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Arresting Short Mystery Fiction
At the cutting edge of crime fiction, Mystery Magazine presents original short stories by the world’s best-known and emerging mystery writers. The stories we feature in our monthly issues span every imaginable subgenre, including cozy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humor, and historical mysteries. Evocative writing and a compelling story are the only certainty.

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1
Mar
Two coders have a million-dollar idea: an app that enables armchair sleuths to crack unsolved murders on their phones. Just before they launch the app, an armed intruder breaks in. Could he be one of the killers?
By David Krugler

1
Mar
Amber is a chilly beauty who is not only looking for a prince but expects one to preform some difficult and dangerous task to win her. Such an occasion arises, and to the narrator's surprise, murder follows.
By Janice Law

1
Mar
Sent to Ankara to save a missing CIA source, Levon Grace finds himself at dinner with one of Turkey's most senior intelligence officials, who has a story to tell and a deadline to keep.
By Peter W. J. Hayes

1
Mar
Book club members - long-time friends - are inspired by their favorite fictions to manage their lives.
By Victor Kreuiter

1
Mar
Detective S.R. Jefferson senses foul play behind a country gold legend’s conveniently unsurprising heart attack. The path to police glory runs through a squabbling family, a party barge, and a fateful hoedown showdown.
By Robert Mangeot

1
Mar
A work release program offers an inmate a long-awaited opportunity to start over in life. His past, however, has other plans.
By Leland Neville

1
Mar
Mystery writer Sheryl Case decides to murder her demanding writing partner, Myra Borne, and go it alone.
By Richard Ciciarelli

1
Mar
A down-on-his-luck dishwasher is mugged at gunpoint by the most famous movie star in the world.
By Paul Ryan O'Connor

1
Feb
A SWAT team in Maryland prepares to deliver a load of marijuana and capture the recipients. What could possibly go wrong? More than you can imagine.
By Robert Lopresti

1
Feb
The best laid plans of mice or men often go awry. Can a couple of determined young women do any better?
By John H. Dromey

1
Feb
Eleanor and Felix board the Canadian Flyer, a special Christmas-in-July Literary Rail Journey and find themselves in the middle of a book theft farce.
By Dan Crosby

1
Feb
Just about everyone in the country knew that aside from Lizzie Borden, Bridget Sullivan was the most important witness in the case.
By Kathleen Ford

1
Feb
An old man, a dog, and a fatal accident on a steep and winding trail may not be quite what you get.
By Jillian Grant Shoichet

1
Feb
A regular business dispute over a border radio station turns out to be a love triangle, with private eye Marteens on the fourth corner.
By Pete Barnstrom

1
Feb
Benny needs a new girlfriend, and she can’t be just anyone. At an opportune time, in a moment of recognition, he meets his match in a test of gamesmanship and skill.
By V.S. Kemanis

1
Feb
A beloved policeman in an Irish hamlet gives chase to a jealous, and armed, husband, on the hunt for the alleged paramour who made off with his wife.
By William J. Demorascki

1
Jan
In his small Nebraska town, Jake Brown sits on his porch and watches the world go by. When he begins to notice anomalies in the passing scene, though, his observations lead to the solution to multiple murders....
By Arend Smits

1
Jan
While awaiting his assignment, a hitman has a potentially life-changing encounter.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Jan
In 1925 Bavaria, Rein Werner seizes a chance to avenge his brother's death and sabotage a corrupt Third Reich official rising to power. He puts together a crack team of criminals to make it happen.
By Joslyn Chase

1
Jan
Two partners-in-crime are angling for their next assignment. Their rich client is supposed to meet them but why hasn't she shown up?
By Wynn Quon

1
Jan
Two larcenous country boys find out the hard way that there are cold cases and then there are ...
By April Kelly

1
Jan
Sitting in a Berlin café, an American tourist sees a woman he knew years ago in the Gulf. Back then, she got into trouble with the police and he lied for her, without understanding the cause of her predicament.
By Martin Rosenstock

1
Dec
It's the festive season and charity Santas are being mugged for their takings. Not of course that things are ever that simple as there appears to be more than mere theft behind the crimes.
By DJ Tyrer

1
Dec
Danny Douglas's job keeps him on the road--a blessing right now, because he's also on the run. When he rescues a hitchhiker from a swampful of alligators, he never dreams that he might've found the one person who might help him solve his problem.
By John M. Floyd

1
Dec
Virgil claims his life is in danger. Virgil concocts tall tales, so his best friend is dubious. But then Virgil’s wild story about a heist and murder causes events to spiral out of control in Cottonwood Falls in 1905.
By J. R. Holland

1
Dec
The scheme to demand ransom for a dead man leads a retired attorney to discover unsavory truths about his son and others.
By O.W. Hammond

1
Dec
A young man on the verge of leaving for college decides to find out whether a suicide was, in fact, a murder.
By David Shawn Klein

1
Dec
On the run from the law after a heist gone bad, Kevin Turner tries to take refuge at his cousin Bobby's rural property, which he thinks will be empty for the week... only to find that Bobby's home. Even worse, Bobby has just killed someone.
By Nick Kolakowski

1
Dec
A man is found in an isloated parking lot beside his car with a broken neck and no sign of struggle
By Matt J. McGee

1
Dec
A monk is laid out for burial at secluded monastery—with a knife in his chest!
By Paul A. Barra

1
Nov
An auto-mechanic and former car thief gets an opportunity from an unlikely source.
By C. W. Blackwell

1
Nov
In 1843 London, legendary--some say notorious--thief-taker Vicar Brekonridge encounters Athelney Cribbins, a law clerk and surreptitious sin-eater, who has a curious story to tell about a possible murder.
By Richard Helms

1
Nov
Harley is doing community service and trying to be a Good Boy. Then two bank robbers on the run break in and take a classmate hostage. What's a guy with a nose ring gonna do?
By Steve Liskow

1
Nov
Amelia, a 17-year old, heads South for spring break on a Greyhound bus and is lured into the world of crime in the Cleveland bus station.
By Siobhan Wright

1
Nov
A private eye’s search for a young girl’s stolen dog leads him to a shack at the edge of a swamp, where things are not as they appear, and where survival depends on determining who is friend, and who is foe.
By Edward Lodi

1
Nov
Fancy Mike was murdered last week on my watch. I was tasked to find out what happened. This was a job for a younger buck.
By Ken Derry

1
Nov
Zen master who can move through solid substances cons bank robbers.
By George Wilhite

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes faces his strangest case yet. A gang of foreigners whose agenda is unclear leads Holmes and Watson on a desperate search of the infamous London docks!
By Eric Cline

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, at the request of Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, investigate the murder of one woman and the apparent abduction (or has she, too, been murdered?) of another.
By Edward Lodi

1
Oct
Sherlock, Mycroft and John square off as they share a meal.
By Jon Matthew Farber

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes is drawn out of retirement by his most notable client yet—his brother Mycroft—to find a missing jeweled crown that disappeared from the Diogenes Club, an artifact that is not only valuable but holds the key to world peace!
By Michael Mallory

1
Oct
A Sherlock Holmes essay examining Point Of View.
By Bruce Harris

1
Oct
Jules Pfennig, former champion weasel warden and next door neighbor of Sherlock Holmes, recounts his first case.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson investigate the mysterious disappearance of a number of elderly men from boarding houses and homes for paupers. Holmes’s confrontation with “The Grim Reaper” nearly costs him his life.
By Edward Lodi

1
Sep
Retired layabout Junior Calandrillo is convinced he has hit the lottery. Buster Muller, the town's former police chief, is convinced Junior is the target of a scam.
By Kevin Egan

1
Sep
A teen boy and a stranger suspect his step-father of a series of murders. It will require the boy's nerdy obsession with Westerns to uncover the truth ...
By Ken Brosky

1
Sep
Jules Pfennig, erstwhile detective and next door neighbor to Sherlock Holmes, is drawn into a plot to murder an already dead woman.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Sep
A misanthrope tries to protect his property from a rapacious developer.
By Christine Eskilson

1
Sep
A failed comedian needs money for his family. He goes out on Halloween to do his own trick or treating. Scores big only to find out he's been tricked.
By Larry M. Keeton

1
Sep
Vermont DJ Jaye Jordan takes a page from Edgar Allen Poe and flushes out a murderer with a song when her priest friend is put in an ethical bind.
By Nikki Knight

1
Sep
Two bitter brothers squabble over their family's past and the long ago disappearance of a housemaid.
By Stephen Ross

1
Sep
A cozy mystery version of an old fairy tale told from a new perspective.
By Jeff Reynolds

1
Sep
Amanda is very close to her anarchic grandmother, Bev. When Bev realizes she has only a few months to live, Amanda suggests a shocking prank they can play on the rest of the family. But what lengths will Amanda go to make the joke work?
By Preston Lang

1
Aug
Stories of loyalty are nothing new. But it's still frightening what a mother will do.
By C.L. Cobb

1
Aug
An arsonist-for-hire is burning down vacant homes in a 1970s Chicago slum for a crooked landlord, who pockets insurance checks. Dapp, the landlord’s assistant, exposes the scheme to the fire department. But is Dapp really trying to stop the fir
By David Krugler

1
Aug
When Dubois can find no other free room on a stormy night in Odessa, he must lodge at a shadowed rooming house where few last the night.
By William Burton McCormick

1
Aug
A letter arrives for the Archivist, espousing the virtues of the incredible collection in intricate and alarmingly intimate detail.
By Arendse Lund

1
Aug
A noir story investigating a murder scene as two partners become increasingly suspicious of one another.
By Ewan A. Dougall

1
Aug
One of three men at a dinner at Winston Churchill's wartime retreat is a Nazi spy. But which one?
By Barton Paul Levenson

1
Aug
A ghost story with a spell-binding twist.
By Pablo Patiño

1
Aug
A bootlegger in 1940s Appalachia runs moonshine to support his young orphan cousin, but the appearance of a strange and dangerous criminal known as the Dead Man threatens to destroy everything and unearth an old secret.
By Ryan Michael Hines

1
Aug
Greta of Greta's Green Clean is asked to investigate after a body is found in the dumpster of a trailer court.
By Linda Norlander

