There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him. He is alone and anonymous in the huge, pitiless modern city. Adam has nowhere to go but down - underground. He decides to join that vast army of the disappeared and the missing that throng the lowest level of London's population as he tries to figure out what to do with his life and struggles to understand the forces that have made it unravel so spectacularly. His quest will take him all along the River Thames, from affluent Chelsea to the sink estates of the East End, and on the way he encounters all manner of London's denizens - aristocrats, prostitutes, priests and policewomen amongst them - and version after new version of himself.William Boyd's electric follow-up to Costa Novel of the Year Restless is a heart-in-mouth conspiracy novel about the fragility of social identity, the scandal of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of every city.

    It’s the long drop off the short pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfect misalliance. It’s the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad.” Offering the best examples of literary sure things gone bad, this collection ensures that nowhere else can readers find a darker, more thorough distillation of American noir fiction.James Ellroy and Otto Penzler, series editor of the annual The Best American Mystery Stories, mined one hundred years of writing—1910–2010—to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories. From noir’s twenties-era infancy come gems like James M. Cain’s “Pastorale,” and its post-war heyday boasts giants like Mickey Spillane and Evan Hunter. Packing an undeniable punch, diverse contemporary incarnations include Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lehane, and William Gay, with many page-turners appearing in the last decade.

    New Orleans has always had a heart of noir.Brand-new stories by: Thomas Adcock, Ace Atkins, Patty Friedmann, David Fulmer, Barbara Hambly, Greg Herren, Laura Lippman, Tim McLoughlin, James Nolan, Ted O'Brien, Eric Overmyer, Jeri Cain Rossi, Maureen Tan, Jervey Tervalon, Olympia Vernon, Christine Wiltz, Kalamu Ya Salaam, and Julie Smith, who also edited the collection.

    She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945.... Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town.... Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing....John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead....The past isn't dead. It isn't even past...

    Kat was named the prime suspect and, on a string of circumstantial evidence, charged and tried. While the jury found her innocent, not everyone else agreed, and her only choice was to go into hiding. But she carried a dark secret with her, one that made her worry she might actually have had something to do with Sara’s death . . .Now, years later, Kat is still haunted by her sister’s unsolved murder and continues to receive chilling anonymous letters, but she has tried to move on with her life. Until, on the tenth anniversary of Sara’s death, she receives a letter that makes the past impossible to ignore: "What about justice for Sara?" What about justice for Sara? And for herself? Kat realizes that going back to Liberty, Louisiana, might be the only way to move forward and find some peace. And there’s a killer out there who was never caught.But the town she’s come back to is hardly different from the one she left. The secrets and suspicions still run deep. Kat has an ally in Detective Luke Tanner, son of the former Liberty police chief, but he may be her only one. With plenty of enemies, no one to trust and a killer determined to keep a dark secret buried, Kat must decide if justice is worth fighting—and dying—for.

    prison system, tracking down a chameleon con artist in Europe, or riding in a cyclone-tossed skiff with a scientist hunting the elusive giant squid, David Grann revels in telling stories that explore the nature of obsession and that piece together true and unforgettable mysteries.Each of the dozen stories in this collection reveals a hidden and often dangerous world and, like Into Thin Air and The Orchid Thief, pivots around the gravitational pull of obsession and the captivating personalities of those caught in its grip. There is the world's foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes who is found dead in mysterious circumstances; an arson sleuth trying to prove that a man about to be executed is innocent, and sandhogs racing to complete the brutally dangerous job of building New York City's water tunnels before the old system collapses. Throughout, Grann's hypnotic accounts display the power-and often the willful perversity-of the human spirit.Compulsively readable, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant mosaic of ambition, madness, passion, and folly.

    For the oddballs and lowlifes who inhabit the sleepy, working class bayou town of Jeannette,  these desperate circumstances serve as the catalyst that pushes them to enact whatever risky schemes they can dream up to reverse their fortunes. At the center of it all is Gus Lindquist, a pill-addicted, one armed treasure hunter obsessed with finding the lost treasure of pirate Jean Lafitte. His quest brings him into contact with a wide array of memorable characters, ranging from a couple of small time criminal potheads prone to hysterical banter, to the smooth-talking Oil company middleman out to bamboozle his own mother, to some drug smuggling psychopath twins, to a young man estranged from his father since his mother died in Hurricane Katrina. As the story progresses, these characters find themselves on a collision course with each other, and as the tension and action ramp up, it becomes clear that not all of them will survive these events.

    What happens when a man lives his life backwards, or a family owns a diamond as big as the Ritz Hotel?How can a boring girl become more popular, a careless young woman become more sensible, or a cut-glass bowl destroy a married woman's life?What does a young man do to save the girl that he likes from an evil ghost, or to forget old feelings for a woman when she marries another man?Read this collection of short stories by one of America's finest storytellers to find out.

