Showing results for "The Black Cat" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

Who killed Sir Crispin Gibbons? A wedding invitation and news of mischief that could be murder, takes Lennox to The Earl of Bloxford's country estate. He soon finds himself in a world of purloined artworks, forgeries and a priceless Bloxford Beauty.

Sabrina has never been the superstitious type. Still, when she moves to Lavender, Texas to write her first novel and help her Aunt Rowe manage her vacation rental business, Sabrina can't avoid listening to the rumors that a local black cat is a jinx - especially after the stray in question leads her directly to the scene of a murder. The deceased turns out to be none other than her Aunt Rowe's awful cousin Bobby Joe Flowers, a known cheat and womanizer who had no shortage of enemies.

In Black Cat White Paws, recently widowed Maggie Dahl finds herself faced with challenges on all fronts: life alone in a new town, running a business she and her husband had dreamed of and started together, and now pursuing a killer. Her sister, Gerri, moves from Philadelphia to Lambertville, New Jersey, to support her sister and start a new life of her own. Together, the women search for a murderer, helped in critical ways by their neighbor’s cat. A black cat with white paws. A cat whose independence sets it all in motion and sees it through to the end.

A strange encounter with a little girl named Claudia and a dead toad sparks elderly detective fiction fan Rachel Murdock's obsessive curiosity, and she winds up renting the house next door just to see how things play out. But soon after she and her cat Samantha move in, Rachel realizes they've landed right in the middle of a deadly love triangle that's created animosity among the three families who now surround her.

The dark strains of madness that permeate many of the works of Edgar Allan Poe make their way through this macabre story. This memorable short story bears a resemblance to Poe's Tell Tale Heart. In both stories guilt leaves a murderer with a singular choice.

Sabrina finds it difficult to work on her latest suspense novel when her Aunt Rowe's antics keep tying up her thoughts. This time Rowe and her fun-loving friends have decided to compete in the upcoming Texas Hill Country Senior Pro Rodeo. The problem is these women have little to no experience with lassos, bulls, or even horseback riding. Then, an uppity local business owner is found dead in an accident - right after a black cat was seen in her office. While the townsfolk think the bad luck cat has struck again, Sabrina suspects something more murderous.

Willow has figured out how to help Rose, but now they've unearthed an ancient relic, buried in one of the hidden tunnels. The clues are hidden within the journals. Now, it's more vital than ever that Willow embrace her psychic gifts, if she is to save her family. Can she do before it's too late?

I am loyal, but I will betray you. I am strong, but I have scars. I am an angel, but the devil. I met her when I was 16 and she was a breath of fresh air. She swooped in, making me smile. But then she left, taking my next breath with her. Her smile could light up a room, making my black heart pitter patter. I found her again 10 years later, with a syringe in her arm. Blood coming from between her legs. She was broken and I was glad she was broken. She wouldn't think less of me and my damaged ways.

The town of Lavender, Texas is buzzing with tourists, and local businesses are pulling out all the stops for the annual Pumpkin Days Festival. On the eve of opening day, Sabrina comes face-to-face with her doppelgänger, Tia Hartwell, a caricature artist at the festival. The similarities between the two women are striking, including their matching black cats. Sabrina learns that her new twin Tia has an enemy: bad-tempered jewelry vendor Calvin Fisher. When Fisher is found slumped over dead in his pickup, Tia tops the suspect list.

There's the world wide web - the internet we all know that connects us via news, email, forums, shopping, and social media. Then there's the dark web - the parallel internet accessed by only a select few. Eileen Ormsby has spent the past five years exploring every corner of the dark web. She has shopped on darknet markets, contributed to forums, waited in red rooms, and been threatened by hitmen on murder-for-hire sites.

A wound to the heart, a hole so deep. Can it be fixed? Or simply replaced? People lie. Those closest to me, tell the most lies. Do they not know who I am? What I'm capable of? Sometimes I wonder if they do. Because when I unravel their lies, they will be delivered to the hell I once visited. And it won't be pleasant.

Kathy Taylor is the proud owner of Josephine, an ebony bundle of fur, energy, and mischievousness. Kathy has scraped the name of her mentor off of the doorway to her new private investigator office. Now if she could just detangle her playful kitten from her next client....

Kathy Taylor had weathered eight rough years as a Black female police officer in Boston - but enough was enough. She turned in her badge, moved up north, and set up shop as a private investigator in historic Salem, Massachusetts. Now she's surrounded by Wiccans and herbalists, by crystal shops and psychic pizza-deliverymen. And her first client has just stepped in the door.

Everything changes, in seconds, minutes, hours. I know, it happened to me. It wasn't for the better, it was for the worst. I am broken, no that doesn't sound right, I am chipped. Pieces of me have been chipped so bad that it's impossible to claim them back. Even if I want to, even if it's for her.

For Randy Stone of the Chicago Star, stories begin in many ways. This one began with a Halloween killing and ended with sweet revenge.

When Utah Sheriff Bud Shumway gets a strange letter saying a perfect crime is about to be committed, he has no idea that it’s just the beginning of a series of cryptic happenings, from a body that goes missing to finding another that happens to belong to a popular local photographer.

Simone Devereux has inherited an estate at O'Malley's Cove in Northern California after her Aunt dies mysteriously. Trent Grayson, her hot new neighbor, insists Celeste was murdered. Simone is a dead ringer for her Aunt, and now she's the one in danger.

Neol Pallaton walks alone through the bowels of society as a bounty hunter, until he shifts into a cougar to save Assistant D.A. Sara Hughes from certain death. A relentless killer keeps them moving by day through the Oregon forest - and by night under the full moon, passion rules their hearts. The rugged forest is no place for a beautiful and feisty city woman, but Neol's determined to help Sara piece together why she's being hunted. Sara thought bounty hunters were brutal loners who stretched the law she's sworn to uphold. But Neol proves that no one can hunt, track, and protect her like a Navajo medicine man from the Red Moon Clan.

Sunny beaches...deadly secrets. St. Celine boasts secluded pink-sand beaches and sparkling turquoise waters just an hour's ferry ride from Nassau. In the wake of a personal tragedy, Sarah and Amy arrive for a week of sun and margaritas and maybe some romance with the locals. But Sarah's obsession with a pair of honeymooners who disappeared from this paradise leads to the discovery of a bizarre video posted online by the couple just hours before they vanished - images of a purported vodou zombie ritual somewhere on the island.