1
Jul
On her honeymoon, her husband keeps delaying their departure for business while asking her to trust him. But as the days pass, the second Madame Toussaint wonders how well she knows her husband.
By Liv Strom

1
Jul
Charlie's team loses the softball championship game thanks to constant bad calls by the umpire. When that umpire is beaten to death with Charlie's baseball bat, Charlie realizes he'll have to clear his name without the help of the cops.
By Steve Liskow

1
Jul
A young woman in a Gulf country stops an assassination of a foreign leader. By doing so she saves her family's honor and safeguards her own prospects.
By Martin Rosenstock

1
Jul
In a city where it's tough even for the rats, one pulls off such a notable heist, the architect of the robbery becomes a dubious celebrity.
By Brian Silverman

1
Jul
Outlawy Blackheart Bart's three sons arrive in Dustville intent on killing the sheriff they accuse of killing their father. They kidnap the local schoolmarm to force the sheriff to a shootout with each of them. Love and justice triumph.
By Stan Dryer

1
Jul
In the haunting echoes of the Boomtown Rats' song, trouble ensues.
By Josh Pachter

1
Jul
Mystery novelist Lily Fontaine's most avid fan suspects that the author did not write her latest novel. Her conclusion -- Ms. Fontaine must have been murdered by her husband who is now impersonating his late wife in print.
By Dan Crosby

1
Jul
When her best friend from childhood, Chloe Ambrose Odeon, is murdered, P.I. Helen McCorkendale promises Chloe's daughter she'll find the killer.
By Cathi Stoler

1
Jun
DI Williamson and DC Page begin an investigation to find an entrepreneur who vanished without trace after visiting Carson’s Gymnasium.
By Paul A. Freeman

1
Jun
A self-ordained preacher, Samuel Harris, ministers to the lost and suffering, those not on the path of righteousness. His charge is to save those souls and deliver them to salvation, be they criminal or otherwise.
By Victor Kreuiter

1
Jun
A bad man is on the run, lost deep in the maze of Florida swamps and back roads. Unfortunately for him, whatever he's running from is nowhere near as bad as what he's about to run in to.
By Blu Gilliand

1
Jun
A pair of home invaders learn that things don't always work out for the best.
By Josh Pachter

1
Jun
Freelance mailman Mercury Carter finds himself in Toronto on a feel-good mission delivering an elderly woman's once-lost locket, when an alarming comment by the woman about her health leads him down a dark path of rescue.
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

1
Jun
Victoria Huptmann and her Border collie Maximillian spend winters driving Words on Wheels from RV park to RV park along the Texas coast, selling new and used books to Snowbirds escaping Midwestern winters. Then one of her customers is murdered.
By Michael Bracken

1
Jun
A package stolen off a doorstep in a small town keeps trading hands as a group of criminals try to track it down.
By Paul Vivari

1
Jun
Set at a Cajun State University: “Most of what we university police officers handle aren’t serious matters, then again, when I was NOPD, we got our share of ‘barking dog’ and ‘cat in a tree’ calls. But no baby cows chasing co-eds.”
By O'Neil De Noux

1
Jun
Holmes and Watson investigate a popular school teacher who turned to armed robbery.
By Martin Hill Ortiz and Keith Jones

1
May
Sugar mamas, black widows, and dishes best served cold.
By Alan Orloff

1
May
Kevin tell his dinner party guests about hypnogogia, a form of hallucination. One guest may be a little too interested ...
By Robert Lopresti

1
May
Sheriff Claire Williams is attending a funeral and is shocked when the coffin is accidentally dropped and pops open. There is a second body in with the deceased! She believes a crime was committed – possibly a murder - and sets out to prove it.
By Veronica Leigh

1
May
The murder of an artist is serious, but not calamitous--unless a relative of the new Doge is a suspect.
By Brandon Barrows

1
May
Danny and Jackson are trying out a new con scheme called Raising Money, which involves raising the denominations on existing currency. Ones turn into tens and tens turn into hundreds. All they need is a believer with extra cash.
By R. T. Lawton

1
May
What do revenge, murder, and horticulture all have in common? Former NIA agent, Simon Biggs, is about to find out when he enters The Conservatory.
By Linda Watkins

1
May
A young woman, apparently on a voyage of self-discovery, discovers the guilty party.
By Michael McGuire

1
Apr
For Josh Zuckerman, coming home for Passover is always a challenge, mostly because of his mother. This year was no different from other years---except this year, his mother has orchestrated an Exodus of her own.
By Jillian Grant Shoichet

1
Apr
Two sisters stumble over a dead body and uncover an old family secret which puts them in peril of their lives.
By Adrienne Stevenson

1
Apr
They say clothes make the man. What they don't say is that some clothes can make the man invisible, giving him the kind of power no tuxedo or ermine-trimmed cloak could ever achieve.
By April Kelly

1
Apr
A double cross over diamonds between a fence, a corrupt police detective and a house breaker.
By Richard Hallows

1
Apr
Fifteen years ago, Luke walked away from working as an enforcer for Freddie Bouca. But now Bouca is back and threatening to kill Luke’s wife if he doesn’t do Bouca one little favour…
By Marcelle Dubé

1
Apr
Washed-up pulp fictioneer Archie Echols harbors a decades-long grudge against silent film vamp Tam Hinkle. With nothing to lose, Archie packs up his Colt Walker .44 revolver and decides to pay Tam a visit.
By Richard Prosch

1
Apr
A courier loses a case of cut diamonds and has no memory of the theft.
By J.R. Lindermuth

1
Apr
A satirical noir tying together a missing pastor, a saloon sold in tax delinquency, and the second uranium rush in Utah. It's style resembles that of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 or Inherent Vice. I
By Nicolas Calcagno

1
Mar
The outlaw Gentleman Bert is proud of his reputation as a cold blooded killer. When he is brought to justice for killing a man in a stagecoach robbery, his reputation lives on after his death, thanks to a helpful entrepreneur.
By Stan Dryer

1
Mar
A private investigator in Post WWII Jersey City can’t accept the loss of his girlfriend. The gangster that stole her while he was overseas hires him to find her because she has gone missing.
By David Stier

1
Mar
A head of security at a casino takes an unlikely winner to his office to explain a murderous pattern he has been tracking.
By RE Carroll

1
Mar
A man decides to separate a Jeopardy! mega-winner from her cash but can't decide whether murder is the answer or the question.
By Jacqueline Freimor

1
Mar
When a widow and her young son are held hostage by a bank robber, they both know their chances for survival aren't good. What they don't know is that the thieves are only part of their problem.
By John M. Floyd

1
Mar
He got out of town quick, but now he's back with revenge on his mind.
By Anthony Kane Evans

1
Mar
Exigent circumstances persuade a fiercely independent private investigator to accept temporary employment with a big agency. Rather than become a team player, he puts his deductive skills to work in his own best interests and those of a mysterious c
By John H. Dromey

1
Mar
What to do and what to say when your not quite sure what happened.
By Victor Kreuiter

1
Feb
Phillipe, who lives alone in the Canadian wilderness, must come to terms with the violence of his past as he helps a man mauled by a bear.
By Mark Mrozinski

1
Feb
A tragedy in three acts: In which an ex-fighter is recruited to rescue a damsel, then discovers he's been deceived, and finally exacts his horrible revenge, all in the comfort of a neighborhood drinking establishment.
By Pete Barnstrom

1
Feb
A boy discovers that his family's sudden move to a rural community may have been to escape the mobsters who employed his father as an accountant. When a hit man disguised as a priest visits, the boy acts to save his family.
By Kevin Egan

1
Feb
A man’s search for his missing brother leads him to a seedy rural diner, a femme fatale, and a cemetery at night, where not all the dead bodies have headstones to mark their graves, and there’s always room for more.
By Edward Lodi

1
Feb
A small town mindboggler that finally ends with the artful murderer unintentionally exposed.
By E Senteio

1
Feb
A high school English teacher, caught stealing school funds, murders his accuser, then disposes of the body in a clever way, but things go horribly wrong.
By Douglas Soesbe

1
Feb
After hiring a man to kill his wife, things are finally looking up for David Rosten, but after a police detective pays him a visit one quiet morning, the retiree soon finds himself on the business end of a bizarre double-cross.
By Mike McHone

1
Feb
Blake had a perfect life until a financial audit threatens to expose his embezzlement. Murder is his best solution, but it doesn't turn out the way he hoped.
By Michael Allan Mallory

1
Feb
A young woman goes undercover to find her sister-gone-missing at a weight-loss retreat.
By Jessica Hwang

1
Jan
A bed-bound shamus attempts to solve the disappearance of an heiress in this classic noir.
By T.K. Howell

1
Jan
Movie industry, jealously, lookalikes, and one private detective caught up in it all in this classic noir with a twist. .
By Mia Dalia

1
Jan
Conrad was ordered to take charge of a homicide on his first shift as a detective, for a crime scene that made no sense. And just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, he met his new partner.
By A.E. Pittman

1
Jan
A dream interpreter makes his fortune conning clients out of their life savings, that is, until he becomes the victim.
By Delee Fromm

1
Jan
In this comic mystery, Tate and his friend Fred's night goes from bad to much worse, while searching for Tate's stolen Great Dane, Clarence.
By Peter Thompson

1
Jan
George has his hands full with his old harridan of an Aunt Georgina her dog, Pookie Poo. He's finally had enough.
By Rima S. Riedel

1
Jan
South Dakota. 1966. When twelve-year-old Virginia is farmed out to work for the Schultzes for the summer, her nasty habit collides with Mr. Schultz's secret.
By Vinnie Hansen

1
Jan
"Me and Suzy planned out everything, except that no caper follows the plan."
By C. Flynt

1
Dec
When a peculiar man is observed at the scene of several seemingly unrelated deaths, a jaded New York City police detective must uncover the dark connection between the stranger and the fatalities.
By Carl Tait

1
Dec
Set in the early 1950s, a bitter travelling vacuum salesman is attempting to try and sell the device to homes around central California. Though he fails at selling any, he discovers that his demonstrations are inadvertently sucking up a surprise.
By Ryan Uytdewilligen

1
Dec
A detective investigating the missing Von Radium tiara gets smacked on the head a few too many times to make any sense of things.
By Chris Bullard

