Crime Thriller Short Stories

When vandals destroy beach hut 512 on Brighton’s iconic seafront, they reveal a dead body that has apparently lain undisturbed for two months. But according to the hut’s owner, Sims, its locks rusted shut three months ago and she hasn’t had access to it since. So how could the man have got in, and why is there no evidence of the murderer?

The brand new Jack Reacher short story, published as a digital exclusive. The tiny town of Naismith has nothing going for it - except the start of a wilderness trail through Maine's ancient forests. But one day the trail is suddenly closed by county police. No reason is given. Rumours start - is there something in the woods that no one must see? That no one must even know about? Then Jack Reacher drifts into town. What does he make of the Do Not Enter tape strung between the trees?

The Rise is a gleaming residential tower, newly constructed from steel and blackened glass, that stands on some of London’s most prestigious real estate. Looming imposingly over Hyde Park, only multi-millionaires need apply for one of its sumptuous apartments. But when the young night concierge is found murdered in the building’s lobby, the elite residents quickly find their gilded lifestyles under unwelcome police scrutiny.

This is collection of 18 crime stories with a diverse range of characters and scenarios, from guilt-ridden fraudsters to lovesick murderers.

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.

Detective Inspector Matthew Venn is standing by his kitchen window when he first spots them. Two young girls, facing away from him, seemingly staring towards something in the distance. They are holding hands, and they are alone. Though not a natural with children, Matthew knows he must find out why the girls are here, on a school day, unsupervised. And so he meets Olivia and Imogen, a pair of sisters whose secrets Matthew must uncover if he hopes to get them home.

Murder comes in two familiar forms. Whether as a crime of passion with high emotions or a cold dispassionate plot to take life in order to gain in some way, the act strikes us all as somehow inhuman. Beneath us as civilised beings. But however we cloak our animal instincts the need to remove a human being and gain relief from abuse or gain from money, the term is just the same – MURDER. Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, W W Jacobs and many others bring their literary heft to bear in as calculating a way as any killer could.

Ever wondered what early experiences shaped Reacher's explosive career as butt-kicker supreme, the one-man guided-missile battler for justice? In this original new short story, Lee Child looks back on an incident in his hero Jack Reacher's teenage years as the younger son of a tough career US Marine, on a faraway military base in the Pacific.

An original short story about Jack Reacher, available exclusively in digital format (ebook and audio), following the success of last year's "Second Son". Early in his military career, Jack Reacher is ordered undercover in Washington, to discover which one of four women, all staff officers on fast track careers, is leaking secrets. The suggested method: get close to each in turn. The obvious problem: the most receptive will be the guilty one, with an agenda of her own - to kill the investigation ... and the investigator.

Over the years, Ian Rankin has amassed an incredible portfolio of short stories. Published in crime magazines, composed for events, broadcast on radio, they all share the best qualities of his phenomenally popular Rebus novels. Brought together for the first time, and including brand-new material, this is the ultimate Rebus short-story collection and a must-have book for crime lovers and for Ian's millions of fans alike. No Rankin aficionado can go without it.

Bringing together six short stories - two of which are previously unpublished - One Last Dram Before Midnight is perfect for fans of Denzil Meyrick. These tales take us from Jim Daley's early days pounding the beat in Glasgow as a young constable to a lighthearted whisky smuggling romp involving Hamish and some ghostly pipers.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Christmas Scorpion by Lee Child. Jack Reacher likes to head south for the winter, to stay warm, so just before Christmas he arrives in a small town in Southern California. But the weather there is not warm and dry, as it’s supposed to be: he arrives in a freak blizzard. Reacher finds refuge in a snowed-in roadhouse with four other strangers stranded by the storm.

Colter Shaw is a career ‘reward-seeker’, making his living travelling the country and locating missing persons. So when a woman disappears, he quickly takes the case. As he investigates, he suspects that she was fleeing a bad marriage, and he follows her trail to a secret retreat in Indiana. As events take one surprising turn after another, Shaw begins to wonder if there's more to this mysterious woman than meets the eye.

When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.

Paige Barrett was living her dream as a journalist in New York City, racking up bylines as a staff writer at The Razor, a cutting-edge online magazine. But when she’s suddenly fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, she finds herself back home in the quaint seaside town of Shoreham, Florida, waiting tables and living in her sister’s guesthouse. Restless and itching for something meaningful to occupy her time, she decides to launch a true-crime podcast about the death of Jessica Cady, a beloved teacher who died mysteriously 20 years earlier.

This collection of mysteries from a fresh voice in Southwestern fiction stakes out the common ground between Tony Hillerman, Elmore Leonard, and Cormac McCarthy. Collection includes Nail’s Crossing, Greasy Bend, Butcher Pen Road, and Ten-Acre Rock.

Discover Dorothy L. Sayers' inimitable Golden Age detective in this complete collection of the complete Lord Peter Wimsey stories, together in one volume for the first time. Presented in chronological order, these short stories see Lord Peter Wimsey bringing his trademark wit and unique detection skills to all manner of mysteries.

Veronica Ruiz is on the run for the first time in her life—though certainly not the last. After being falsely accused of stealing money from her college sorority, she packs up and heads to her cousin Ramón's apartment, planning to change her name and rebuild start over away from backstabbing girls and university drama (and far, far away from her arrest warrant in Maryland). At the local bank on the first morning of her new life, it occurs to Vero that she'd be a better bank teller than most of the current employees.

Two bloody brilliant short stories from number-one best-selling crime writer Stuart MacBride, featuring DS Logan McRae and his boss, DI Steel. 'Stramash': something fishy is happening on the isle of Jura. DS Logan McRae gets a phone call from DI Steel ordering him to come to the island at once. One freezing night's sleep in a hatchback and two storm-battered ferries later, Logan arrives - but there's no sign of Steel. She's lumped him in the middle of a policing nightmare, with bodies and bullets and tiny, wee boats.

A collection of seven short stories, featuring crime-fighting duo Tilly and Poe: The Killing Field, Why Don't Sheep Shrink?, Dead Man's Fingers, Strange Ink, A Permanent Solution, Mondo Bizzarro and Once in a Red Moon.