Mystery & Detectives

A terrible fire in a wealthy suburban home leaves a married couple dead and Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner Rich Conklin searching for clues. And after California's golden boy, Michael Campion has been missing for a month, there finally seems to be a lead in his case--a very devastating lead. As fire after fire consume couples in wealthy, comfortable homes, Lindsay and the Murder Club must race to find the arsonists responsible and get to the bottom of Michael Campion's disappearance. Bu... more info>>

Dumped by his glamorous Russian girlfriend during dinner at Elaine's, and running low on cash, Stone Barrington is having a bad week. So his luck seems to be improving when he's hired to locate the missing son of a very wealthy man--lucky because the job pays well, and because the son is hiding in the tropical paradise of Key West.But when Stone and his sometime running buddy Dino Bacchetti arrive in the sunny Keys, it appears that someone has been lying in wait. When Stone very nearly loses his... more info>>

On assignment in the Philippines, archaeologist Annja Creed meets with a contact to verify some information. Easy enough. But when the man doesn't turn out to be whom he said he was, Annja finds herself handcuffed, blindfolded and kidnapped. And to make matters worse, she's a prisoner of the dreaded Abu Sayyaf, a notorious terrorist group. Desperate to escape, Annja is able to flee after slaying one of her captors. But she soon gets lost in the hostile jungle, which is rumored to be haunted by... more info>>

R.T. Smith is making his first appearance in EQMM here, but his work has previously been included in Best American Mystery Stories, Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, New Stories from the South, and many highly regarded literary journals. Last year, his story "Ina Grove" was one of three from the Virginia Quarterly Review to receive the National Magazine Award in Fiction. Charles Ardai is an Edgar and Shamus Award winning author and the founder and editor of the acclaime... more info>>

In her new thriller, America's #1 bestselling Queen of Suspense delves into a legal battle over the guilt or innocence of a man accused of murdering his wife. Woven into her plot is an eerie, little-understood but documented medical phenomenon--the emergence of a donor's traits and memories in the recipient of a heart transplant. Natalie Raines, one of Broadway's brightest stars, accidentally discovers who killed her former roommate and sets in motion a series of shocking events that puts more t... more info>>

Bestselling master of suspense Jeffery Deaver is back with a brand-new Lincoln Rhyme thriller.Lincoln Rhyme and partner/paramour Amelia Sachs return to face a criminal whose ingenious staging of crimes is enabled by a terrifying access to information.... When Lincoln's estranged cousin Arthur Rhyme is arrested on murder charges, the case is perfect--too perfect. Forensic evidence from Arthur's home is found all over the scene of the crime, and it looks like the fate of Lincoln's relative is seal... more info>>

One night at Elaine's, Stone Barrington--back in Manhattan after chasing down the bad guys in the Caribbean--meets Barton Cabot, older brother of his sometime ally, CIA boss Lance Cabot. Barton's career in army intelligence is even more top secret than his brother's, but he's suffering from amnesia following a random act of violence. Amnesia is a dangerous thing in a man whose memory is chock-full of state secrets, so Lance hires Stone to watch Barton's back. As Stone discovers, Barton is a spy ... more info>>

Timothy Carrier, having a beer after work at his friend's tavern, enjoys drawing eccentric customers into amusing conversations. But the jittery man who sits next to him tonight has mistaken Tim for someone very different--and passes to him a manila envelope full of cash. "Ten thousand now. You get the rest when she's gone...." The stranger walks out, leaving a photo of the pretty woman marked for death, and her address. But things are about to get worse. In minutes another stranger sits next to... more info>>

Four women--four friends--share a determination to stop a killer who has been stalking newlyweds in San Francisco. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Wom... more info>>

Mystery stories are about the pursuit of justice, but sometimes that pursuit takes a wrong turn. As several of this month's stories demonstrate, the disinterested pursuit of justice can be particularly difficult during times of crisis, as in Loren D. Estleman's WWII-era procedural, "Soft Lights and Sabotage"; when addressing emotionally-charged topics, as in D. A. McGuire's "The Disappearance of Billy Dawber"; or when mixed with the heady scent of celebrity, as in Brendan DuBois's "The High Hous... more info>>

Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are back, and struggling in the emotional aftermath of the events that brought them to the brink in Hour Game. Dogged by personal demons, Maxwell is agrees to treatment in a psychiatric institution, after barely surviving a violent barroom brawl. And King, to right their partnership, accepts an offer to investigate a murder in a scientific think tank named Babbage Town. Feeling cured, Michelle joins him on the case, and they penetrate this secret enclave of geniuse... more info>>

Lew Archer was in a dismal mood when he checked into a sleepy motel. He had just lost the man he was trailing and then got into a crazy highway chase with a Cadillac. Now he just wanted to get some sleep. But his thoughts of sleep ended when a screaming brunette woke him with her screams and a hand covered in blood. It looked like a murder, but where was the victim? And Lew Archer only had one suspect―an imaginary blonde that nobody seems to have seen.