1
Dec
When Grannie Forbes falls face first into the Christmas pudding, no one in the family is particularly sorry, but soon the questions begin. Did someone take a hand to ensure that this was her last Noel?
By Elizabeth Elwood

1
Dec
Private investigator Alonzo Probe is feeling pretty good on the eve of 1975. He’s had a financially lucrative first year as a full-time investigator. Driving home from his latest job, he spots a former lover fighting with a man.
By James A. Mallory

1
Dec
The holiday season is a wonderful time, but there's always someone who has to go and ruin everyone else's fun ...
By Brandon Barrows

1
Dec
Professor Moriarty convinces detective and next door neighbor to Sherlock Holmes to steal a precious jewel. Moriarty has an even more sinister goal in mind.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Nov
Danny Bluestone, a young Northern Ranger, is on a pilot project in Fort Frances. A local politician asks him to check out a break-in at a nearby ice fishing hut. He agrees and heads off with a new recruit on a fatal mission.
By M. H. Callway

1
Nov
PI Barry Pool passes on a job from a would-be client he finds smug and arrogant. When the guy dies in a hit-and-run, Pool is curious, and learns that his dislike for him was widely shared, including by his wife, who may have had him knocked off.
By Jim Courter

1
Nov
This is not a gothic novel. The house is sunny and beautiful. The newlyweds are in love. Everything is perfect.
By Merrilee Robson

1
Nov
Ace detective and next door neighbor to Sherlock Holmes, Jules Pfennig, is recruited to investigate his most baffling case yet—the mystery behind a miraculous church bell.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Nov
When the fellow members of the Strawberries Club ask Barnie Brewster for help covering their crimes, a new potentially profitable sideline is born.
By Ricky Sprague

1
Nov
During an annual ice fishing trip, an elderly ice fisher finds out who her friends are...and aren't.
By Allison Baxter

1
Nov
This is a story inspired by the subversive power of women. It ends violently (so that is a trigger warning) but speaks of the injustices women have been suffering in a world, a history, largely created and controlled by men.
By Jon M. Gluckman

1
Oct
A meeting of actors who portrayed Sherlock Holmes are visited by Caesar's sister.
By Ralph E. Vaughan

1
Oct
How a modern coin could be lodged within a six-hundred-year-old skeleton discovered in the Tower of London is a puzzle that taxes even the wits of Sherlock Holmes!
By Michael Mallory

1
Oct
Imagine a world where everybody is a character in a story written by somebody in another universe, a story that was not widely read. A Mad Hatter hires Shlomo Schwartz, the Kosher Detective, to clear his friend, Alice, accused of murder.
By Ira Nayman

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes investigates a threat to a young Basil Rathbone and his family, a threat that traces back to their time in South Africa.
By Gerard J Waggett

1
Oct
When a plucky assistant manager discovers a dead body at her Halloween-themed discount store, she investigates her coworkers and patrons in a race to stop the body count from rising further.
By Sarah Cameron

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson must discover the whereabouts of a stolen jade Buddha in order to prove the innocence of a man falsely accused of its theft.
By Edward Lodi

1
Oct
When a young man seeks revenge by playing the Headless Horseman in a small town's theatrical horse-riding tour, he stumbles upon a conspiracy more dangerous than his. Are superstitions to blame, or do the answers lie closer to home?
By Bryce Heckman

1
Oct
This is a classic cozy dying message murder mystery. Our amateur detective will bring the suspects together, unravel the clues , and expose the killer.
By Jon Matthew Farber

1
Oct
An understudy is a hopeless failure at murder. Until ...
By Mark S Bailen

1
Oct
Two young fatherless brothers play mystery games in a deserted shack until one dies. The remaining boy continues his sleuthing by purchasing a hunting knife at auction with potential deadly consequences, until a huge dog appears to befriend him.
By Mara Buck

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes, late in his life, is hired by Harry Houdini. Written imagining Conan Doyle writing with an axe to grind against Houdini!
By Greg Maughan

1
Oct
The Chief Of Police in small-town America reluctantly investigates the tragic death of the pitcher who struck the town’s hero out?
By Robert Lopresti

1
Oct
Few things are more annoying than when your spouse pulls all the blankets off you during a cold night. A cross between Joe Friday and Jacques Clouseau, pompous Detective Percale investigates the brazen theft of bedding from a bumbling victim.
By James R. Riffel

1
Oct
Being the next door neighbor to Sherlock Holmes has some difficulties: especially when you're a detective wanting to steal his clients.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Sep
A teenage girl in Classical Athens (5th century BC) solves a crime, and saves a life.
By Jenny Blackford

1
Sep
Combat medic Charlie Krill is in rehab, for just about everything. But he's sober now, and not about to let anyone take advantage of him.
By Peter W. J. Hayes

1
Sep
A neighbor's slip-and-fall lawsuit disrupts a ten year-old boy's idyllic summer vacations of baseball and fun with his best friend. When the neighbor is killed by electrocution, the boy's father comes under suspicion of murder.
By Michael Biehl

1
Sep
No one could understand why anyone would want to kill Bruce Finnerman with an explosive package. Then when it was discovered that the hit was a bizarre accident, investigation led to the confirmation that truth is stranger than murder.
By Michael Mallory

1
Sep
The Devil in Sister Jones is a satirical story of a possession and an exorcism, or is that really what happens?
By Beth Andrews

1
Sep
A woman moves into an apartment building and people start to die.
By K.L. Abrahamson

1
Sep
Chicago, July 1977: Two pool sharks, Meredith and Darren, think they'll score easy money when they walk into a bar and challenge two young men to doubles. But nothing is as it appears in this hustle . . .
By David Krugler

1
Aug
The Ortega brothers got far more than they bargained for when a Seminole cowboy came to the tiny Mexican hamlet of Matalo, claiming he wanted to buy cattle.
By Mark Mellon

1
Aug
Dutch Miller, tired of his life as a for-hire felon and retired in a small town on the Missouri/Iowa border, makes a simple mistake that sets in motion his undoing.
By Victor Kreuiter

1
Aug
A Victorian woman artist is commissioned to paint the portrait of an up-and-coming Member of Parliament by his colleagues. Unknown to her subjects, the artist is not only a talented portraitist but a uniquely successful assassin.
By Nina Wachsman

1
Aug
A hitman has only one chance to get into a medical study that might save his life: solve the murder of the son of the doctor in charge.
By Robert Lopresti

1
Aug
West Texas reporter Brianna Yamato investigates the death of a high school thespian. The dead girl seemed ordinary, but the drama in her real life was greater than anything on stage.
By Vicki Weisfeld

1
Aug
The richest man in the city is dead in mysterious circumstances and dead crooks are buying up real estate - and somebody doesn't want anyone digging into why.
By DJ Tyrer

1
Aug
A beautiful young trophy wife uses poison to choose between wealth and love.
By Marie Anderson

1
Jul
Driving a cold northern highway in an effort to reach her daughter who is in labor, Cass comes across a young woman running from her abusive boyfriend.
By Marcelle Dubé

1
Jul
Lady Winthrope is hosting the latest society dinner, and her beleaguered cook, Alice, has to feed surprise guests and still find time to sneak away to see her son--until the Home Secretary keels over dead before the marzipan tower is even served.
By Kelsey Hutton

1
Jul
Peg and Joe Donavon--such a sweet couple--moved in next door to Sarah Fernandes and proceeded to wreck her life by performing unsolicited favors. And as all the world knows, no good deed goes unpunished.
By Edward Lodi

1
Jul
A couple buy a house amid a crime scene
By Hunter Liguore

1
Jul
A cuckold concrete contractor dumps concrete onto his neighbor's model railroad -- a criminal act that uncovers two serial killers.
By George Guthridge

1
Jul
A somewhat-satirical story critiquing contemporary organizing/activism spaces, about a young woman seeking strange revenge and perhaps self worth after being harassed.
By Jackie Sherbow

1
Jul
When two out-of-town Toronto cops stop for dinner in an Italian bistro, they don't count on being witness to murder! Hijinks ensue when it turns out reluctant mob goddaughter Gina Gallo and her kooky cousin Nico are at the next table.
By Melodie Desmond

1
Jul
The proofreader at a headstone company investigates the death of a client.
By Mark Thielman

1
Jun
A NYC corpse actress is taken hostage with her old boyfriend and taps in to her roots to save herself and find she can play the role of perpetrator.
By Brigitte N. McCray

1
Jun
When a post-depression era private investigator takes on a hush-hush job in a high-rise hotel, he has to deal with misdeeds on the upper floors. Do those count as high crimes?
By John H. Dromey

1
Jun
At first, the break-in at Dr. Kulkarni's veterinary clinic looks like another salvo in Dr. K's war with local pet snatchers. But the missing dog is a celebrity, and the kidnappers' identity and motivations are not what anyone would think.
By Jess Faraday

1
Jun
Richard is living in denial as a fraud, making a living as a motivational speaker and professional coach. He has inherited his dead father's house and the secrets that come with it. Though he tries to hide it, the truth gets dug up, literally.
By Stanton McCaffery

1
Jun
Newlyweds encounter an unexpected and terribly annoying neighbor that requires some creative handling.
By Sherry Roberts

1
Jun
A gig driver delivers a surprising solution to a home invasion robbery and displays her talents for deduction.
By J.R. Parsons

1
Jun
When a Slip-and-Fall Guy tries his grift in the wrong family-themed restaurant, he becomes a very unwitting pawn in a battle between gangsters and feds.
By Ricky Sprague

1
May
Albert Seaton, an Australian visitor to London, checks in to the eccentric Palladium Club in Mayfair, using his reciprocal privileges from his own private club in Sydney. He's in England on business, and the business includes a sniper rifle.
By James Lincoln Warren

1
May
Harry is feeling a sense of urgency to identify the perpetrator in a recent murder case, but a shortage of suspects is proving to make it a difficult process.
By Wayne J. Gardiner

1
May
A small-town newspaperman struggles with the realization a deceased friend might have been be a long-sought-after serial killer.
By Don McLellan

1
May
A brilliant British private detective is forced back into solving mysteries.
By Arthur Davis

1
May
Beneath the toes, the sand. Beneath the sand, who knows? Detectorist Mitch Mitchell combs the sand, biding his time, looking for lost treasures. When a helpless friend of his gets arrested for murder, he investigates.
By Alan Orloff

