buy a Bullet


Gregg Andrew Hurwitz - 2016
    This is the story of Smoak's first outing as the Nowhere Man, where after completing a mission in Northern California, he happens to spot a young woman at a coffee shop. Brutalized and under the control of a very powerful, unscrupulous man, her life is in danger if she doesn't escape. And the only person that can help her do that is a man with the background and skills of the Nowhere Man.

Don't Make a Sound


T.R. Ragan - 2020
    Now, after finally getting promoted at work, she is forced to return home and face her past.River Rock is where she’d been abandoned by her two older sisters to suffer alone, and in silence, the unspeakable abuses of her family. It’s also where Sawyer’s best friend disappeared and two teenage girls were murdered. Three cold cases dead and buried with the rest of the town’s secrets.When another girl is slain in a familiar grisly fashion, Sawyer is determined to put an end to the crimes. Pulled back into the horrors of her family history, Sawyer must reconcile with her estranged sisters, who both have shattering memories of their own. As Sawyer’s investigation leads to River Rock’s darkest corners, what will prove more dangerous—what she knows of the past or what she has yet to discover?

The Creak on the Stairs


Eva Björg Ægisdóttir - 2018
    Sifting through the rubble of the townspeople’s shattered memories, they have to dodge increasingly serious threats, and find justice … before it’s too late.

Itsy Bitsy Spider


Willow Rose - 2013
    She decides to move there with her family, much to her teenage-daughter's regret. One morning a wealthy old woman in her street is found murdered and soon Emma finds herself wrapped in a mystery uncovering the island's dark secrets that not only runs deep within the history of the island but also within her own family. From the author of the International Bestselling books, the Rebekka Franck-series comes a new Scandinavian Mystery destined to keep you up all night. This is the first book in the Emma Frost-series and is followed by Miss Polly had a dolly.

The Devil All the Time


Donald Ray Pollock - 2011
    There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.” There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.