Steph Cha, a rising star who brings a fresh perspective as series editor, takes the helm of the new The Best American Mystery and Suspense, with best-selling crime novelist Alafair Burke joining her as the first guest editor."Crime writers, forgive the pun, are killing it right now creatively," writes guest editor Alafair Burke in her introduction. "It was difficult--painful even--to narrow this year's Best American Mystery and Suspense to only twenty stories." Spanning from a mediocre spa in Florida, to New York's gritty East Village, to death row in Alabama, this collection reveals boundless suspense in small, quiet moments, offering startling twists in the least likely of places. From a powerful response to hateful bullying, to a fight for health care, to a gripping desperation to vote, these stories are equal parts shocking, devastating, and enthralling, revealing the tension pulsing through our everyday lives and affirming that mystery and suspense writing is better than ever before. The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021includes JENNY BHATT- GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD- GABINO IGLESIAS- AYA DE LEON- LAURA LIPPMAN DELIA C. PITTS- ALEX SEGURA- FAYE SNOWDEN- LISA UNGER and others

Martin Cruz Smith's "masterful" ("USA TODAY") and "irresistible" ("People") "New York Times" bestseller and "Washington Post" notable book of the year: Arkady Renko must connect the dots among a Russian journalist's mysterious death, corrupt politicians, murderous gangsters, and brazen bureaucrats.
Arkady Renko, one of the iconic investigators of contemporary fiction, has survived the cultural journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russia, only to find the nation as obsessed with secrecy and brutality as was the old Communist dictatorship. In "Tatiana," the melancholy hero unravels a mystery as complex and dangerous as modern Russia itself.
The reporter Tatiana Petrovna falls to her death from a sixth-floor window in Moscow the same week that a mob billionaire is shot and buried with the trappings due a lord. The trail leads to Kaliningrad, a Cold War "secret city" that is separated by hundreds of miles from the rest of Russia. The more Arkady delves into Tatiana's past, the more she leads him into a surreal world of wandering sand dunes, abandoned children, and a notebook written in the personal code of a dead translator. Finally, in a lethal race to uncover what the translator knew, Renko makes a startling discovery that draws him still deeper into Tatiana's past--and, paradoxically, into Russia's future, where bulletproof cars, poets, corruption of the Baltic Fleet, and a butcher for hire combine to give Kaliningrad the "distinction" of having the highest crime rate in Russia.
More than a mystery, "Tatiana" is Martin Cruz Smith's most ambitious and politically daring novel since "Gorky Park." It is a story rich in character, black humor, and romance, with an insight that is the hallmark of a writer "The" "New York Times" has called "endlessly entertaining and deeply serious... not merely] our best writer of suspense, but of one of our best writers, period."

From the beginning, Jim Thompson knew he was going to catch hell no matter what he did. And during a childhood spent at the mercy of a father whose schemes put him on the wrong side of the law as often as the right, and a grandfather who knew the bad parts of town like the back of his hand, young Jim learned sin better than any writer had before.
From his rabble-rousing adolescencein the American Midwest, to wasted teenage years in the seedy underbelly of the hotel industry, to Thompson's chilling encounter with the real-life inspiration of THE KILLER INSIDE ME, BAD BOY offers a fascinating glimpse at the formative years of the man who would become one of the most famous authors of modern American Noir, in the autobiography-as-novel that follows the birth of the legend himself in the signature style Thompson made famous.

'Unputdownable...a high-octane, emotional page-turner.' Bestselling author Louise Douglas.'A must read- highly original, impossible to put down, tense, dark, absolutely riveting.' Mary Grand'Suspense at its best, set against the stunning backdrop of Holy Island. I loved it!' Amanda James'A well plotted thriller that is dark and deliciously twisted!' Keri Beevis 'A chillingly vivid thriller that keeps you hooked to the very end. Unputdownable!' Carol Wyer Does a killer's blood run in the family?Lexi Jakes thought she could run from her past...she was wrong. Because when her biological mother is found dead, with all the same hallmarks of her own serial killer father, Lexi knows someone is out for revenge, and that she and her small daughter, Isla, could be next. Determined to protect Isla, Lexi travels back to Lindisfarne, the small remote island where she grew up. There, cut off from the mainland, Lexi hopes they'll both be safe. But as the tide comes in and the causeway slowly closes, Lexi's greatest fear comes true: now they are trapped with no way out. Lexi will do anything to save her daughter...she is the serial killer's girl after all.

Six friends gather at a country house for a birthday weekend. They decide to play a game.

All six names go in a hat. Choose two, and imagine one murdering the other. Write it down. Type it up. Read it out.

Points are given for making the murders sound convincing.

Of course, when given such a task, it’s only natural to use what you know. Secrets. Grudges. Affairs.

But once you’ve put it in a story, that secret is out.

So with each fictional murder, someone gets a motive for a real one.

Which leads to the most important question:

When a real murder comes, will you be able to spot it in time?

From bestselling author Patrick McManus comes the first mystery starring Blight County sheriff, Bo Tully which Kirkus Reviews called "one of the most entertaining debuts in years."Bo Tully, sheriff of Blight County, Idaho--and a fellow who dropped twenty pounds on Atkins--had been thinking about asking out Jan Whittle, his grade-school sweetheart. Problem is, he's already promised to celebrate his dad's seventy-fifth birthday with him. Thwarted romance proves to be the least of Bo's problems, however, when a dead body turns up on Batim Scragg's ranch. Forced to put on his sleuthing hat, Bo finds himself faced with a whole slew of possible suspects. And what quickly becomes apparent is that, while the sheriff's investigative methods may not exactly be legal, they are, for better or worse, The Blight Way. A bestselling author with more than two million books in print, the curmudgeonly wit Patrick F. McManus delivers a page-turning mystery filled with mirth and misadventure set in hook-and-bullet territory.

'"I should imagine this was murder, too, because it would be very difficult to build yourself into a heap of sandbags and then die..."' In the blackout conditions of a wintry London night, amateur sleuth Agnes Kinghof and a young air-raid warden have stumbled upon a corpse stowed in the walls of their street's bomb shelter. As the police begin their investigation, the night is interrupted once again when Agnes's upstairs neighbour Mrs Sibley is terrorised by the sight of a grisly pig's head at her fourth-floor window. With the discovery of more sinister threats mysteriously signed 'Pig-sticker', Agnes and her husband Andrew - unable to resist a good mystery - begin their investigation to deduce the identity of a villain living amongst the tenants of their block of flats. A witty and lighthearted mystery full of intriguing period detail, this rare gem of Golden Age crime returns to print for the first time since its publication in 1943.

A lost novel from the golden age of crime, published for the very first time. It happened on a dark and misty night; the night of the ball at The Prince's Hall, Fordings. Abuzz with rumours surrounding the disappearance of Rosemary Reeve on the eve of last year's ball, the date proves ill-fated again when two homebound partygoers, Nick and Dilys, come to a swerving halt before a corpse on the road. Arriving at the scene to the news that Nick has been attacked after telephoning for the police, Inspector Turner suspects there may be more to the case than deadly accident. It's not long before Waring of the local C.I.D. is drawn into the investigation, faced with the task of unravelling an increasingly tangled knot of misleading alibis and deep-rooted local grievances. Written in the last years of the author's life, this previously unpublished novel is a tribute to Lorac's enduring skill for constructing an ingenious puzzle, replete with memorable characters and gripping detective work. This edition also includes an introduction by the CWA Diamond Dagger Award-winning author Martin Edwards.