1
May
All this poor homicide detective wants is a little time off and a quiet place to fish, but dead people just keep screwing with him.
By April Kelly

1
May
The bank heist is way off plan. Easton, the crew's fourth man and a died-in-the-wool bright sider, refuses to let a police stand-off get him down.
By Robert Mangeot

1
May
Tim Chadwick is a former cop just barely keeping a handle on his alcoholism. When a fellow barfly asks him for help recovering stolen property, it leads to encounter with the local gang and their fearsome enforcer.
By Joseph S. Walker

1
Apr
Somebody is killing old ladies who write haiku. Is it a poetry hater, or someone with a personal grudge? DS Vicky Wright and her sidekick, DC Miller, have to work out the clues in seventeen syllables.
By Sherryl Clark

1
Apr
In the near future a detective tries to save a girl from death, who is already legally dead.
By Craig H. Bowlsby

1
Apr
Life on the New York City streets is hard for Gus. When he gets a chance to make a quick buck, he takes it--only to find that nothing for him is ever easy.
By Jacqueline Freimor

1
Apr
Winston Stonecroft is murdered under impossible circumstances that dictate no one could have done it, yet someone in his house must have.
By Michael Allan Mallory

1
Apr
A little old lady loses her cool after her caregiver abandons her and takes a joy ride in her vintage Mustang. How far will the elderly woman go to exact revenge?
By Lida Sideris

1
Apr
Each year when the river freezes, the abandoned, bridgeless island fort is linked to the rest of the city, once again. And something lurking within the ruins is free to hunt and sate its hunger.
By Razvan-Gabriel Popa

1
Apr
A dying Bostonian orders his kin dug up and reburied. Cemetery superintendent Sumner Bascomb can't help wondering why.
By Robin Hazard Ray

1
Apr
Ignoring warnings that a hurricane is rapidly approaching, two thieves set out in a boat to pull off a heist on a remote island.
By Edward Lodi

1
Apr
A daffodil struggles to understand the nature of love.
By S.B. Watson

1
Mar
In the far future, professional thief and grifter Rali Ribhu seeks to unravel the mystery of a killer who seems to be targeting his relatives. He must team up with his sister Ypstall, an investigator regarded as the black sheep of the family.
By A.L. Sirois

1
Mar
The crew of a mining ship falls short of a safety inspector's standards.
By Josh Taylor

1
Mar
A hitman learns the art behind the kiss of death from a virtuoso.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Mar
Two newspaper reporters on assignment in the 1890s stumble onto a much bigger and more complicated story.
By John M. Floyd

1
Mar
An eccentric old millionaire bequeaths his fortune to anyone who can rise to a seemingly impossible challenge: kill him, prove it, and avoid being prosecuted.
By Jazz Lawless

1
Mar
An unfaithful wife with an unscrupulous lover believes she has committed the perfect crime.
By Diane A. Hadac

1
Mar
Alex is an unlicensed private eye and fixer for the denizens of LA's infamous early 80s punk scene. When a friend's sister goes missing several days after being violently attack, Alex and his righthand man Rad comb the LA underground for her.
By Kyle Decker

1
Mar
When a coworker's found dead in her mother's Samosa cafe in Sherman Oaks, Saira wonders if someone too close for comfort could be responsible.
By Mehnaz Sahibzada

1
Feb
A retired police detective wants to solve the one real mystery he ever ran into. A used bookshop, some diaries and the patrons who disappeared without a trace.
By Frank Oreto

1
Feb
Competition between childhood friends can be fun. But when the same friend wins time after time, the fun of it can fade ...
By Josh Pachter

1
Feb
Careful who you trust with the stash.
By Sean Melrose-Aukema

1
Feb
Being a private eye in this town is a dog's life.
By C. Flynt

1
Feb
A giant man who collects for a loan shark wakes up one morning and discovers he has somehow grown breasts and, to quote Seinfeld, they are spectacular.
By T.T. Trestle

1
Feb
A man disappears off the West Coast of Ireland while on a solo fishing trip. He is presumed dead. The family are looking forward to spending the inheritance but is everything as it seems?
By Con Thornbury

1
Feb
Shane Decker and two of his criminal cohorts sit in a darkened van parked in the dead space between streetlights, watching a large Victorian property and waiting for the moment they can break in and rob the place. But there's a surprise in store.
By Davin Ireland

1
Feb
Death rewrites the script when a group of actors rehearse before opening night.
By Edward Lodi

1
Feb
Pulling off a crime is tough anywhere. In a small town it can be downright dangerous.
By Ken Teutsch

1
Jan
When a bored family man and his adventurous pal find buried treasure, they try to sell it only to find themselves pitted against a criminal crew set on ripping them off. Can the two friends come away with something to show for their efforts?
By Daniel C. Bartlett

1
Jan
Anyone would be impressed by Paul Moore's luxurious home. Only Paul knows that it was built with dirty money, and only Paul understands how dirty he'll have to get to keep it.
By Joseph S. Walker

1
Jan
Some people just aren't meant for each other.
By Stephen D. Rogers

1
Jan
The small and remote settlement of Big Rock is in trouble. Its sheriff is dead, the town is ruled by two merciless killers, and there are no more heroes left in the West.
By John M. Floyd

1
Jan
To save a friend, Robert Doverman must find out who has gone to the trouble to counterfeit five-dollar bills, and how it all connects to a dead dancer with a fake name.
By Lamont A. Turner

1
Jan
Six ghostly women have vowed to avenge their deaths, but the arrival of a living comrade complicates the execution of their carefully laid plan.
By K.R. Segriff

1
Jan
Rick and Maggie are forced in a new direction, but it involves killing people.
By David Bart

1
Jan
A rural letter carrier solves a murder by taking notice of the mail he delivers.
By Gregory L. Norris

1
Jan
The quirky detective had run through all the standard questions. The vehicle's make and colour, the driver's description, the victim of the hit and run... But he had missed one very important question: Did you recognise the driver?
By Keith Brooke

1
Dec
Not much crime at Cajun State University until someone steals the big Christmas tree from campus. Retired New Orleans police detective Hunter Bourget, now a university cop has to find that tree (and who stole it).
By O'Neil De Noux

1
Dec
A woman doubts her reality as certain foods, which help with her chronic condition, keep vanishing from the fridge.
By Maura Yzmore

1
Dec
Jason Brockman has money troubles and no time to solve them. When he stumbles across the perfect extortion opportunity, what else is he supposed to do but take it? Of course, it's never that simple and there's always a problem you can't foresee...
By Brandon Barrows

1
Dec
Even the best plans get tripped up.
By Sharon Hart Addy

1
Dec
A policeman in a small Minnesota town investigates the death of a woman he'd known---and loved---when he was a child.
By Joseph Goodrich

1
Dec
Veronika convinces her young fiancé, Bert, that every Hungarian girl must have a present on Hungarian Christmas.
By Vicki Weisfeld

1
Dec
Casey Baxter seems to have a knack for finding dead bodies, and when she finds another - lying stabbed in the automated warehouse where she works - it’s the start of a very peculiar day...
By Steve Beresford

1
Dec
Wearing the Santa suit to Drake's Bar and Grill had been a joke. But after that night officer Paul Drazdzinski wouldn't laugh for years.
By Frank Oreto

1
Dec
To solve the murder of a Mafia boss at Christmastime, Detective Charlie Collins joins forces with a female detective who has plenty of mob connections. The twisted holiday traditions of local wiseguys lead them down a dark road decorated with death.
By Robert Jeschonek

1
Nov
Freelance mailman Mercury Carter travels to Des Moines, Iowa, to deliver a top-secret formula to an epidemiologist that could save thousands of lives, only to encounter people intent on intercepting the information—by force if necessary.
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

1
Nov
Gopher Hartman was an old-school private eye, or maybe a dropout. An independent thinker, he tended to go his own way in an effort to live up to his name.
By John H. Dromey

1
Nov
Drug dealers are disappearing in south Florida. It could be an unusually tidy turf war or something else. FBI agent Travis Tredman suspects the latter when a half-eaten dealer shows up in the Big Cypress.
By DG Critchley

1
Nov
When a housekeeper discovers a body impaled on a broken vodka bottle by the Aral Sea, an entire town falls under suspicion.
By Jennifer Steil

1
Nov
When her husband Joey calmly announces that he wants to kill his brother, Fran realises her life is about to change forever. And Joey claims his plan is perfect. But as for the details of that plan - Fran doesn’t want to know...
By Steve Beresford

1
Nov
A last-minute heist allows common burglar Ricky the chance to live out his dream of joining the elegant world of art theft, but he soon discovers it is not as easy as it first seems.
By Liv Strom

1
Nov
Daisy Belle is always happy to help and she doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. When her buddy, Ray Gage, is arrested for murder, Daisy will stop at nothing to prove his innocence.
By Carl Robinette

1
Nov
Owning a home isn't for the fainthearted, even when the weather is fine. When disaster strikes, though, desperate times call for desperate measures....
By Josh Pachter

1
Oct
Herman Starkey, famous author, has been murdered. Watson looked up to him. Did Starkey deserve admiration? Can Watson help Sherlock Holmes to find the killer?
By Martin Rosenstock

1
Oct
A scream in the night echoes along London's fog-shrouded streets, and soon detective Benedict Keller is on the scene to discover a deadman and a mysterious chest.
By Michael Kelly

1
Oct
Baffled by the case of a murder suspect positively identified as the killer in London, but who can prove he was hundreds of miles away at the same time, Scotland Yard turns to the only man who could possibly solve the puzzle: Sherlock Holmes.
By Michael Mallory

1
Oct
Playing the world's most famous detectives is an amusing way for Holmes and Watson to earn a living, until the wrong killer calls their bluff.
By CJ Verburg

1
Oct
Orson and his mother love historic Hampton, but this haunted carousel ride brings up one too many memories. Is that the Headless Horseman pursuing them, or Orson's own demons? Capture is inevitable on this carousel ride to hell.
By Max Jason Peterson

1
Oct
Minutes from defeating Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Fall, Sherlock Holmes realizes that he is being hunted, escapes into the high Swiss Alps. His journey to freedom also allows him to save a boy who is the key to international peace.
By Gretchen Altabef

