Download or read book The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries written by Otto Penzler and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Edgar Award-winning editor collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories—from Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy, to Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain. • “Anyone who cares about the best mystery writing of the past century and beyond would be lucky to receive this thick volume during the holidays." —The Washington Post 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 and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for--suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural—can be found in these pages. FEATURING: - Unscrupulous Santas - Crimes of Christmases Past and Present - Festive felonies - Deadly puddings - Misdemeanors under the mistletoe - Christmas cases for classic characters including Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe.

Download or read book The King of Infinite Space written by Lyndsay Faye and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lush, magical, queer, and feminist take on Hamlet in modern-day New York City, a neuro-atypical physicist, along with his best friend Horatio and artist ex-fiancé, Lia, are caught up in the otherworldly events surrounding the death of his father. Meet Ben Dane: brilliant, devastating, devoted, honest to a fault (truly, a fault). His Broadway theater baron father is dead—but on purpose or by accident? The question rips him apart. Unable to face alone his mother's ghastly remarriage to his uncle, Ben turns to his dearest friend, Horatio Patel, whom he hasn't seen since their relationship changed forever from platonic to something...other. Loyal to a fault (truly, a fault), Horatio is on the first flight to New York City when he finds himself next to a sly tailor who portends inevitable disaster. And who seems ominously like an architect of mayhem himself. Meanwhile, Ben's ex-fiancé, Lia, sundered her from her loved ones thanks to her addiction recovery and torn from her art, has been drawn into the fold of three florists from New Orleans—seemingly ageless sisters who teach her the language of flowers, and whose magical bouquets hold both curses and cures. For a price. On one explosive night these kinetic forces will collide, and the only possible outcome is death. But in the masterly hands of Lyndsay Faye, the story we all know has abundant surprises in store. Impish, captivating, and achingly romantic, this is Hamlet as you've never seen it before.

Download or read book When Christmas Comes written by Andrew Klavan and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Wall Street Journal holiday gift book selection A sleuthing English teacher will need a Christmas miracle to prove a condemned man innocent in this "terrific holiday-themed novel" (Publishers Weekly Starred Review) from Edgar Award-winner Andrew Klavan. Colorful Christmas lights dapple the family homes in the idyllic lakeside town of Sweet Haven when Jennifer Dean, a young librarian at the local elementary school, is brutally murdered. There are witnesses and her boyfriend Travis Blake confesses to the crime… but something doesn’t quite add up. Blake is a third generation Army Ranger, awarded the Silver Star for his heroism in Afghanistan—how could a beloved son of this tight-knit burgh commit such a grisly deed? As a community of military families a few miles down the road from an Army base, no one in Sweet Haven wants to investigate a war hero like Blake, not even the top brass at the police department. In steps Cameron Winter, a rugged and lonesome English professor haunted by the ghosts of his own Christmas past, whose former lover asks him to prove Blake innocent. The Sweet Haven murder reverberates in his mind, echoing a horrific yuletide memory from his youth, and Winter knows there are darker powers at play here than a simple domestic dispute. If he can solve this small-town mystery, just maybe he can find peace from his inner demons as well. The thirty-sixth novel by two-time Edgar Award winner Andrew Klavan, When Christmas Comes is a seasonal tale of tradition, family, and murder; its chilling twists are best experienced curled up beside a burning Yule log.

Download or read book Bibliomysteries written by Otto Penzler and published by Pegasus Crime. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Specially commissioned by the Mysterious Bookshop, the “bibliomysteries” in this unique collection feature original stories by the genre’s most distinguished authors: Ian Rankin, Thomas Perry, Joyce Carol Oates, Megan Abbott, and Elizabeth George. If you like mysteries and you like books, what could be better than combining both worlds, with mysteries set against a background involving books? This collection of crime for bibliophiles includes stories about rare books, bookshops, libraries, manuscripts, magical books, collectors—in short, the wonderful universe that makes this precious object we all love so important and priceless. Ian Rankin sets his tale of the lost original manuscript of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the legendary Paris bookshop Shakespeare & Co., while F. Paul Wilson offers a book with remarkable powers. Joyce Carol Oates portrays an overly ambitious dealer in mystery fiction, while James Grady has the “Condor” working in the Library of Congress. Ste- phen Hunter tells a previously unknown story of Alan Turing set during World War I—involving a book that could change the history of the world—and Peter Lovesey writes about a box full of Agatha Christie titles that just may be priceless. Carolyn Hart’s story is about an astonishing inscription in a book, while Megan Abbott and Denise Mina add their Edgar-nominated stories to this stellar collection. Whether your taste is for the traditional mystery, something a little more hard-boiled, or the bizarre and humorous tale, you will find exactly your cup of tea in this outstanding collection of fifteen stories by the most distinguished mystery writers working today. Including stories by: Peter Lovesey, F. Paul Wilson, Lyndsay Faye, Bradford Morrow, R. L. Stine, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Perry, Elizabeth George, Carolyn Hart, Megan Abbott, Stephen Hunter, Denise Mina, James Grady, Ian Rankin, and James W. Hall.

