Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

The Paradise Men's Softball League has wrapped up another game, and Chief of Police Jesse Stone is lingering in the parking lot with his teammates, drinking beer, swapping stories of double plays and beautiful women in the late-summer twilight. But then someone makes a horrifying discovery at a nearby lake: At the water's edge, facedown, is something that used to be a girl.

A.J. Lewinter is an American scientist, for years an insignificant cog in America's complex defense machinery. While at an academic conference in Tokyo, Lewinter contacts the KGB station chief and says he wants to defect. He tantalizes the Russians with U.S. military secrets he claims to possess, but is his defection genuine? Neither the Russians nor the Americans are sure.

Tracy Whitney is on top of the world. Young, beautiful, and intelligent, she is about to marry into wealth and glamour—until a ruthless mafia gang frames her, and she is sentenced to prison. Though beaten and broken, Tracy emerges from her savage ordeal determined to avenge herself against those who have destroyed her life. With dazzling ingenuity, she embarks on a series of extraordinary escapades across the globe, as she plays for the highest stakes in a deadly game. Only one man can challenge her—a man handsome, persuasive, and every bit as daring as Tracy.

The survivors of The Other Side of Midnight come back for one last round of play in this compelling sequel set in post-war Europe. Catherine Douglas, victim of tragedy and amnesia, is taken in by the world's richest man, Greek shipping tycoon Constantin Demiris. Haunted by faint memories of the past, Catherine must remember the truth before Demiris, the man who killed her husband, sets his murderous sights on her.

During Desert Storm, Major Darren Mace made a fateful decision to go against orders—to abort a secret mission that was, in his judgment, ill-advised. His actions landed him in military exile. Now Mace has moved on to the Air Force Reserves. There's a new US president, a new era, and a new war is escalating along the Ukraine border. And this time Mace has a partner—Rebecca Furness, the military's first woman combat flyer—while the chains of command tighten around him.

Nicholas Linnear won a major battle with the apocalyptic destruction of Floating City. But his enemy has retreated from the ruins left smoldering in the Vietnamese jungle, to regroup and mount the assault that will solidify his ultimate power-and destroy Linnear. That enemy is Mick Leonforte, scion of a proud and deadly Mafia dynasty.

Intelligent, tough, beautiful, and sole heir to a billion-dollar fortune, Elizabeth suddenly finds herself head of an empire after her father mysteriously dies. Surrounded by cash-hungry family members, the young heiress fights to save the family business. And after narrowly escaping death, she realizes that someone is determined to kill her. Unsure of who she can trust, Elizabeth must figure out who the assassin is before it's too late.

An international crisis looms, and special ops team Old Dog Zero One must avert a full-scale war. In this sequel to Flight of the Old Dog, it's discovered one of the team's own is alive. Presumed dead in Siberia, the airman has come out of a coma only to face the death penalty for crimes against the Soviet state. Captured and brainwashed by the KGB, the American airman reveals military secrets to the Soviets that could rejoin the shattered factions of the Soviet Union.

Ellis Alves is no angel. But his lawyer says he was framed for the murder of college student Melissa Henderson...and asks Spenser for help. From Boston's back streets to Manhattan's elite, Spenser and Hawk search for suspects, including Melissa's rich-kid, tennis-star boyfriend. But when a man with a .22 puts Spenser in a coma, the hope for justice may die with him.

Based on interviews with Lansky's family, his close friends and criminal associates, law enforcement experts, and using previously unpublished documents written by Lansky himself, this is both the biography of a mob boss and a social history of American crime.

Boston hoodlum Julius Ventura wants to find his daughter's missing husband. At least that's how he puts it to Spenser and Hawk, even though it's clear that Julius isn't telling the whole truth—or maybe not any part of the truth. Something about the case appeals to Spenser's passion for justice, though, and he launches an odyssey that leads him and Hawk into the netherworld of organized crime.

Cruising on his yacht off the rugged coast of Corsica, Harry Stanford—one of the world's wealthiest men—drowns under mysterious circumstances. In a chain of events that reverberates around the globe, a beautiful young woman appears at Stanford's funeral, claiming to be the tycoon's daughter and thus heir to a share of his estate. As the Stanford family seeks to learn whether Julia is genuine or an imposter, a hidden web of blackmail, drugs, and murder emerges from behind the facade of fame and glamour.

New York Times best-selling authors and recipients of the Mystery Writers of America "Grand Master" award, Mary Higgins Clark and Elizabeth Peters present this delightfully chilling assortment of original mystery stories. Featuring acclaimed contributors at the height of their games, this collection includes "Nice Gorilla," which won an Agatha Award for best short story.

Brad Sterling - former Harvard football player, ne¿er-do-well, and Susan Silverman's long out-of touch ex-husband, is by all appearances a successful businessman. But when, in the course of running a vast fundraiser called Galapalooza, he is charged with sexual harassment, he turns to Susan for help.

Toby Temple is a superstar, the world's funniest man. He gets any woman that he wants, but under the superstar image is a lonely man. Jill Castle is a sensuous starlet. She has a dark and mysterious past and has an ambition even greater than Toby's. Together they rule Hollywood.

When Robin Nevins, the son of Hawk's boyhood mentor, is denied at an exclusive university, Hawk asks Spenser to investigate. It seems the denial is tied to the suicide of a young gay activist, and as Spenser digs deeper, he is nearly drowned in a multicultural swamp of politics: black, gay, academic, and feminist. At the same time, Spenser's inamorata, Susan, asks him to come to the aid of an old college friend, K.C. Roth, the victim of a stalker. Spenser solves the problem a bit too effectively when K.C. turns the tables and begins to stalk him.

Only 35, Jack Whitman is head of long-range planning at a major media-entertainment empire. It has been two years since the senseless murder of his pregnant wife in New York; the tragedy has left him emotionally numb, and blindly ambitious. With the corporation in verge of a merger with its German-Japanese counterpart, Jack becomes caught in a ruthless power play between the scheming CEO and the aging chairman and tastes the bitterness of corporate politics at its most ruthless level.

Ed McBain, author of the best-selling 87th Precinct series, takes us Downtown in this harrowing tale of a lone out-of-towner running for his life in New York CIty. Meet Michael Barnes, a Florida orange grower who finds himself in a Wall Street bar with a couple of hours to kill. It's a couple of hours that almost kill him, as he's swindled, robbed, framed for murder, and hunted down by an assassin in one of the wildest, scariest, funniest, fastest 24 hours ever packed into one novel.

The fifth volume of The Greatest Mysteries of All Time is an intriguing anthology of crime and suspense short stories by some of the most renowned writers in the field. This unique collection of master writers includes the usual suspects such as Patricia Highsmith and Mickey Spillane, but also writers better known for other genres, such as Isaac Asimov and Ogden Nash. Edited by the legendary multi-award-winning mystery connoisseur Otto Penzler—whose name is a hallmark of quality and expertise—this thrilling mixture of mystery and suspense will have you guessing up until the very end.

The young, beautiful, and relentless Lara Cameron has amassed international wealth and power, with equal success in affairs of the heart. But an angry ex-lover has vengeance in mind—a motive that could cost Lara the empire she struggled a lifetime to build.