1
Oct
When a derelict in a stolen boat washes up on a tiny uncharted island, he finds that its only other resident seems vaguely familiar . . .
By John M. Floyd

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson help a soon-to-be-famous salesman with his at-risk position at a Savile Row clothiers.
By Bruce Harris

1
Oct
When is Sherlock Holmes not Sherlock Holmes? A young accountant gets roped into a game which turns out not to be all that elementary.
By BV Lawson

1
Oct
Drawing inspiration from a story by Edgar Allan Poe, a frustrated writer plans to exact a terrible revenge against a friend who he believes has betrayed him. But who is the avenger, and who the avenged?
By Edward Lodi

1
Oct
When a family-owned costume and novelty shop in Seattle hires Tamsin and her boss to restore their wax sculpture display by Halloween, Tamsin knows they'll have to scramble. When murder happens in the museum, they get more than they bargained for.
By Joslyn Chase

1
Oct
Dr. Watson, while still grieving Holmes is asked to investigate an impossible murder in a locked room.
By Teel James Glenn

1
Oct
A Sherlock Holmes essay examining facial features in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle series of stories.
By Bruce Harris

1
Sep
When drifter Luke Grayson is attacked by thugs in a small Southern town, he's rescued by a female worker at a nearby cotton plantation--but he soon discovers that his mysterious benefactor has plans that will change both their lives.
By John M. Floyd

1
Sep
A disgraced ex-detective, a seaside flophouse, a favor for a friend...
By Adam Leeder

1
Sep
In Hilo, Hawaii, criminal defense attorney Agnes Rodrigues finds murder at her front door.
By Albert Tucher

1
Sep
Mrs. Bullock, neighborhood busybody, knows where the bodies are buried.
By Sharon Love Cook

1
Sep
A traffic cop bites off more than he can chew when he stumbles upon a deadly scene in the Grand Canyon.
By Joseph Kuttler

1
Sep
Never underestimate an old lady. And don’t turn your back on her either.
By C.L. Cobb

1
Sep
People sometimes play games with themselves, but these games may be misleading.
By R.T. Lawton

1
Sep
Pat Tierney is uneasy when her friend, Stéphane, agrees to give a stranger a lift on their return from an out-of-town job fair. An hour later, Pat wishes she'd voiced her objections.
By Rosemary McCracken

1
Sep
Suzi, a pole dancer, loses her job. She's been duped and manipulated but will take a shot at reclaiming her dignity.
By Vinnie Hansen

1
Sep
One's a magician, the other a strongman in a Russian circus long ago. They have one shared interest: the magician's wife.
By Mark Levenson

1
Aug
Massive flooding disinters bodies from a small town's cemeteries. In the wake of this horrific event, someone is leaving a trail of new bodies, and the local sheriff must race to figure out who--or what--is to blame.
By C. Matthew Smith

1
Aug
Falling in love with a woman who’s “too good to be true” sometimes comes with risks far greater than heartbreak.
By Trey Dowell

1
Aug
A library assistant intercedes when her supervisor tries to cheat the facility out of its due.
By J. R. Lindermuth

1
Aug
The US Secret Service has a zero-fail mission. But what happens when an agent does fail?
By C.E. Albanese

1
Aug
The story of an alien explorer who comes with a warning, only to find Earth's inhabitants are too paralyzed with fear to talk to her.
By Jared Schwartz

1
Aug
Who killed a rapacious groom at Saratoga Race Course? Could it have been the stallion he cared for?
By Paul A. Barra

1
Aug
Harold French is not a pervert, just a man with a rash. It's comical, really, all just a big misunderstanding, and Harold can prove it.
By Matthew Fries

1
Aug
After killing her mob-enforcer husband, Christina calls her father for help. Her old-fashion dad uses a modern technology to extract revenge and keep mob boss Joey Lemons off her trail.
By Robin Yocum

1
Aug
Although highly unlikely to attempt a cartwheel, for fear of spilling the contents of her purse, Molly Sullivan refuses to be sidelined at a cheerleading camp. Her sleuthing skills are front and center.
By John H. Dromey

1
Jul
In August 1945, when a body is discovered following a pogrom in the Main Market Square in Krakow, Ania Bielecka befriends the daughter of the victim. She vows to help the girl find the identity of the murderer, no matter what.
By Veronica Leigh

1
Jul
Did Officer Timmy Kim fall down a well? And what's with the muffins? P.I. Phillip Prince investigates.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Jul
A neighbor with secrets and an eye for crime helps a young couple navigate strains imposed by a corrupt boss and personal tragedy. Is he hiding something--or suppressing it?
By Bob Tippee

1
Jul
Tom Terrific thought he hit a deer on his drive home from the Breeze By Bar & BBQ. But his old friend Detective Grissolm had a different idea.
By Sharyn Kolberg

1
Jul
Danny Thomas thinks he’s made a new friend. When the friend turns out to be a reclusive celebrity, and presents a unique business opportunity, Danny is intrigued. However, is the deal too good to be true?
By J.B. Stevens

1
Jul
A private eye tries to leave a wartime incident forgotten in the past... but his conscious and the military police won't let him.
By M. Bennardo

1
Jul
Recent high school graduate Dennis Renford's parents want him to get a job, and he knows just which job he wants. Elias Smithfield has been entertaining tourists for fifty years and Dennis will do anything to ensure he gets to be his replacement
By Adam Breckenridge

1
Jun
New York private eye Eddie Shane has a secret. He is actually Captain Courage, a superhero. And, now, he has a problem. Two other superheroes have died mysteriously in the last week, including his close friend Blade Mistress. Eddie might be next.
By Richard Helms

1
Jun
From the light in the hallway, John Connelly saw a pork chop hand inch through the attached shards of glass in the window frame of the door and reach for the doorknob and the lock.
By Susan Hammerman

1
Jun
People like to feel as if they're in control of their own destinies ... but that's not always the reality. ...
By Josh Pachter

1
Jun
Will and Wayne are losers looking for a big score. What they get is big alright, but not exactly a score.
By Adam Chase

1
Jun
A fan of murder mystery dinner theaters stars in her own murder game.
By Bruce Harris

1
Jun
A side-trip into rural Florida turns deadly.
By Jeanne DuBois

1
Jun
Caleb Hunter escaped from prison with ten days left to serve and then turned himself in the next day. Everyone thought it pretty damn stupid. But Hunter had a plan, and it wasn’t stupid.
By Michael Scherer

1
Jun
When a print of a legendary, long-lost motion picture produced by a genuine Hollywood maverick is discovered, it's a film-buff's dream, at least until an attempted screening results in murder. What could be in the old movie that is worth killing for?
By Michael Mallory

1
May
Be wary of Lucy One-Way, who fears anything left-handed: she even avoids making left turns. At Furr's Cafeteria, where she works the line, she keeps her phobia controlled—until a tour bus full of hungry New Orleans Saints fans overwhelms the buffet.
By John Joseph Ryan

1
May
Sometimes Trigger is the story of a dog, and of the lengths even men in society's underbelly will go to preserve their own sense of honor in the world, as skewed as both might be.
By Paul Tobin

1
May
Riddle: When is a door not a door? Answer: When it’s ajar. In his checkered career private eye Tony Atti has committed his share of blunders, but entering a house with its door ajar might prove his last.
By Edward Lodi

1
May
When an Inuit man must accompany his disabled father on his yearly trip out to sea, the quixotic quest becomes a confrontation with dark secrets from the past.
By Michael Compton

1
May
A convicted drunk driver celebrates the end of his forced sobriety by hiring an unusual driving service.
By Gerard J Waggett

1
May
An undertaker turns up dead in his own funeral parlor.
By Stephanie Bedwell-Grime

1
May
Have you ever wanted to kill somebody? I have. I did. It was glorious. My problem was the damn body went missing. Yep, the damn thing up and vanished.
By Kevin R. Tipple

1
May
When Lightfinger Louie Levoy accidentally lifts the wallet of a homicide detective near the scene of a murder, he puts his life in danger.
By Michael Bracken

1
May
It's 1972, and Frank Wolf, a Holocaust survivor and private eye, along with his grandson, investigate the murder of a Brooklyn butcher.
By Saul Golubcow

1
Apr
A hit man hired to kill a client's wife makes a better deal for himself, but learns the hard way that double-crosses can backfire.
By Scott Von Doviak

1
Apr
Everybody thinks they know what happened to Becky the day the tornado struck Hadleyville, Alabama. Her brother has a different idea, one he keeps buried...except for those days when the skies boil over with black clouds and thunder shakes the ground.
By Blu Gilliand

1
Apr
After a stroke, a lover of music develops a recognized disorder called
By Brad Munson and Bruce McAllister

1
Apr
Treka Dunn, an investigator with the Medical Examiner's office, doesn't believe Ron Washburn when he claims his father was murdered. All the evidence points to natural causes. But then Ron mentions one seemingly minor detail that changes everything.
By M.C. Tuggle

1
Apr
Hank was a crippled old man living alone in a dying desert town. The gunman thought he was helpless....
By Bruce Arthurs

1
Apr
P.I. Phillip Prince learns that his client is trying to kill him—even after the client's death.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Apr
If P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves solved a crime, then it might be a story similar to this cozy.
By Adam Beau McFarlane

1
Apr
A man of conscience, with murder on his mind meets a terrorist.
By E.M. Schorb

1
Mar
Creed didn’t keep his promise to Leah and now it’s too late. She's dead.
By David Bart

1
Mar
When Scott Drayco was hired to investigate a suspicious death, he didn't count on an oddball suspect. Or that he'd wish he'd never taken the case at all.
By BV Lawson

1
Mar
A hitman takes on an assignment to make up for recent missteps. Is his loyalty in the right place?
By Chris Preston

1
Mar
The woman was not who she claimed. But neither was he. And neither was his wife. Would any of them get their revenge?
By Jeff Soloway

1
Mar
At last, Eli Farris has the freedom he wanted so badly, but he needs money to sustain it. Working is for marks, but he has a plan - only it includes his sister. Amber doesn't take direction well and the buzzing in Eli's head is getting really bad.
By Brandon Barrows