Download or read book Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop written by Otto Penzler and published by Vanguard Press. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year, for the past seventeen years, Mysterious Bookshop proprietor Otto Penzler has commissioned an original Christmas story by a leading suspense writer. These stories were then produced as pamphlets, just 1,000 copies, and given to customers of the bookstore as a Christmas present. Now, all seventeen tales have been collected in one volume, showcasing the talents of: Charles Ardai Lisa Atkinson George Baxt Lawrence Block Mary Higgins Clark Thomas H. Cook Ron Goulart Jeremiah Healy Edward D. Hoch Rupert Holmes Andrew Klavan Michael Malone Ed McBain Anne Perry S. J. Rozan Jonathan Santlofer Donald E. Westlake Some of these stories are humorous, others suspenseful, and still others are tales of pure detection, but all of them together make up a charming collection and a perfect Christmas gift for all ages.

Download or read book Don t Know Tough written by Eli Cranor and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD WINNER OF THE PETER LOVESEY FIRST CRIME NOVEL CONTEST Friday Night Lights gone dark with Southern Gothic; Eli Cranor delivers a powerful noir that will appeal to fans of Wiley Cash and Megan Abbott. In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension. Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul. Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs.

Download or read book The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries written by Otto Penzler and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 1439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler—“detective fiction’s best editor and champion” (The Washington Post)—returns with a new anthology of exhilarating mysteries, assembling Victorian society's lords and ladies and most miserable miscreants Behind the velvet curtains of horsedrawn carriages and amid the soft glow of the gaslights are the detectives and bobbies sniffing out the safecrackers and petty purloiners who plague everything from the soot-covered side streets of London to the opulent manors of the countryside. With his latest title in the Big Book series, Otto Penzler is cracking cases and serving up the most thrilling, suspenseful Victorian mysteries. This collection brings together incredible stories from Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Guy de Maupassant among other legendary writers of the grand era of the British Empire. So brush off your dinner jackets and straighten out your ball gowns for these exciting, glitzy mysteries. A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL

Download or read book Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen written by Vicki Delany and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Rudolph, New York, it’s Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone’s holiday cheer in the first Year-Round Christmas mystery. As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoe-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town. Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…

Download or read book Shoot the Moonlight Out written by William Boyle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunting crime story about the broken characters inhabiting yesterday's Brooklyn, this is the new novel from modern master of neo-noir William Boyle. An explosive crime drama, Shoot the Moonlight Out evokes a mystical Brooklyn where the sidewalks are cracked, where Virgin Mary statues tilt in fenced front yards, and where smudges of moonlight reflect in puddles even on the blackest nights. Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it’s dumb and harmless until it’s too late to think otherwise. Then there’s Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighborhood wrongs through acts of violence. A simple mission to strong-arm a Bay Ridge con man, Max Berry, leads him to cross paths with a tragedy that hits close to home. Fast forward five years: June 2001. The summer before New York City and the world changed for good. Charlie French is a low-level gangster-wannabe trying to make a name for himself. When he stumbles onto a bowling alley locker stuffed with a bag full of cash, he brings it to his only pal, Max Berry, for safekeeping while he cleans up the mess surrounding it. Bobby Santovasco, with no real future mapped out—and the big sin of his past shining brightly in his rearview mirror—has taken a job working as an errand boy for Max Berry. On a recruiting run for Max’s Ponzi scheme, Bobby meets Francesca Clarke, born in the neighborhood but an outsider nonetheless. They hit it off. Bobby gets the idea to knock off Max’s safe so he and Francesca can escape Brooklyn forever. Little does he know what Charlie French has stashed there. Meanwhile, Bobby’s former stepsister, Lily Murphy, is back home in the neighborhood after college, teaching a writing class in the basement of St. Mary's church. She's also being stalked by her college boyfriend. One of her students is Jack Cornacchia. When she opens up to him about her stalker, Jack decides to take matters into his own hands. A riveting portrait of lives crashing together at the turn of the century, Shoot the Moonlight Out is tragic and tender and funny and strange. A sense of loss is palpable—what has been lost and what will be lost—and Boyle’s characters face down old ghosts with grim determination, as ripples of consequence radiate in dangerous directions.

Download or read book The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year written by Lee Child and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Wall Street Journal holiday 2021 pick A Suspense Magazine Best Book of the Year Lee Child selects the twenty best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Stephen King, Sara Paretsky, and many more. Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international bestseller Lee Child has selected the twenty most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume. Includes stories by: Alison Gaylin David Morrell James Lee Burke Joyce Carol Oates Martin Edwards Sara Paretsky Stephen King Sue Grafton (with a new, posthumously-published work!) And many more!

