Smart Mystery Fiction

Fresh out of prison, after taking the fall for their insurance fraud scheme, Jessica has only one thing on her mind. As she masterminds her elaborate plan for justice, Jessica must come face to face with the ghosts of her past. But while some people are beyond redemption, there is only one person who can satisfy her revenge.

Withering and waspish, Ursula Smart (not her real name) gate-crashes her mother's book club at an isolated country house for a long weekend retreat. Much to Mother's chagrin. Joining them are Mother's best friend, Mirabelle, Aunts Charlotte and Less, and Bridget with her dog, Mr. Bojangles. It doesn't matter that they've read Gone Girl three times this year already, this retreat is their chance to escape bustling suburbia. But someone has other ideas. A body is found in the grounds.

When a bloody corpse is discovered in a North London park, Detective Inspector Daniel Graves is the man tasked with finding the killer. However, with no clues and no suspects, the case seems like a dead end. Then another body turns up—and this time, it looks like it could be Graves’s fault. Has his investigation caused the murderer to strike again? As the case gets ever more complicated, a report comes in of another suspicious death—but this is nothing like any other Graves has dealt with. All involved are convinced that something supernatural is to blame: a demon.

6 WRITERS. 5 DETECTIVES. 4 DAYS. 3 WEAPONS. 2 MURDERS. 1 TRAIN... 'An outstanding and exceptional mystery from start to finish . . . everything fans would hope for.' JANE HARPER When the Australian Mystery Writers' Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous...

When a modern home in High Peaks burns to the ground killing the family, it appears as if the tragic deaths were an accident. But a gut instinct tells Noah Sutherland otherwise. Days later, a family at another residence is found dead under bizarre circumstances. A coincidence, or are the two related? As the calculating stalker dubbed The Smart Killer stays in the shadows and continues slaughtering ordinary families in their homes, the investigation shakes the small Adirondack town to the core.

When a traveling carnival arrives in Hollowbeck, it promises magic and mayhem. It's also an opportunity for Morgan to find someone who can transform her brother, Ruiner, back into a human—he's a little tired of being a talking cat, and she's a little tired of cleaning his litter box. Things look promising until the curtains rise on rehearsal night to reveal Ruiner sitting on the lifeless body of the wizard who promised to help him.

D.I. Graves is back on the case to face his toughest challenge yet: a case with no motive and no suspect, nothing at all that could explain why someone would kill innocent people and then take parts from the bodies. Then the next victims are discovered: another pair of bodies, new body parts taken, and again in their own home. Someone is breaking into houses across the city at night, leaving horror in their wake. It seems to Graves that this could be two serial killers, working together. But how are they choosing their victims? Is any house in London a target? Is anyone safe?

She's beautiful, street-smart, and hoping to leave her troubled past behind her. Makedde Vanderwall has finished her studies and is ready to start practising as a forensic psychologist. She's also starting a new life in Australia with her detective boyfriend Andy Flynn. Hoping to scrape together some extra cash, Mak begins doing part-time work for an infamous Sydney PI.

Henni, the scribe of Stella Street (also the tallest girl in her new school) tells everything that happened when the new unfriendly neighbours (from hell) moved into 45 Stella Street. From the moment the newcomers they nicknamed The Phonies cruised down friendly old Stella Street in their silver Bentley turbo, there was trouble. They were all in it together: Henni, her best friend Zev, her loopy sister Danielle, little Frank who lives at 47 and his dog Briquette (aff aff aff aff) – but Henni tells it best.

dentist dangles from the window of a swanky Park Avenue hotel, while Toby Peters, a Los Angeles detective who's very far from home, clutches the man by his jacket, which is tearing slowly, stitch by stitch. Across the room, a dead man lies on the bed, his killer pounding on the hotel room door, which sounds like it's going to give way as quickly as the dentist's jacket. Somehow, this entire mess is Albert Einstein's fault. Two nefarious groups have been threatening the great physicist. One is a ring of blackmailers who claim to have evidence that he has been passing nuclear secrets to Russia.

