Showing results by narrator "Emily Sutton-Smith" in All Categories

Lee Child selects the 20 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 best seller Lee Child has selected the 20 most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it’s what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt—kill or be killed. Here are fifteen all-new stories of such “close encounters,” written by many of today’s most extraordinary authors. Set during the events of all four Alien films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe’s most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing—one way or another.

A man is savagely murdered outside Portland, and Detective Mason Callahan finds blood-spatter evidence that tells a troubling story. Files reveal the murder victim, Reuben Braswell, was a radical conspiracist. In his home, investigators find pages of diatribes against law enforcement as well as ties to Mason’s fiancée, FBI special agent Ava McLane. The victim was her informant - and had strong reasons to be paranoid.

Gina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom. With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake.

When Detective Rebecca North left her rural hometown, she vowed never to return. Her father’s apparent suicide has changed that. The official report is that retired cop Noah North shot himself, knocked over a lantern, and set his isolated cabin ablaze. But Rebecca cannot believe he killed himself. To prove it, she needs the help of Ash Haugen, the man she left behind. But Rebecca and Ash share more than broken hearts. Something darker lies between them, and the investigation is stirring it back to life.

Tracy Crosswhite has spent 20 years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House - a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder - is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.

It's summer on the Jersey Shore. Children play on the beach. Husbands are off working in the city. And the surf echoes in the night. Here, in this perfect place, a serial killer has no worries in the world - except choosing the next victim. Cam Hastings has come to Long Beach Island with her teenage daughter and the hope that maybe she can save her failed marriage. Cam has never stopped loving her husband, Mike, nor has she been able to outrun her flaws and demons - a vanished mother, a lost sister, and the ugly visions she has of missing children.

A captivating woman with blue eyes and big dreams, Emily was engaged to a man whose touch left her aching for something more. Tom, the handsome new man in town, was her father's rival in business, and challenged her heart's destiny with a single, stolen kiss. Whenever they met, sparks flew. Until she showed him how tender she could be, and he showed her how true passion could feel. Until they both realized the importance of taking vows with someone you really, truly love.

Gwen Proctor escaped her serial-killer husband and saved her family. What she can’t seem to outrun is his notoriety. Or the sick internet vigilantes still seeking to avenge his crimes. For Gwen, hiding isn’t an option. Not when her only mission is to create a normal life for her kids. But now, a threatened woman has reached out. Marlene Crockett, from the remote town of Wolfhunter, is panicked for herself and her daughter. When Gwen arrives in the small, isolated rural community, Marlene is already dead - her own daughter blamed for the murder.

Detective Tracy Crosswhite has agreed to look into the disappearance of investigative reporter Lisa Childress. Solving the cold case is an obsession for Lisa’s daughter, Anita. So is clearing the name of her father, a prime suspect who became a pariah. After twenty-five years, all Anita wants is the truth—no matter where it leads.

Standing in the church outside of the city, Brie is still in shock. She has a brother, a twin. She isn't alone after all.... Her world is changing fast. And soon, it'll be her turn. As her powers begin to manifest and her training begins, Brie finds herself trying to juggle her changing body with her mission. A mission that she doesn't truly understand. Soon, however, the truth of what she's been tasked to do will dawn. And as another attack from the Fanatics rocks the city, Brie finds herself drawn into making a terrible choice.

It's 1998, and for years the old First Bank of Cleveland has sat abandoned, perfectly preserved, its secrets only speculated on by the outside world. Twenty years before, amid strange staff disappearances and allegations of fraud, panicked investors sold Cleveland's largest bank in the middle of the night, locking out customers and employees and thwarting a looming federal investigation. In the confusion that followed, the keys to the vault's safe-deposit boxes were lost.

The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister's killer put behind bars. Now she's returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape. Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town's revitalization.

Detective Tracy Crosswhite has a skill, and a soft spot, for tackling unsolved crimes. Having lost her own sister to murder at a young age, Tracy has dedicated her career to bringing justice and closure to the families and friends of victims of crime. So when Jenny, a former police academy classmate and protégé, asks Tracy to help solve a cold case that involves the suspicious suicide of a Native American high school girl forty years earlier, Tracy agrees.

Eighteen-year-old Brie Melrose is just a normal girl living in Outer Haven with the rest of her kind. Growing up in an orphanage, Brie never knew her parents, and her life was always destined to be simple. One day, a routine job turns into something much more, and Brie finds herself under the watchful eye of the Savants, the highest order of the Enhanced, blessed with supreme intellect and who consider emotions to be pointless. Soon, as threats she never even knew existed begin to close in, Brie learns that her world, and the city of Haven, isn't quite what she thought it was.

In 1978, Laurie Strode survived an encounter with Michael Myers, a masked figure who killed her friends and terrorized the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, on Halloween night. Myers was later gunned down, apprehended, and committed to Smith's Grove State Hospital. For forty years, memories of that nightmarish ordeal have haunted Laurie and now Myers is back once again on Halloween, having escaped a routine transfer, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

Months after discovering the mastermind behind her own kidnapping, Detective Jude Fontaine is dealing with the past the only way she knows how: by returning to every dark corner of it. But it’s a new, escalating series of mass slayings that has become her latest obsession at Homicide. At first, Jude and her partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, can see no pattern to the seemingly random methods, the crime scenes, or the victims - until they’re approached by a brilliantly compulsive math professor.

A boy’s frozen body is found trapped in the ice of a Minneapolis lake. The horrifying discovery leads Detective Jude Fontaine and her partner, Uriah Ashby, to more bodies in the ice, all of twelve-year-old boys missing for twenty years. Then, in one of the worst blizzards the city has ever seen, a four-year-old is abandoned on Jude’s doorstep. The child can’t tell them where he’s from, who his parents are, or how he got there. He doesn’t even know his name. But in his unspoken language, Jude reads something horrifying - a connection to the dead boys.

Teaming up with New York Times best-selling author Jeffery Deaver, Suspense Magazine offers up a nail-biting anthology titled Nothing Good Happens After Midnight. This thrilling collection consists of 13 original short stories representing the genres of suspense/thriller, mystery, sci-fi/fantasy, and more.

The case is that of a missing girl, last seen getting into a truck with a stranger before disappearing. Gwen has a reputation for finding those who are lost, but this time something is wrong. Her instincts are off, and every clue she uncovers only raises more doubts, not just about the missing girl and the circumstances of her disappearance, but also about the fragile safety Gwen’s created for her family.