Fans of James Patterson, Harlan Coben, John Grisham, David Baldacci, Lydia Davis and Stephen King will love this collection of exclusive short stories that will be sure to leave you breathless.  The award-winning and best-selling authors in this collection turn up the heat - it's pedal to the metal break-neck action from start to finish! The short story is back with a vengeance! Murder, mystery, suspense, chills, thrills and kills this collection has it all!  About the Stories What Money Can’t Buy – by Paul Casselle Are you a bad person trying to be good or a good person that sometimes does bad? It’s a difficult question to answer, but that doesn’t stop life asking regularly! The Butcher – by Will Patching Not all of us are ‘normal’. Some of us are stone cold killers… Collin O’Connor by Ernest Dempsey In a world where terrorist attacks seem to cover the front page of every news outlet, the people of Earth need a new kind of hero. The planet needs someone who isn’t afraid to do whatever it takes to bring justice to those who would harm the innocent. We need Collin O’Connor. A Love Affair by Leah Monroe Have you ever asked yourself, "What am I here for?" Is it wealth? To leave a legacy? Or perhaps you're playing with the cards life deals you. One man comes face-to-face with this age old question and his decision will leave you speechless. Downside Up by Jane Thornley She climbs roofs at night but how could she know how far she’ll have to fall to find the truth? The Son-in-Law by Craig Hart Can you go straight by committing murder? One man is about to find out-if he lives long enough. Linking Arms with the Devil by Michael Maxwell They tell us, “You can’t take it with you”. Maybe you can if you link arms with the devil. Red Eyes – by Terry Keys A small town middle-school teacher suddenly vanishes and returns six months, six days, and six hours after he disappeared. But now he is hiding a terrible secret, and only the next victim can see the . . . Red Eyes.

    But she is keeping her head down when her Jeep is repossessed. Unfortunately, most of her money is going toward past due attorney fees for her younger brother Jesse; a mischievous hacker serving his last few weeks in prison. Without a way to get to her construction job, she is fired. Leah needs a job fast. She’s a natural at stealing cars, and decides to ask Callahan Parker, the man who repossessed her Jeep, to hire her. This decision marks the beginning of a nightmare for Leah Ryan.During her first night of work, Leah makes an enemy of a twisted drug lord, Brent Woodard, who targets her for revenge. Things go from bad to worse when Leah discovers that Woodard is smuggling Asian women into the United States and forcing them into prostitution. She is determined to stop him, by any means necessary. But Woodard has friends. Among these is a crooked, sadistic cop who makes her plan more dangerous than she could have ever imagined. Soon it’s not only her life at stake, but that of her brother Jesse, who disappears within a day of his release from prison. Leah enlists the help of Callahan and a few friends from her shady past; a past she promised herself she’d never return to, to enter into a dark underworld of sex, drugs and death.

    But it soon becomes apparent that others are hunting this most precious of treasures – for far more evil ends. It seems that everyone – from the Nazis of the past to the shadowy modern organisation known as Gladius Domini – wants to uncover the secrets of immortality.Teaming up with attractive American scientist Dr Roberta Ryder, Ben is led on a wild and dangerous trail from Paris to the ancient Cathar strongholds of the Languedoc, where an astonishing secret has lain hidden for centuries…

    Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history......or else they’ll be history.A Man With One of Those Faces is the first book in Caimh McDonnell's Dublin Trilogy, which melds fast-paced action with a distinctly Irish acerbic wit.

    But when the billionaire philanthropist is discovered murdered in his London home, tied naked to a bed, the scandal is only a shadow of the darkness lurking off-camera.Laura Fletcher returns from an Italian vacation to find her husband dead and her home under siege by paparazzi. Is she shocked? Yes. But is she distraught? Not exactly. Especially when Chief Inspector Tom Douglas reveals his suspicions that Hugo’s killer is female. Laura always knew she wasn’t the only woman in Hugo’s life. And she knows she wasn’t the only one with a motive to kill.The deeper Douglas digs, the more sordid details about Hugo Fletcher he uncovers. And yet nothing compares to the secret Laura guards, a secret that could bring the guilty to justice—or destroy an innocent life forever.

    Jonathan Grave, covert rescue specialist, always gets results. No names. No feds. No trace evidence.When an Indiana college student is abducted, Jonathan and his team of ace operatives unravel a deadly scheme the government wants ignored. Someone wants to control a devastating secret. Someone rich, powerful, and willing to kill anyone to get it. Even the people Jonathan loves most.

    You son in debt to a dope dealer, your captain steal your plane or boat? Someone has put a hit on you? If you can find Reardon, he'll repair the problem...even if he has to reach beyond the law.