It's 1867 in the Wyoming Territory. Chance Creager and his brothers have built their small, isolated ranch in the uninhabited valley near the Greybull River. While hunting, Chance stumbles upon a decaying wagon sunk in mud, near it the grisly remains of an Indian sacrifice. Nothing about the eerie scene makes sense. The mountains have secrets. Chance finds himself pulled deeper into the mystery when he finds a beautiful fugitive named Raven while hunting a deadly mountain lion.

When a blood-stained effigy of body parts is found in a central London park, D.I. Daniel Graves must set about trying to discover what it could mean and find the person responsible. Symbols at the crime scene suggest the occult. Who would leave a murder victim in such a way, and why? As Graves and partner D.I. Charlie Palmer begin to investigate the ritual and the act of human sacrifice, they enlist the help of Charlotte Gooding, a talented professor specializing in the subject. They hope to narrow down a motive—could the killer believe in the supernatural? Witchcraft, even?

Crime, thriller, and noir fans will delight in this fourth volume of The Greatest Mysteries of All Time, an exciting series featuring short fiction by legendary writers, past and present. From Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, and Georges Simenon to Lawrence Block and Sara Paretsky, this unique collection—compiled and edited by multi-award-winning mystery connoisseur Otto Penzler—is a captivating mixture of mystery and suspense.

When homegrown terrorists threaten to turn Blue Ridge University into a funeral pyre, Riley Reid, Director of Security, is thrown into a shadow world where old hatreds run deep, family feuds poison relationships, and death and danger spill off the college campus into mountain wilderness. To survive, the former FBI agent must decide where to place her trust. Not easy when conflicting loyalties pose ethical dilemmas and the men in her life trigger emotions that war with logic.

Nexi Ketts has reinvented herself-new name, new look, new life. She makes her living catching corporate cheats - partial atonement for dear old dad's embezzling ways. A fling with a handsome cop ends badly when he tries to kill her. She flees, naked, causing a fender bender, and making it damn hard for Detective Barry Gerton to think clearly.

With a trillion sensors feeding data into a central computer unleashed into the world, governments, militaries, mega-corporations, dictators, and even hackers will be able to hear the heartbeat of the Earth. This is an invisible communications network enveloping everything, including your home. These Smart Dust particles, 100 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, easily penetrate human skin, enabling trackers to monitor every moment of your day.

Yard sales can bring out the worst in people. So when Scumble River school psychologist Skye Denison organizes a 100-mile yard sale, otherwise neighborly folk get downright nasty: her own mother creams a woman, and a battle of the sexes breaks out. But when her former boss is found murdered, nobody knows for sure how this cookie will crumble.

Heidi’s gone; her body lies curled up at my feet. Despite the ache inside my chest, it falls to me to alert our alpha and maintain calm within the pack. Those are rules I vowed to obey. Yet, when my vampire neighbor Eli flashes his investigator’s badge, insisting Heidi’s death wasn’t the first, I join his hunt for the murderer, instead. Eli should come with a warning label, though.

After a whirlwind romance, Princess Kensi’s bright destiny is becoming a daunting reality. Not two months ago, she was earning her bacon as a private investigator, and now she wonders if her new werewolf-mate, Drake, even likes bacon. They constantly bicker, yet he’s mere days from being invested as the official co-heir to her father’s kingdom. When another contender for the throne emerges, the claimants go toe-to-toe in a race designed to put their skills and stamina to the test. But the competition is rigged - and one of them is marked for death.

In Wager Smart, Eddie and Uncle Mike take on a cold case for Arlene Adams, the wealthy widow of a notorious hitman. The case leads Eddie and his uncle to Vegas, where they meet the hitman’s old partner, the Deacon, a legend in the mob. The cold case quickly spirals into an investigation of a current murder that requires the men to make a dangerous deal with the mob.