Download or read book Christmas Cow Bells written by Mollie Cox Bryan and published by Kensington Cozies. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first novel in Mollie Cox Bryan’s brand new mystery series, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains, will keep you guessing until the cows come home . . . Christmas is a time for new beginnings, so after her big breakup, Brynn MacAlister takes the gouda with the bad. With her three Red Devon cows, she settles in bucolic Shenandoah Springs, eager for a new life as an organic micro-dairy farmer and cheese-maker. Then her dear cow Petunia’s bellows set the whole town on edge. But it isn’t until Brynn’s neighbor, Nancy, dies in a mysterious fire that her feelings about small town life begin to curdle . . . It seems some folks were not happy with Nancy’s plan to renovate the Old Glebe Church. But is a fear of change a motivation for murder? As a newcomer, Brynn can’t ignore the strange events happening just on the other side of her frosty pasture—and soon on her very own farm. Suddenly Christmas doesn’t feel so festive as everyone demands she muzzle sweet Petunia, and Brynn is wondering if someone wants to silence her—for good . . . Praise for Mollie Cox Bryan’s mysteries “A playful charmer!” —Woman’s World on No Charm Intended “Scrapbookers and hobby cozy fans will enjoy this delightful holiday escape.” —Library Journal on A Crafty Christmas “A font of ingenuity . . . superb entertainment.” —Mystery Scene magazine on Scrapbook of Secrets

Download or read book The Convivial Codfish written by Charlotte MacLeod and published by Overamstel Uitgevers. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At Christmastime in Boston, a thief targets the local scrooge The angry old men of the Comrades of the Convivial Codfish club celebrate yuletide doing what they do best: eating, drinking, and greeting the season of giving with a spirited “bah, humbug!” Though well past sixty, Jem Kelling is a relative infant compared to some of the club’s elder statesmen, and he has waited decades to host their annual Christmas scowl. And during his first evening as Exalted Chowderhead, he is thrilled to find the wine abundant, the chowder superb, and the humbugs as lusty as ever. But as the night winds down, Jem is horrified to find that the ceremonial Codfish necklace has vanished—right off of his neck! His nephew-in-law, art investigator Max Bittersohn, is convinced his new uncle was the victim of a practical joke. But when the old man takes a hip-snapping tumble, Max is forced to conclude that one of the scrooges is trying to perpetrate a deadly Christmas jeer.

Download or read book Targeted written by Stephen Hunter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "After being accused of reckless endangerment and forced to answer to the U.S. Congress, master sniper Bob Lee Swagger must protect political hostages in a once-in-a-lifetime standoff"--

Download or read book The Christmas Mystery written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1996 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joachim discovers a magic Advent calendar which contains the story of a little girl who traveled through time to be present at the birth of Jesus.

Download or read book The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps written by Otto Penzler and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2008-12-24 with total page 1170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biggest, the boldest, the most comprehensive collection of Pulp writing ever assembled. Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train—a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best. Including: • Three stories by Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett. • Complete novels from Carroll John Daly, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective, and Fredrick Nebel, one of the masters of the form. • A never before published Dashiell Hammett story. • Every other major pulp writer of the time, including Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and many many more of whom you’ve probably never heard. • Three deadly sections–The Crimefighters, The Villains, and Dames–with three unstoppable introductions by Harlan Coben, Harlan Ellison, and Laura Lippman Featuring: • Plenty of reasons for murder, all of them good. • A kid so smart–he’ll die of it. • A soft-hearted loan shark’s legman learning–the hard way–never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger. • The uncanny “Moon Man” and his mad-money victims.

Download or read book We Wish You a Murderous Christmas written by Vicki Delany and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A grinch is spoiling the holiday cheer and causing fear in the second Year-Round Christmas mystery from the author of Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen... It’s Christmastime three hundred sixty-five days a year in Rudolph, New York, and as Christmas Day approaches, shop owner Merry Wilkinson is enjoying a rare evening off at the Yuletide Inn when she runs into owners Grace and Jack Olsen. With Jack's health failing, Merry is relieved to hear that his son Gord will be taking over the day-to-day running of the Inn. But then Gord reveals that his new plans have no room for Christmas at the Inn, and Merry and the other shopkeepers start to fret about the effect a bland franchise hotel could have on their livelihoods. When Gord is found stabbed to death, there’s an entire town of potential suspects—and it’s up to Merry to find whoever brought homicide home for the holidays...

Download or read book The Yards written by A. F. Carter and published by Aries Book. This book was released on 2023-02-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bridget O'Rourke just wanted to blow off some steam. She never expected to be accused of murder. The rundown town of Baxter doesn't have a lot going for it, but there's always somewhere for single mother Bridget O'Rourke to cut loose and forget about her life. All she wanted was to put aside worried thoughts of her daughter, Charlie, and find a handsome stranger to spend the night with.She never expected to be accused of murder.Now Bridget is in deep trouble. She's just woken up in a dark hotel room with a strange man she can't seem to rouse, and is surrounded by money and guns.When the dead body is discovered with a bullet through its forehead, Officer Delia Mariola is one of the first on the scene. She knows the victim is connected to the mob, but something feels off - all signs point to a pick-up gone wrong. Which means that all signs point to Bridget.Suspenseful, thrilling and unpredictable, The Yards is a dark mystery with two unforgettable women at its core.Reviewers on The Yards:'A breathless suspenser that's also a painfully acute evocation of the wrong side of the tracks' Kirkus 'Another impressive effort from Carter' Publishers Weekly