1
Mar
A private eye test for an ambitious young man leads him down a dark alley.
By Jack Clark

1
Mar
A dog park romance and a chance encounter with an aging mobster renew Alex Abraham’s desire to find his long-lost brother.
By Roger Johns

1
Mar
During a quick stop at a museum gift shop, a retired cop finds a dead body on display. He and the shop clerk must solve the murder.
By Mark Thielman

1
Feb
It's late 1800s Chicago and barber Nathaniel Tall Cloud just wants to get by. Then a killer strolls in for a shave.
By Marilee Dahlman

1
Feb
A documentary filmmaker plans to film a perfect family for a year. His plan needs rethinking after he murders the mother, father, son and daughter on the first day.
By Mark Nutter

1
Feb
Thirteen-year-old Eddie Webber's dog was dead, his pa was a drunk, his stepmother was a witch, and a killer outlaw was on the loose. And then things got worse . . .
By John M. Floyd

1
Feb
A woman's husband goes missing and people suspect she had something to do with it. She feels it's history repeating itself.
By H.L. Fullerton

1
Feb
Sometimes you can't help but change the way you think.
By Edward Ahern

1
Feb
Green blood and trench coats and death in the rain -- an oldfashioned murder detective and his coroner ex-flame tackle a newfangled problem in this retrofuture gumshoe tale set in a small town not at all close to you.
By Zandra Renwick

1
Feb
Crime and cats -- bad or good luck?
By Cory Braidon

1
Feb
Randi has a date with a chef, and nothing is cut and dried ... yet.
By Steve Liskow

1
Feb
A New York food tour guide brokers a deal to import a rare gourmet delicacy to the city. He discovers that what he carries, many will kill to possess.
By Brian Silverman

1
Jan
How far will one man go to help a brother whose earlier betrayal sent him to jail?
By Brendan DuBois

1
Jan
When you offer a brand new type of start up business to the criminal element, you can't always depend upon them to be trustworthy. Even when they pay half up front.
By R.T. Lawton

1
Jan
A Paris pickpocket who loves high fashion has something a high-rolling drug dealer urgently wants.
By Anne Swardson

1
Jan
Professional theater can be a cutthroat business, all right, and everyone is just playing a role, heroes and villains alike.
By Alan Orloff

1
Jan
Five people stakeout a hotel room, unaware that they are having the same bizarre conversation.
By Caleb Coy

1
Jan
When the man who was sent to prison for killing Hal Richards' wife shows up on the Detective's doorstep, old wounds are reopened and secrets revealed. But is the escaped convict there for a more sinister reason?
By Mike McHone

1
Jan
When you're looking for a clean break and a fresh start, the Night Movers are there to help....
By Josh Pachter

1
Jan
Jake Walsh received a free ticket from the Gallagher Museum of Art to view an art collection and soon learned that nothing ever comes free.
By Vy Kava

1
Jan
Bryan Waller is murdered one morning on is way to work. Things only get worse when it happens again the following day.
By Mark Feggeler

1
Dec
Three weeks before Christmas, Lester Manning is found bludgeoned to death inside his study, a room locked from the inside. Just because the only way out seems to have been the chimney, that doesn't make Santa Claus a suspect, does it?
By Gerard J Waggett

1
Dec
A man with a gun bursts into a classroom.
By Susan Oleksiw

1
Dec
Military veteran Charlie Reardon, homeless and hopeless, has decided crime might be his only way out of poverty--until a mysterious stranger offers him advice. The new plan still involves a crime, but in a way that will change his life forever.
By John M. Floyd

1
Dec
Former teacher Roy Talman finally lands a new job, as a department store Santa Claus. But when a seven-year-old boy confesses that he murdered the girl next door, Roy is compelled to discover the truth...no matter where it leads.
By Michael Mallory

1
Dec
A streetwise thirteen-year-old girl becomes a gambling debt enforcer in an attempt to keep her struggling family afloat.
By Lina Chern

1
Dec
When a small-town harpy returns a pair of gnomes her husband used to commit suicide in his backyard pool to their place on the lawn, pathologist's assistant Tamsin Bruce suspects murder. No one listens until it's (almost) too late.
By A.M. Porter

1
Dec
A young girl witnesses a murder that could change her life, and her family's fortunes, forever. All she has to do is trust the killer.
By John Kojak

1
Dec
A mild-mannered bank clerk meets his true love and gets involved in a life of crime.
By J.T. Siemens

1
Nov
This story’s nameless narrator is down on his luck and just wants to enjoy a quiet Holiday alone in his shack, but his plans are thwarted by murder, intrigue and romance.
By Carl Robinette

1
Nov
Professor John Franklin, debunker of occult phenomena, is in rehab after a bad car wreck. There he finds three witches who know an old spell that can cause death when chanted - and who like to chant a lot.
By Eve Fisher

1
Nov
Wade angles to become a superstar pick four lotto auditor, one stage left camera flash at a time. First, he has two problems: finding his signature on-screen pose and maybe stumbling onto a rigging scheme.
By Robert Mangeot

1
Nov
She just wanted to get home to her boyfriend, but accidentally bouncing a blind man off her bumper puts a wrinkle in Karina Cardinal's evening plans.
By Ellen Butler

1
Nov
Ezra Barlow, a farmer in the depression-era South, is a loving father, but he's also a drunk and a gambler. When he winds up targeted for death by a gangster in nearby Shreveport, his two young sons realize it's up to them to save the family.
By John M. Floyd

1
Nov
Hospitals can a dangerous place if you're a murderous televangelist with a heart condition and the man who invented the heart monitor is just down the hall.
By Bob Williamson

1
Nov
A former Dallas detective turned small town Sheriff investigates a series of baffling abductions. It's as if people are vanishing in their homes. When the Sheriff uncovers the perpetrator, he has a unique if troubling solution.
By Neal Suit

1
Nov
When hit men called The Conductors show up at Alvy Funchess's house looking for a satchel full of cash while Funchess is smoking a pork shoulder in the back yard, Alvy serves up a few surprises before dinner.
By Richard Helms

1
Oct
War is on the horizon, and the German ambassador narrowly escapes an assassin in London. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson must investigate, and encounter the immortal Count of Saint Germain....
By Martin Rosenstock

1
Oct
Holmes and Watson must solve a locked room mystery with seemingly no clues.
By Larry Lefkowitz

1
Oct
It is the Diamond Jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria, and Sherlock Holmes discovers a series of puzzling crimes he can only explain in one way: the late, not lamented Professor Moriarty, who presumably died six years earlier, has returned.
By Michael Mallory

1
Oct
A talking chimpanzee who travels to alternate realities uses deductive reasoning to solve a locked room murder à la Sherlock Holmes!
By Teel James Glenn

1
Oct
Lyle Scoggins is a veteran, a cat owner and a successful crook. So, why do they want him dead?
By David Bart

1
Oct
On a space station a Holmesian character tries to unravel the events which led to the murder and mutilation of a famous pugilist.
By Eric Del Carlo

1
Oct
The children of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson live in Jazz Age New York City. They're hired to investigate a seance.
By Adam Beau McFarlane

1
Oct
The self-aware artificial intelligence that runs the superyacht of a billionaire who just died hosts a birthday party for him anyway--one with a special theme.
By Bruce McAllister

1
Oct
A Victorian damsel is in distress. Can a steampunk professor and an opera singer come to her rescue in time?
By John H. Dromey

1
Oct
The monster of Frankenstein has returned to Geneva and reinvented himself as a consulting detective. His motto: no case too monstrous. That remains to be seen when his client is attacked by a mummy.
By Richard Zwicker

1
Oct
Dr. Watson narrates a lost case that could not be revealed until Mr. Sherlock Holmes's death.
By J.J. White

1
Oct
Smart but saddled with a new partner he resents, Detective Martinez investigates the death of a woman in an upscale Massachusetts community.
By Roxanne Dent

1
Oct
Holmes and Watson are on the scene when a young man has a heart attack on a train---but was it natural?
By Teel James Glenn

1
Oct
In New York City during the Jazz Age, the children of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solve a murder. Did a malevolent soul hide behind the exterior mask of a well-schooled gentleman?
By Adam Beau McFarlane

1
Sep
A lead figurine of The Grim Reaper leads a failed artist in New Orleans to madness and murder.
By Edward Lodi

1
Sep
“Neon Nights” explores the age-old question, does the end justify the means? A burnt out, big city detective now working in a small southern town, has to ask herself just that when a serial killer and the FBI come to town.
By Shea E. Butler

1
Sep
Two thuggish-looking men. One feisty female. One overworked hotel concierge. Two waiting taxis in the French Rivera. What could go wrong?
By William Burton McCormick

1
Sep
Private Annalee Lincoln was overseas when her little brother Ike died. The police said it was a botched robbery and moved on, but Annalee can't. Now she's back in Sacramento, looking for answers.
By Joseph S. Walker

1
Sep
Some say a man's character is his most prized possession, but what of his sanity? John Fielding, a down-on-his-luck attorney, has just received the offer of a lifetime, but first he'll have to pass an interview testing the very fabric of his reality.
By Nick LeGrand

1
Sep
Jewelry is being stolen. All employees are scanned for metal upon entering and exiting the premises. And yet, the jewelry is disappearing. Time for Captain Elias Young to call in his prime detectives, Bartholomew Blunt and Samuel Sharpe.
By Benjamin Mark

1
Sep
The young couple who kidnap Martin, the author of the Buck Slammer detective series, successfully collect the ransom, but then discover their lives will never be quite the same again.
By Stan Dryer

1
Aug
A femme fatale tale dealing with mystery, memory and murder.
By Bill Kelly

1
Aug
People only come to attorney Scott Turley when there's no other choice. So when a confessed murderer with deep pockets and a powerful family retains him, he sees it as a big payday...not realizing the extent of the price to him.
By Michael Mallory

1
Aug
When Ginny Krause heads north to escape a bad second marriage, she finds Alaska full of surprises ...
By Josh Pachter

1
Aug
A walk in the woods takes a dark turn for Ben ...
By Rachel Amphlett

1
Aug
A girl wearing a dog costume is performing at a county fair with a kindergarten class, when a gunman rushes the stage. Can her costume help her save the children?
By Leone Ciporin

1
Aug
Sheriff Sherri Fine won her election by mistake, and now she's faced with a cold case that pits her against the local political machine.
By Michael Bracken