    A collection of eighteen mystery stories.

    . . . The overall effect is spellbinding."--The Washington Post Bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb is "a born storyteller" (Mary Higgins Clark) who astonishes readers and reviewers with the power and scope of her talent, prompting the San Diego Union-Tribune to declare: "There is no one quite like her among present-day writers. No one better, either."Foggy Mountain Breakdown, the first-ever collection of Sharyn McCrumb's short fiction, is a literary quilting of old and new, humorous and heartfelt, offering award-winning works--and two stories never before published, contrasting mountain childhoods past and present.Chilling tales of suspense alternate with evocative character portraits and compelling narratives that embrace the southern Appalachian locales and themes of McCrumb's acclaimed Ballad Novels. Within this cornucopia of two dozen stories, Old Rattler, a mountain healer, skirmishes with a serial killer . . . Princess Di investigates long-kept secrets within the House of Windsor . . . A reincarnated murder victim seeks delicious revenge . . . And while honeymooning in the bridegroom's ancestral hilltop homeplace, two newlyweds harbor second thoughts.The author's perfect-pitch ear for dialogue and ability to illuminate the dark side of human nature merge with her brilliant artistry to make Foggy Mountain Breakdown a virtuoso collection for devotees of Sharyn McCrumb--and for the legion of new readers who will find themselves caught under her spell.  From the Hardcover edition.

    When a man called Bill spots a sign in a restaurant window, he grabs his carry-on and gets off his bus. Within an hour he’s got himself a job as a short-order cook, and a start on a whole new life in Cross Creek, Montana. Things just fall into place. He applies for a library card, and the next thing you know he’s having dinner with the librarian. One thing leads to another, and he can see a whole new life stretching out before him… Lawrence Block (b. 1938) is the recipient of a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and an internationally renowned bestselling author. His prolific career spans over one hundred books, including four bestselling series as well as dozens of short stories, articles, and books on writing. He has won four Edgar and Shamus Awards, two Falcon Awards from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, the Nero and Philip Marlowe Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of the United Kingdom. In France, he has been awarded the title Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice received the Societe 813 trophy.

    Warshawski, "the detective mystery fans have been waiting for" (Time), makes return appearances in a collection of stories that bring new meaning to "ties that bind."  Decked out in her silk shirts and no-nonsense Attitude, V.I. is out to make a living--by the skin of her teeth.In "Grace Notes," V.I. has barely finished her morning coffee when she sees an ad in the paper asking for information about her own mother, long dead.  The paper leads V.I. to her newfound Italian cousin Vico, who's looking for music composed by their great-grandmother.  What's the score?  Clearly it's something to kill for... "The Pietro Andromache" finds V.I.'s friend Dr. Lotty Herschel with motive and means to dispatch her professional rival and steal his priceless statue.  Lotty didn't do it--but does she know who did?  V.I. soon cuts to the art of the case--and it's not a pretty picture at all!Summoned by an old high school friend to a race "At the Old Swimming Hole," V.I. ends up swimming with the sharks--the FBI and a ruthless gambling kingpin--in a pool of blood.... And it's only "Skin Deep" when a relaxing facial transformation transforms a client into a stiff.  V.I.'s pal Sal needs help.  Her beautician sister Evangeline is prime suspect--and V.I. has only eighteen hours to crack the case before it's headline news..."  Three-Dot Po" proves there's nothing like a dog.  Especially a dog on the trail of her mistress's killer, with V.I. in tow...In "Strung Out," love means nothing and V.I.'s quick to learn the score as her old friend's tennis-champion daughter is under suspicion for strangling her father with a racket string.  And there's more, nine stories in all, in this masterful collection of short fiction starring V.I. Warshawski, "the most engaging woman in detective fiction since Dorothy Sayers's Harriet Vane" (Newsweek).

    This audiobook is a compendium of Phryne short stories, recipes, and other miscellany and packs a wallop for Phryne fans. Daniels' flinty, elegant voice perfectly captures Phryne's wisdom and wit, and true fans will delight in these short stories (the original basis for the future novels), recipes for Phryne's favorite cocktails, and fashion tips from the beautiful sleuth.

    What he finds is much greater and much worse than he ever could have imagined.

    Yet when Legrand's conviction fails to waiver, they set off on a bizarre journey, accompanied by Jupiter, Legrand's loyal and equally skeptical servant. What follows is a strange tale of coded messages, hidden treasure, and uncanny prophecy that will both enthrall and baffle even the most perceptive readers.Part horror story, part detective fiction, The Gold Bug is an ingenious tale bearing all the hallmarks of Poe's extraordinary narrative skill. It is presented here with The Sphinx, a similarly themed and equally disturbing short story. Wonderfully versatile as an author and best known for his tales of terror and the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) holds a venerable place in the history of American literature.This edition contains the following short stories:- The Gold Bug- The Sphinx- William Wilson.