Elrod's picked 15 of her favorite short works for this multi-genre collection spanning 15 years of publication.Also included is a never before published VAMPIRE FILES story, featuring her urban fantasy vampire PI, Jack Fleming!Each story has been polished afresh for this anthology, with pages of new material added.More information -- and previews of the stories! -- may be found at her website vampwriter-dot-com.Titles:1. A Night at the (Horse) Opera (Vampire Files, Fleming)2. The Breath of Bast (Vampire Files), Ecsott)3. Bossman (Original mystery, no vamps)4. Slaughter (Vampire Files, Fleming & Gordy)5. The Devil's Mark (Original historical vampire)6. You'll Catch Your Death (Vampire Files)7. Izzy's Shoe-In (Historical mystery introducing Izzy DeLeon, fearless girl reporter)8. The Quick Way Down (Vampire Files, Fleming and Gordy)9. The Scottish Ploy (Original romance/mystery)10. Grave-Robbed (Vampire Files, Fleming)11. The Company You Keep (Vampire Files, Gabriel Kroun)12. Death in Dover (Jonathan Barrett before he got vamped, historical mystery)13. Drawing Dead (ALL NEW VAMPIRE FILES, Fleming)14. King of Shreds and Patches (Hamlet from a different point of view, mystery)15. Fugitive (Science fiction/space opera)16. BONUS STORY! The Wind Breathes Cold (Quincey Morris: Vampire)

    In retaliation, the Libyans kidnap the U.S. President's brother. Enter the Mordida Man--an independent fixer and bribery expert who must find and free the President's brother . . . without causing an international incident.

    The victims' bodies are missing and the police have no clue as to their identities or who killed them.As the investigation snowballs, the potential body count rises and the Major Investigation Team have little to go on until DNA evidence is examined.There appears to be no motive for the dreadful murders until an ancient script is found daubed on the walls of a nearby property. As the clues are unravelled, Braddick and his team realise they are dealing with something they have never faced before. Because this time they're tracking evil itself… Deliver us from Evil is a fast-paced crime thriller full of breathless action. It can be read as book 4 in the international bestselling DI Braddick series or as a truly unmissable stand-alone thriller.

    The past and present collide along the rocky shores of Thunder Bay, where a father's unconditional love is tested by a son's deeply felt resentment, and where jealousy and revenge remain the code among men.Red Knife: The daughter of a powerful businessman dies as a result of her meth addiction; her father, strong-willed and brutal, vows revenge. His target is the Red Boyz, a gang of Native American youths accused of supplying the girl's fatal drug dose. When the leader and his wife are murdered, the gang mobilizes, and the citizens of Tamarack County brace themselves for war, white against red.Heaven’s Keep: Intrepid hero Cork O’ Connor faces the most harrowing mission of his life when a charter plane carrying his wife, Jo, goes missing in a snowstorm over the Wyoming Rockies.

    After a tumultuous childhood in a broken home, keeping secrets became a way of life for twin sisters: Gabby and Olivia, and their little sister, Emma. They've all got skeletons in their closets; memories locked away never to see the light of day. But after they take divergent paths in life, disaster strikes, and their pasts collide head-on with a mysterious present in this surreal and gripping family drama. The worst has happened, and if they want to find the key to survival and reconciliation, they must learn to let their skeletons out; shake the dust off of them, and maybe even let them dance across the floor. At turns heartbreaking, dark and beautiful, The Girl in the Box explores not only the consequences of secrets--even secrets kept out of fear--but also the courage it takes to speak the truth, to let go, and to survive. Trigger Warning: The content of this novel contains graphic scenes: violence to women, victimization, abduction, and abusePreviously titled: Let Me GoFiction: Psychological Suspense, Family Drama, Stand-Alone (no cliffhangers)

    A sociopathic attorney hiding in plain sight behind billboards and a successful career. With the highest connections, he terrorizes the city and buries the evidence, and there’s no way to stop him. Until one discharged Green Beret decides to try...

    The sleepy little hill-town of Mussoorie—British in its garb and Indian in its soul—is jolted out of its reverie by a mysterious murder. A woman is found dead in her bed, her body laid out perfectly, and the door locked from inside. Sundry suspects and sensational speculations about black magic and crystal-gazing abound, but no one has been able to identify the murderer. Outgrowing the small town, the story travels to all the way to faraway London, and catches the fancy of the master of mysteries, Arthur Conan Doyle…Interwoven with clever wit and lively humour, A Murder in Mussoorie and Other Tales will transport you to a world of wonder and adrenaline-pumping adventure.

