Eleven stories from Shamus Award-winning crime novelist Ed Gorman that demonstrate both his range and his storytelling versatility. The collection opens with “All These Condemned,” the story of two brothers and one shocking secret, and “A Girl Like You,” an almost mystical story about a young man coming to grips with the meaning of love. “The Way It Used to Be” features a small-town teenage bigot, while a famous 1920s mobster is the lead in the somewhat whimsical “The New Man.” The chiller “Judgment” is about a Catholic priest, and a very unlucky stick-up artist plies his trade in “Ghosts.” One of Gorman’s favorite themes — lost love and its consequences — surfaces in “That Day at...

Have yourself a crooked little Christmas with The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries. Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories — many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant. Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey...

When a particularly brutal serial murder is uncovered, investigators turn to criminal psychologist Robert Payne, who is trained in the science of psychological profiling. Using information gathered from hundreds of violent criminal cases, “profilers” are able to assemble a probable psychological portrait of a killer from trademark clues left on the body of the victim or at the scene of a crime. This technique is particularly effective in apprehending murderers who strike again and again over an extended period of time. But when the mysterious and beautiful Nora Conners asks Payne to help catch the psychopath who murdered her adored daughter, Payne finds himself up against what seems like...

Award-winning author Ed Gorman is back with political consultant and troubleshooter Dev Conrad, in this riveting sequel. When Dev Conrad agreed to work with Congresswoman Susan Cooper, member of a prominent political family, he didn’t know that the worst threat her reelection campaign would face would come from Cooper herself. The congresswoman has a secret she’s not willing to share with Dev, forcing him to follow her the way a detective would. But the campaign is burdened with other problems as well, starting with the murder of scandal-plagued political consultant Monica Davies. Rumor has it she had some information that would destroy Susan Cooper’s campaign. In the wake of another...

Given its extraordinary span, its international scope, and its variant styles and groundbreaking stylists, A Century of Great Suspense Stories is a singular achievement. A bestselling master of suspense himself Jeffery Deaver had the enviable task of selecting from the thousands of stories written over the past one hundred years those which best represented the classic form, as well as the justly celebrated authors whose ironic twists and stunning payoffs left a lasting, vivid, and unnerving impression. The result is a triumph. In this ambitious anthology you’ll revel in the sardonic, overtly amoral plotting of Patricia Highsmith. You’ll rediscover the strangely poignant and surprising...

This collections of eleven crime/mystery stories, with an introduction by the author, contains such classics as Dark Muse, False Idols, The Man in the Long Black Sedan and Dark Whispers.

Jack Dwyer, ex-cop turned amateur actor, is delighted when his agent lands him a role in a local production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The real drama starts, however, when Michael Reeves — the play’s angry, bullying director — is found murdered, and Dwyer’s friend Stephen Wade — a sweet has-been of an actor — is charged with the crime. Dwyer knows that Wade has been set up. But who did it? And why? Was it David Ashton, an apparent fortune-seeker and heir to the Bridges Theater by marriage; or Richard Keech, the handsome, pushy young actor who shared the woman whom the dead man loved? Or could it have been Anne Stewart — the aging actress who carries a secret as dark as that...