Short Thrillers

He wakes on a cold floor, his mind a perfect blank. A dead man lies beside him, and the only clues are a wallet with his name, and keys to a life he can’t remember. Each step is shadowed by the chilling certainty that he is not who he seems. His search for the truth leads him to a past more terrifying than the amnesia. Maybe some memories are buried for a reason, and the truth may destroy the last remnants of his soul.

Meet John Milton. He considers himself an artisan. A craftsman. His trade is murder. Milton is the man the government sends after you when everything else has failed. Ruthless. Brilliant. Anonymous. Lethal. You wouldn't pick him out of a crowd but you wouldn't want to be on his list. In this second dip into his case files (see 1000 Yards for a further novella), Milton is sent to Italy to investigate the death of a colleague from Group 15.

For over three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror listeners crave. Now, with the eighth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. Encompassed in the audio of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as: Neil Gaiman; Kelley Armstrong; Stephen King; Linda Nagata; Laird Barron; Margo Lanagan; and many others.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day and Aggie, Betty and Roger are celebrating at an Irish pub in Palm Springs when Betty’s leprechaun-love-interest drops dead. Could it be murder? Join Aggie and friends as they embark on a celebration they won’t soon forget.

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

If you’re a fan of Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, you won’t be able to pause the compulsively addictive Danny Pearson thriller series.

On a brisk fall day, a six-year-old boy and his nanny vanish without a trace during a trip to the London Tower. When the boy’s father, Lord Rollings, is summoned to the Tower to receive ransom instructions, he immediately puts Sherlock and Lucy on the case. The clues are scant and the tension is high - every moment that passes could bring the boy closer to danger.

Nathan Tyler is an unassuming professor at a middling American university with a rather obscure specialty in mathematics—in short, a nobody from nowhere. So why is the White House calling? Summoned to Washington, DC, for a top-secret briefing, Nathan discovers that he’s the key to a massive foreign intelligence breakthrough. Reading between the lines of a cryptic series of equations, he could open a door straight into the heart of the Kremlin and change the global balance of power forever.

A short ghost story from the best-selling author of Abbot's Keep. A photographer reluctantly agrees to take images of an abandoned manor house on the Dorset clifftops only to find the building is not completely empty.

All 26 fiendish tales from the best-selling series, A-Z of Horror, by Iain Rob Wright. From neighbourhood yetis to military robots, this terrifying collection has it all and will leave you sleeping with the lights on!

Detectives can’t bury their mistakes, murderers can. DCI Liam Doyle is haunted by the demons from his past and the challenges of the present: a broken marriage, a tarnished reputation, and a troubled young son who needs him. He’s newly moved out of south London – and out of his comfort zone. When a murdered woman is found at a Lancashire beauty spot in his new patch. Doyle is tasked with finding her killer, along with his new detective sergeant, Anna Morgan. As the investigation progresses, it becomes clear that things are not as they seem.

Janie is the last person Hannah and Christopher Bauer want to see again. But Janie’s moved back to Clarksville. She’s no longer the frail child Hannah and Christopher adopted over eleven years ago. The child who destroyed their lives. Now Janie is out of juvenile detention—a beautiful, confident young adult—and publicly promoting her new tell-all memoir.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Maisie is convinced her boyfriend, Lucas, is totally going to propose. The cookies are baked, the mood is set, and her ring finger is perfectly poised. But when a confused elderly woman wanders into their home and claims it as her own, the couple’s plans are quickly thwarted.

A shadowy master criminal has been kidnapping experts from the food industry and stealing both food and equipment. The crimes are so unrelated no one in the world had noticed the connections. No one except Albert Smith, that is. He’s got almost nothing to go on, but with every place he visits, he gets just a little closer to the truth. He’s not working alone though, his faithful sidekick, Rex Harrison the former police dog is right there with him. Can the two of them pull off the impossible and find the man Albert chose to dub ‘the Gastrothief’?

Lee Child selects the 20 best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Stephen King, Sara Paretsky, and many more. Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international best seller Lee Child has selected the 20 most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

Albert and Rex are going to the palace. It’s the day the Kings' birthday honour list recipients get their knighthoods, but like everywhere else they go, there is trouble to be found. With his three children and youngest granddaughter, Apple-Blossom, in tow, Albert is a little embarrassed by the lavishness of the affair. Yet all that is forgotten when he spots a man he knows. A man guilty of murder. A man who can only be at the palace for one thing.

Too much terror to contain.... Shadows reach out with darkened claws. The floorboards creek as your greatest fears stalk the halls. And no matter how much you tell yourself it is just a dream, you know the truth. Evil hides in the darkness. And now, it has finally been unleashed.... Scare Street gathers volumes one to three of Terror in the Shadows in a single edition. Over 30 tales stalk this macabre collection. And just when you think you’ve experienced the most chilling horror of all, a new story unfolds within this massive tome of fear.

Being the wife of a cop isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially when dead bodies keep ruining your romantic dinner plans. But fashion designer turned amateur sleuth Maddie Springer is determined that her husband's latest case, dubbed the "Sex Shop Murder", will not keep him from celebrating their first anniversary together, which just happens to fall on the most romantic of all holidays, Valentine's Day. She's ready to do whatever it takes to make this night special and distraction-free.

Three friends go on a foodie road trip to the Scottish Highlands and Islands to celebrate their pending retirement, expecting stunning scenery, great food, fine wines, and a chance to reminisce about the good old days. When they somehow secure a reservation at a remote and extremely exclusive restaurant set on a private island in Loch Broom, they know they’re in for a once-in-a-lifetime dining experience.

Gabriel Wolfe and his partner, Eli Schochat have flown to Cambodia to assassinate an ex-Khmer Rouge warlord. By a freakish stroke of good fortune, Win Yah dodges the bullet that would have exploded his skull. Wounded by a mine, Eli is captured, brutally beaten and taken into the forest to be executed. Gabriel must find her, evade recapture by the warlord’s heavily armed gang, and get her to safety. Only then can he return to finish what Eli started.