    But what follows is a mother’s worst nightmare: Beth is gone and Abby's world collapses around her.As DI Michael Gardner begins to investigate Abby and her family, he discovers lives built on secrets and betrayals. Under pressure from his bosses to find the missing child and to unearth the truth, Gardner finds himself struggling to stay emotionally removed from the case, and from Abby herself.After the authorities finally shelve their investigation, Abby receives a message telling her where she can find her daughter. But how can she convince those around her that the girl really is Beth when they are the very people she knows least?A gripping and haunting debut, Stolen is a richly imagined psychological thriller from an exciting new talent in crime writing.

    Blackmailed into executing one final mission for his previous commanding officer, Daniel's carefully constructed "life" rapidly disintegrates into a relentless federal manhunt-- and a "24-style" race against the clock to suppress the shocking truth about his past. To survive, he'll release the darkest side of his concealed identity. A dark side with few boundaries--and even fewer loyalties. Black Flagged lays the foundation for a gritty, high-octane series exploring the serpentine link between covert operations and government agency politics.

    But Preach is on a mission - a mission to re-create the martyrdom of the original apostles of Jesus Christ. To his family he is father and grandfather. To the Christian world, he is a dedicated man of God. But to FBI agents Duncan Morris, Lynn Keller, and George Benjamin, he is a serial killer they must stop before he can kill again.

    Gretchen White is a specialist in antisocial personality disorders and violent crimes. She’s helped solve enough prominent cases for detective Patrick Shaughnessy that her own history is often overlooked: Gretchen is an admitted sociopath once suspected of killing her aunt. Shaughnessy still thinks Gretchen got away with murder. It’s not going to happen again.When a high-profile new case lands on Shaughnessy’s desk, it seems open and shut. Remorseless teenager Viola Kent is accused of killing her mother. Amid stories of childhood horrors and Viola’s cruel manipulations, the bad seed has already been found guilty by a rapt public. But Gretchen might be seeing something in Viola no one else does: herself.If Viola is a scapegoat, then who really did it? And what are they hiding? To find the truth, Gretchen must enter a void that is not only dark and cold-blooded, but also frighteningly familiar.

    Nobody knows he is an innocent new recruit with a secretive government intelligence agency. The agency insists it has never heard of him. All Denny Kinney knows is every law-enforcement officer in the country wants to put a bullet in him. If he wants to live, he must elude a massive manhunt and he and girlfriend Meesh Walker must slip into Washington, D.C., to try to discover who framed him and who is really responsible for the President's murder. It is a novel that may leave you wondering all over again if we will ever know the whole truth about the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King or any other historic event where there are are disturbing unanswered questions.

    She is trying to escape her ex-husband and starting a new life for her and her daughter, when the small sleepy town experiences a murder. One of the kingdom's wealthiest men is brutally murdered in his summer residence in Karrebaeksminde. While Rebekka Franck and her punk photographer Sune try to cover the story for the local newspaper another murder happens on a high society rich man. Now Rebekka Franck realizes that the drowsy little kingdom of Denmark has gotten its first serial killer and soon a series of dark secrets - long buried but not forgotten – will see the day of light.

    Jake figures that he'll ride a desk, relax in Saigon and collect a paycheck - but the CIA has other plans. The agency mysteriously ships him off to Cambodia on a top-secret mission to make contact with an agency asset who's been out of the loop for two years. The trail has gone cold, and Jake begins to wonder why the CIA chose him, a soldier with little espionage expertise. But before he can find the answer, the Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia and Jake quickly finds himself fighting for his life in unfriendly territory. With no allies, no backup and no hope of evacuation, Jake must rely on his ingenuity and wits if he hopes to keep breathing. Will he find out why the CIA sent him on this mission? Can he survive the killing fields long enough to track down the target? And will he make it out of chaotic and corrupt Cambodia alive to tell his tale? Blending a dash of Flashman's history, a helping of Travis McGee's lifestyle and a hint of James Bond's suave cool, Jake Fonko M.I.A. is an adventure you won't believe, except...what if it's all true?

    Rodger Kriger falls to the floor, mortally wounded, leaving a wife and six children. An ambitious prosecutor pins the deed on Mitt Hecher, a hoodlum and karate expert. At Hecher's trial, fellow jail inmates testify that he confessed. He is convicted and sentenced to the brutal and anarchic state prison at Raiford, where a stabbing a day and a killing a week are the "mean" average. Judges repeatedly frustrate Hecher and several attorneys working without fees to get a new trial, as investigators pursue myriad scenarios. Meanwhile, his wife contracts a deadly disease. Was Hecher innocent, and if so, who did it? Did the sons of a wealthy Cuban kill Kriger? Were the operators of a gambling enterprise out to get him? Was a love triangle the basis for the shooting? Did a vicious underworld figure do the bidding of a criminal gang? Was a prominent politician behind the slaying? Those are the questions seeking answers amid the exploration of issues of justice and power. Murder in Palm Beach is the saga of a battle between a man whose swagger has sent him spiraling to the bottom and powerful, sinister forces determined to keep him there. It is a story of redemption wrapped in a mystery tale reeking with power, sex, violence, and romance.