A painful past. A mysterious stranger. Footsteps vanishing in the fog. All Stanley wants is just to hear Tom say, "I love you." All Tom wants is Stanley safe. And the stranger? Ah, there's the rub--what exactly is it that he wants? Be careful what you wish for, fellows. You may get it. Dreams can be deadly.

Detective Inspector Judy Hill anxiously watched the trial of serial rapist Colin Arthur Drummond from the public gallery--never forgetting his chilling threat that she would be his next victim. The prosecution should have an open-and-shut case. But sixteen months later Drummond is back on the streets, threatening Judy once more. And as Judy sets out to prove Drummond's guilt for the second time, Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd is called to a horrifying scene. It appears Colin Drummond has struck... more info>>

Three years ago, David Hunter moved to rural Norfolk to escape his life in London, his gritty work in forensics, and a tragedy that nearly destroyed him. Working as a simple country doctor, seeing his lost wife and daughter only in his dreams, David struggles to remain uninvolved when the corpse of a woman is found in the woods, a macabre sign from her killer decorating her body. In one horrifying instant, the quiet summer countryside that had been David's refuge has turned malevolent--and sudde... more info>>

In a case that will push their relationship to the breaking point, Mary Russell must help reverse the greatest failure of her legendary husband's storied past--a painful and personal defeat that still has the power to sting…this time fatally.For Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was especially sweet. There was even a mystery to solve--the unexplained disappearance of an entire colony of bees from one of Holmes's beloved h... more info>>

When a little girl is shot on the steps of a San Francisco church, Detective Lindsay Boxer knows it's time to reconvene the Women's Murder Club. Working with Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas, assistant D.A. Jill Bernhardt, and medical examiner Claire Washburn, Lindsay tracks a mystifying killer who soon turns his pursuers into his victims. The unorthodox allegiances of the Women's Murder Club lead them to suspect the unexpected-the killer may be an ex-cop. But nothing could prepare them for the d... more info>>

I love to lose myself in a thriller--especially the rare one that moves along like an out-of-control freight train. The thriller that actually got me started writing was The Day of the Jackal. With BLACK FRIDAY, I wanted to concoct a shamelessly manipulative story that the reader couldn't wait to finish, but didn't want to end. Now get on this freight train! With BLACK FRIDAY, I wanted to concoct a shamelessly manipulative story that the reader couldn't wait to finish, but didn't want to end. No... more info>>

Lucky Pierre, that Sherlock Holmes of felines, solves another murder in this lighthearted cozy mystery. The nice young couple who naively believe that they own him have gone to San Francisco for two weeks, leaving Pierre in the custody of Herb and Maggie Lindenberg, owners of Wrangler's Western Motel. Pierre was all settled down to engage in his favorite occupations of sleeping and eating when a group of fans who love those tales about magic schools move in for a four-day convention, filled with... more info>>

Florida P.I. Gin Ritchey lives on a boat and takes life easy whenever she can. Trouble is, she never overheard a conversation she didn't find interesting. Her snowbird neighbors from New Jersey, three couples and a widower with a sexy young girlfriend, spend a lot of time outdoors where she can share their lives vicariously. When the widower dies mysteriously, everyone suspects the girlfriend, but Gin isn't so sure. There's something suspicious about the situation, and when she talks to Bunny (w... more info>>

"The dead don't talk. I don't know why." But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn. Maybe he has a gift, maybe it's a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out. Sometime... more info>>

Harper Connelly has what you might call a strange job: she finds dead people. She can sense the final location of a person who's passed, and share their very last moment. The way Harper sees it, she's providing a service to the dead while bringing some closure to the living-but she's used to most people treating her like a blood-sucking leech. Traveling with her step-brother Tolliver as manager and sometime-bodyguard, she's become an expert at getting in, getting paid, and getting out fast. Beca... more info>>

Charlaine Harris is already a star and a New York Times bestseller with her vampire mysteries starring Sookie Stackhouse and her Lily Bard mysteries. This second installment to her new supernatural mystery series might just be her biggest hit yet. Grave Sight's Harper Connelly is back, and her ability to find the dead and see their last moments is in higher demand than ever... A college class gets more than it bargained for when Harper gives a demonstration of her uncanny talent. Instead of just... more info>>

Keira Kelly is still struggling with the Change that will bring her an as yet unknown paranormal power. Keira and Tucker, her shapeshifting brother have a heap of unexpected trouble piled on 'em when a lot of weird starts going down around Rio Seco, Texas.

The latest installment of this universally beloved and best-selling series finds Precious Ramotswe in personal need of her own formidable detection talents .... Mma Ramotswe's ever-ready tiny white van has recently developed a rather disturbing noise. Of course, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni--her estimable husband and one of Botswana's most talented mechanics--is the man to turn to for help. But Precious suspects he might simply condemn the van and replace it with something more modern. Can she find a way... more info>>