1
Aug
Wade comes to understand the phrase: “The chickens have come home to roost.”
By David Bart

1
Aug
The good news: Irish Twins twins Bobby and Ronan hit the lottery. Bad news: Their winning ticket connects them to the murder of a liquor store owner.
By Gerard J Waggett

1
Jul
When your wife is connected to all the wrong elements in town and you spend most of your time tricking people into trusting you, stealing a stash of organized crime money sounds perfectly reasonable.
By Vincent H. O'Neil

1
Jul
An English nobleman banished for twelve years may or may not be back for revenge.
By Jeffrey Hunt

1
Jul
A mad bomber is loose in Brooklyn. Detective Bragg and his partner are stumped until they look to the stars.
By Joe Giordano

1
Jul
When a woman is committed to an asylum in 1920s Virginia, she forges a friendship with an old man dying of tuberculosis--a man who had been a killer in his youth, a man who may be sympathetic for her want of revenge.
By Coy Hall

1
Jul
When a woman feels her actions allowed her sister's killer to beat the rap, how far will a private detective go to solve the decades-old murder?
By April Kelly

1
Jul
In the aftermath of a hurricane, a young man vows to do anything he can to get back what he lost in the flood waters--but as he discovers, payback can be tricky.
By Adam Meyer

1
Jul
The suicide of the TV star was recorded, so why does Jon Shadows think things are not as they seem?
By Teel James Glenn

1
Jul
I woke that morning to find a dead man staring at me through the glass doors of my patio; between the police and a couple of nosy neighbors, things went downhill from there.
By Gordon Linzner

1
Jun
Deputy Malcolm Lamb takes on his first solo case after the discovery of a dead miner on the asteroid Psyche. Lamb must determine who killed the miner and stop a deadly turf war between corporation and wildcatter miners.
By M.C. Tuggle

1
Jun
Phillip Prince promises to try to track down the mysterious disappearance of a woman's ex-husband. A mob hit? Or was he a killer? Nothing is what it seems.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Jun
A reporter is in the window seat on an airplane. In the middle seat is a serial killer. The killer knows that the reporter knows who he is.
By Luke Foster

1
Jun
Daisy Belle isn’t a detective and there is no mystery here, but that doesn’t stop her from being on the case. An unlikely partnership will help her get to the bottom of things, even if from the bottom of a bottle.
By Carl Robinette

1
Jun
Some $20 gold pieces are found when ancient sunken cypress logs are being recovered in the Louisiana swamp, and a deputy sheriff threatens to plant heroin on the crawfisherman who found them unless he gives them to the deputy.
By Allan Durand

1
Jun
A court employee is working at a trial concerning a murder she witnessed. But why has she kept mum about it? And what is her role in the trial?
By Arthur Vidro

1
Jun
The assault victim tells the police he was attacked by a time traveler. Well, a would-be time traveler, anyway, ...
By Robert Lopresti

1
Jun
A young preacher is missing and old, forgotten myths have reawakened in this 1930s era mystery. What treasures have yet to be discovered beneath the mist of Hickory Grove pond?
By Tammy Huffman

1
May
A drifter detective finds himself embroiled in a turf war between appliance salesmen.
By Alec Cizak

1
May
While kids at the drug store's comic book spinner thumb through the latest issue of Sergeant Light Beam, a comic book editor and his letterer fight it out to the finish.
By Martin Zeigler

1
May
The code at an exclusive club full of Mikes is violated leading to murder.
By Steve Shrott

1
May
An attorney for more than one US president looks back at a life-and-death incident from childhood that showed him more about himself than he wished to see.
By Bruce McAllister

1
May
On the lam from a collapsed Ponzi scheme in San Francisco, a shady real estate developer flees to a medieval village in Provence. As the Mistral winds howl, there he runs across a tenant he evicted, an old North Beach hippie hell-bent on revenge.
By James Nolan

1
May
Philip Prince, a former med tech, is blackmailed by the local sheriff into finding how a meth addict met his death. Nothing is what it seems: Phillip, the sheriff, the D.A., and officials from a drug research company all have something to hide.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Apr
Diamonds have been mysteriously disappearing from their parcels. Blunt and Sharpe have been assigned to discover the methodology use to steal those diamonds.
By Benjamin Mark

1
Apr
Can a mature amateur sleuth go undercover and match wits with an alleged criminal kingpin, or will she only be fooling herself?
By John H. Dromey

1
Apr
Wheat from an eons old Egyptian Tomb? It was found by the curiously damaged mummy of the sorcerer Artocris. Professor Vorchek seeks the link between the ancient food, the fate of Artocris, and more recent deaths.
By Jeffery Scott Sims

1
Apr
To produce a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed ...
By Josh Pachter

1
Apr
Sometimes what you do in war comes back to haunt you, no matter that you did it for good reasons.
By Martin Roy Hill

1
Apr
When a bleeding stranger breaks into a cabin after midnight, the house-sitter is mistaken for a private eye. No one is who they say they are.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Apr
PI Joe Larrone thinks he's got the goods on crime boss Harry Ruddock, but is there another rat in the city smarter than them both?
By Chris Wheatley

1
Apr
1930s tabloid crime photographer Weegee prides himself at being first on a murder scene. But when a big-time gangster is gunned down, he’s shocked to find photographers already there. Discovering why leads to more than a front-page photo.
By Bruce W. Most

1
Mar
A darkly humorous piece about a former police detective based in Miami, Florida, who quit the force and her alcohol abuse problem, intending to turn over a new leaf. But her past quickly catches up with her in strange and unexpected ways.
By Denise Robbins

1
Mar
When a Viking chief is found murdered aboard his ship, the brewing storm is the least of the dangers facing his wife. Far from shore and surrounded by cut-throats, she must find the killer – to avenge her husband and escape with her life.
By Scott Forbes Crawford

1
Mar
A man is grilled by the DEA as he retrieves the ashes of his brother, whose bomb killed a drug boss and himself. Except he's alive. So who, or what, is in the box of ashes?
By E R Brown

1
Mar
The death under mysterious circumstances of the narrator's beloved Texas middle school teacher triggers a series of slayings of particular resonance in the Lone Star State.
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

1
Mar
Ivory Roberts learns that his 9 year old neighbor has a mysterious illness, but it is not the illness that is likely to take his life. The real danger comes from others who surround him including his doctors.
By L. A. Wilson, Jr.

1
Mar
It's a race against time in Boston when a self-revered notary public must save the justice system.
By Andrew McAleer

1
Feb
Petty criminal Kenny Orslow is pushed off a bus to the County House of Corrections and finds himself homeless and friendless.
By Susan Oleksiw

1
Feb
A delay in dropping off a library book sets Marcus on the path to commit murder.
By Michael Wells

1
Feb
Danielle faces a bleak future until her smooth-talking Uncle Everett offers her an opportunity to join him in his casket-sales business.
By Jill Hand

1
Feb
Arriving in the small mining town of Copperopolis in fall of 1899, Georges Armadale, self-proclaimed detective extraordinaire, has taken it upon himself to solve a murder recently committed in a local church. At the standard rate, of course.
By Anthony Lowe

1
Feb
Mystery writer meets his characters that save his life ...
By Arthur Davis

1
Feb
An obscene sculpture is erected in a small town and no one knows why.
By Jeff H.

1
Jan
Jimmy hates James. James loathes Jimmy. But which persona will solve the mystery of the murdered art thief?
By William Burton McCormick

1
Jan
An office supply company security director investigates the murder of a sales manager. Four salespeople had motive and opportunity. Can the firm's security director correctly identify the murderer?
By Bruce Harris

1
Jan
It’s no laughing matter when a boomtown is overrun by clowns. Or is it?
By John H. Dromey

1
Jan
A psychic detective who is not as he seems, a damsel in distress who is not as she seems and an English manor which is not as it seems.
By Ken Teutsch

1
Jan
Mireille Cabrol, a well-known Mallorcan artist with a remote family tie to Cezanne goes missing, and Inspector Tomás Vilalta traces her to the Medieval walled town of Alcúdia, and nearby S'Albufera Natural Park. There, while painting purple herons a
By Christie Cochrell

1
Jan
When Denny was small, his mom told him about Murderer Bill, the man who seeks out kids who've been bad. Now he's grown up, Denny sometimes wants to be bad, but the thought of Murderer Bill keeps him in check. Then Tabitha walks into his life ...
By John Grant

1
Dec
When you need money, job interviews can be tricky situations.
By R.T. Lawton

1
Dec
In the near future robots have replaced most cops. Mary discovers that this leads to some new problems - as well as some old ones.
By Robert Lopresti

1
Dec
A blind woman becomes the target of bank robbers who believe she can identify them.
By John M. Floyd

1
Dec
A young Texas newspaper reporter has trouble fitting into the old boys' club in the office. When she's given the throwaway assignment of a four-victim murder, she sets out to solve the crime.
By Vicki Weisfeld

1
Dec
One thing lead to another …
By Dennis Palumbo

1
Dec
Not far from a remote section of Hadrian's Wall, archaeologists have departed for the season leaving the innkeeper of Wycherly's on the Moor, Hans Seefeldt, anticipating some peaceful downtime. Peaceful, that is, until a local peat cutter arrives bea
By Frederick Highland

1
Dec
A hitman's latest assignment doesn't quite add up, leading to some deadly surprises.
By Ray Morrison

1
Dec
Homeless shelter volunteers discover the frozen corpse of a city official, but find their amateur sleuthing over his demise may lead them into deadlier waters than they ever imagined.
By Stephen Couch

1
Nov
When a prominent scholar weds a powerful lobbyist, suspicion prompts her to enlist her brother, a former fed, to investigate. As he chases leads around D.C., truth, suspicion, and its consequences begin to blur.
By Nils Gilbertson

1
Nov
The power of the written word snowballs into unexpected rewards.
By Kathleen Gerard

1
Nov
Belle Lopez, an ex-hooker working as a neophyte private investigator, is obsessed with solving the murder of her ex-boss and mentor, Leo Gillepski. Things get complicated when Leo's ghost appears and starts interfering in the case.
By Shea E. Butler