    Audrey works in the canning factory by day but her nights soon become filled with suspense after she learns that the woods near her house are haunted and filled with secrets that she longs to uncover. Hold your breath as Audrey walks on the “wrong side of the fence” and share her wonder as she marvels at the mysterious, disappearing church. She may need your prayers as she brushes shoulders with the spirits of the dead but her biggest obstacle will still be ahead of her. Preacher Man, the reportedly deceased property owner of Shepard’s Woods, must be confronted before Audrey can make any headway. Will he allow her to uncover the mysterious secrets or will he refuse to let her on his property? Can she convince him that she is mature enough to help him conquer his demons? Come along for the journey and watch as Audrey discovers the secrets, excitement, and heart-felt warmth of small town living.

    Taut and powerful, it is a keen reimagining of a whodunit in which everyone is implicated and no one is safe. It’s the summer of 1976 on the South Shore of Massachusetts. The Bicentennial is a season-long celebration, and flags are everywhere, snapping in the seaside winds, ironed onto T-shirts, tattooed into biceps. Tim O’Connor works the Cigarette Game booth at Funland—toss a quarter placed on an eight-sided ball into the right slot and you win two packs of smokes or maybe, if you’re lucky, a carton. If asked his age, he’d say he’s seventeen, but in truth he’s fourteen. Yet the kids in blue-collar Grantham—a town first imagined by Haigh in her devastating bestseller "Faith"—grow up fast, are known for being wild, and more often than not drop out of school to punch the clock at the nearby Raytheon plant. When Tim disappears after the park’s closing one night, no one makes much of it till late morning. It’s not the first time his mother, Kay, has forgotten to pick him up. It’s not the first time he has stayed out all night. By the time local cops begin their investigation, there is little trace of the boy, only witnesses to a complicated set of relationships in a place where surviving isn’t always thriving and where disappointment mixes with the salt in the air. In this superbly crafted story, the search for a missing boy becomes a search for the American dream, laying bare how destructive its promises often are. Recalling Dennis Lehane in setting and subject and masters like Graham Greene and Richard Ford in tone and style, Haigh’s latest work is a testament to all that short fiction can be. It’s a searing portrait of how much a community loses when one of its own is lost.

    . . The Devil's GoldOnce he was called the Sphinx, a man so inscrutable that neither his adversaries nor fellow intelligence operatives could predict his next move. Now a contract agent with a secret mission, Jonathan Wyatt has gone rogue. For eight years he’s been plotting. Waiting. Scheming to kill Federal agents Christopher Combs and Cotton Malone, whom he blames for the loss of his career. But as Wyatt prepares for a final confrontation in a remote South American village, he makes a discovery that stretches back to the horrors of World War II, to the astounding secret of a child’s birth, to Martin Bormann and Eva Braun—and to a fortune in lost gold.BONUS: Includes excerpts from Steve Berry's The Jefferson Key and The Columbus Affair.

    First, historian Jasper Willoughs, his closest friend, didn’t toss himself off a dormitory roof. Second, a Georgetown University secret society—a running joke on campus—has blood on its hands. Torres’s pursuit of the truth embroils him in a bizarre and thrilling scavenger hunt. The clues, scratched out on parchment by the mysterious Odd Fellows Society, lead Santi to risk everything he holds sacred: his job, his life, even the woman he secretly loves. As for his relationship with his God? Well, that’s complicated. A hold-your-breath thriller that explores our national obsession with race, The Odd Fellows Society will have you looking at the U.S. capital—and its monuments’ secrets—in a whole different shade of black and white.

    Or so they think. No one will answer their questions. And the terrifying truth may come too late....BookShotsLIGHTNING-FAST STORIES BY JAMES PATTERSONNovels you can devour in a few hours. Impossible to stop reading. All original content from James Patterson.

    Unfortunately, tragedy strikes and he has to rebuild his life, care for his children and cope with his own loss until he gathers the strength to find a new beginning.Set against the backdrop of war, passion and international intrigue, Jewels is the story of a great house of gems, a rare family and an extraordinary marriage.Vanished tells the story of a man and woman faced with an almost unthinkable tragedy-the mysterious abduction of their young son.

    Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader.

    When his new in-laws are charged with hunting down and murdering two of their close friends, Dennis is shocked, disbelieving, and he defends Sophie's parents at trial in Aspen.What he learns in the course of his investigation is a stunning portrait of social contract in the interests of longevity - a love story, a murder story, and a skiing story with the most remarkable avalanche scene ever written.