1
Nov
Nathan Shields is haunted by the skeleton in his past. But he soon learns the real threat lies beneath the surface, where he least expects it. As he uncovers the truth, Nathan discovers a frightening reality: sometimes what you bury will bury you.
By Brandon Abbott

1
Nov
Since Charlemagne, a gathering of elite gourmands in French chateaux country has taken on rules and a reputation all its own. Except this year the host is hauled off for murder, and it’s up to Madame Feubert to save the season.
By Robert Mangeot

1
Nov
Washington D.C. police detectives Mike Ryan and Hayley Michaels are tasked with investigating a double-murder. When they begin to suspect two rich upstanding citizens living in a pricey neighborhood along the Potomac River, the citizens push back.
By D. V. Bennett

1
Oct
An episode that occurred while the world considered Sherlock Holmes but a shade pursuing houseboats upon the Styx …
By Ralph E. Vaughan

1
Oct
This pastiche takes an alternate look at a famous fictional world. What would happen if one of fiction's most beloved characters were suspected of murdering his best friend?
By Chris Chan

1
Oct
It’s 1917 in London when T.S. Eliot the poet meets Sir James Frazer the religious anthropologist to help Captain Robert Graves who has been accused of a ritual murder while on leave from the Western Front during WWI.
By Thomas J. Belton

1
Oct
The Holmes we know may not have been all we thought, nor Dr. Watson …
By Teel James Glenn

1
Oct
In a tight job market, some academics will do anything to land a gig …
By Josh Pachter

1
Oct
John Watson and Martha Hudson attempt to solve a murder without the assistance of their famous friend.
By Jack Bates

1
Oct
How far will a desperate writer go to find the inspiration he craves?
By David Wiseman

1
Oct
On the morning of a politically motivated execution, a young journalist sees a chance for the condemned to be exonerated.
By M. Bennardo

1
Oct
Only Sherlock Holmes can decipher the deadly message concealed within a grisly collection of seven nooses delivered to a terrified client ... though the message, even the entire case, might prove to be something other than what it seems.
By Michael Mallory

1
Oct
Being an Account of ‘Bull-dog’ Drummond’s Finally Final Round with Carl Petersen.
By S. Subramanian

1
Oct
He started the evening as their rich host and ended it murdered. Or ... was he murdered?
By J. R. Underdown

1
Sep
Bartholomew Blunt and Samuel Sharpe team up in the first of what they hope will be a series of adventures.
By Benjamin Mark

1
Sep
Johnny Turner is a world class dirtman. However when a mobster twists his arm into working for him, Johnny finds himself in a world of dirty cops, gunmen and psychotic criminals. This time he may have bitten off more than he can chew.
By Tony Deans

1
Sep
Brand-new deputy Josh Tumblewhite had no idea when he made this traffic stop that he was going to be interrupting a human trafficking case. When the suspect takes off running, the rookie will have to use his brains as well as his feet to catch him.
By H. K. Slade

1
Sep
A cosy English mystery set in the 1920s.
By Gary Pettigrew

1
Sep
The body of a former colleague is discovered in the aftermath of a car fire, and it's up to Detective Molly Fetterly to find the killer. But will the suspects confess to every aspect of the crime, or is Molly chasing smoke?
By Mike McHone

1
Sep
Having more than you need does not preclude wanting more and risking all.
By Donald J. Bingle

1
Sep
A down-on-her-luck addict attends the deathbed of her errant uncle – and learns there is more to dying than death. Sometimes much more.
By C. L. Cobb

1
Aug
A naïve tourist in the French Quarter, seeking to broaden her horizons, drops by to meet a friend-of-a-friend, an antique dealer in cemetery artifacts, and finds herself in a sticky predicament..
By James Nolan

1
Aug
Who is a better shepherd to the faithful—a charlatan or a daredevil?
By Emily Devenport

1
Aug
An El Chapo lookalike finds himself on the wrong side of the law.
By T.L. Huchu

1
Aug
A dying Morgan Ayers has one last chance to protect his family.
By David Bart

1
Aug
It’s 1939 Manhattan. Weegee, the city’s most infamous crime photographer, needs a gimmick to excite readers bored by yet another photo of a bullet-riddled gangster. What he comes up with is sheer genius—but the results are not what he expects.
By Bruce W. Most

1
Aug
A homicide detective sets out to avenge the death of his drug addict son, but must reconsider his quest when he receives a warning along the way:
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

1
Aug
A modern-crime retelling of: The Three Little Pigs.
By Jeff Dosser

1
Jul
In a last-ditch effort to avoid getting expelled from military school, a cadet comes up with a plan—something that’s guaranteed to impress the school’s superintendent. Unfortunately, it involves kidnapping and a goat.
By Stacy Woodson

1
Jul
As a housekeeper of many years, Annabelle had grown accustomed to the whims and oddities of her wealthy employers. No amount of experience, however, prepared her for the day two strangers turned up at the Worthingtons.
By Don McLellan

1
Jul
At the dawn of mankind, one resourceful human sets out to solve a mystery after his chief, Ice-eyes, is killed by a vicious predator. Is Long-spear, the only witness, deceiving the tribe?
By Chris Wheatley

1
Jul
An aging hitman agrees to one last job arranged by his young protege. But only if he takes the shot. The older man knows his gun; the younger man the tech. The hit was crowdsourced. What could possibly go wrong?
By Jay O'Connell

1
Jul
When a much loved homeless man is murdered, the killer must be named before a mob renders its own blind justice.
By Bill Connor

1
Jul
A Silver Alert, an ex-con, and a snowstorm create a deadly combination.
By Shannon Hollinger

1
Jul
A private detective is hired by a powerful man as an enforcer, and things go sideways, as they tend to do.
By Robert C. Madison

1
Jun
An intelligent? Buick Lacross manipulates its occupants into conducting misdeeds according to their existing natures.
By Bob Tippee

1
Jun
A nosy neighbor gets more than she bargained for when she believes she spots an affair across the street.
By Michael Thomas Smith

1
Jun
Who can you trust? Is anyone who they appear to be?
By Michael A. Clark

1
Jun
The mayor was alone in the locked apartment where his family had once lived. The crowd of people outside had seen him go in and would swear no one had gone in before or after him. But he was dead.
By Merrilee Robson

1
Jun
A psychological thriller told from the perpetrator's own twisted imagination.
By Eliot Hudson

1
Jun
When the loathsome bully from your high school days traipses into your successful law office babbling about murder, are you sorry he is the suspect and not the victim?
By Terrie Farley Moran

1
Jun
Judgment and crime go together. This might be a crime story, or it might be a supernatural one.
By Ken Hueler

1
May
What happens when a cop gets tunnel vision and only sees one suspect: You.
By Paul D. Marks

1
May
Sergeant Spinge is the sole policeman in a town of gnomes. He longs to solve a traditional 'locked room mystery' but first he must cope with a series of impossible thefts.
By Rob Nisbet

1
May
On his second day with the Computer Crimes Unit, a disturbing email propels Sergeant Hagen into a journey to the painful past--and a murder on Skeleton Hill.
By Thomas Millstead

1
May
David's father has hinted at family treasure buried in the backyard … After David's father dies, he returns home to dig.
By David Rachels

1
May
Doctor Vane ventured to Ironfang Island seeking pirate treasure and archaeological lore. Now Professor Vorchek has gone in search of him. What he finds justifies the infamous island's reputation.
By Jeffery Scott Sims

1
May
Great artists sometimes have messy personal lives. But what if it becomes impossible to separate the art from its creator?
By Eric Cline

1
May
A Crime Scene tech steals incriminating evidence from a crime scene, then uses it to blackmail the criminal.
By Dennis Palumbo

1
Apr
When Detective Harry Sturgis finds himself stuck with a twenty-five-year-old case, the last thing he expects is to get himself killed. Though, in truth, his death isn't entirely a surprise.
By Bond Elam

1
Apr
Two pro wrestlers and one disbelieving spectator collide on a hot summer night at a seedy Alabama motel.
By Blu Gilliand

1
Apr
During the university holidays Sarah travels back to Ben's hometown to meet his family, but when she finds herself in the midst of a town tradition is everything what it seems?
By Steve Toase

1
Apr
PTSD can trigger many reactions, including paranoia. What if the enemies are not figments? Who'll believe you if you can't trust yourself?
By Al Onia

1
Apr
Retired detective Charlie Kane is lured from his solitude to reprise his role as a famous gumshoe. But will the Andromeda case be his undoing?
By C.W. Blackwell

1
Apr
Honey's Turn is a twisted his and her love story and what happens when a good love goes really, really bad.
By Michael Cahlin & Beth Slick

1
Mar
A New York transplant to Southern climes finds bad news can happen when things go South.
By C. L. Cobb

1
Mar
After a once-adored professional boxer shows up dead it's up to detectives Molly Fetterly and Jim Biggins to find the killer, but they'll soon realize the killer was closer to the victim then they could've initially imagined.
By Mike McHone

1
Mar
When Etta turns to Otto in bed and tells him she poisoned his dinner, Otto, who enjoys a good joke as much as anyone, decides to play along.
By Martin Zeigler

1
Mar
An aging actress vanishes on the day of her 100th birthday.
By Gregory L. Norris

1
Mar
After the death the town engraver, his son and daughter-in-law receive mysterious, engraved messages suggesting someone in town has a secret.
By Gina Burgess

1
Mar
A mysterious selfie, the murder of a college student, and attacks on homeless people weren’t exactly the Christmas presents Drayco had in mind.
By BV Lawson

1
Mar
When Harry Fredder decides to kill his mother-in-law things don't go exactly as planned. Gammie turns out to be a lot more resourceful than he thought and soon the tables turn.
By Stan Dryer

1
Feb
A man walks into a bar in a sleepy South Carolina beach town, and what happens next is no joke …
By Josh Pachter

1
Feb
Three desperate fugitives from a Soviet gulag arrive cold and hungry at a trapper's cabin high in the mountains. The old man offers food, dry clothing and directions to freedom, but then the food runs out.
By Don McLellan

1
Feb
Looking to reconnect with an old flame? Watch your step or you might get burned!
By Alan Orloff

1
Feb
A young Italian carabinieri officer launches an unofficial investigation into a series of trivial break-ins at a small cheesemonger's shop in Rome, with troubling results.
By Joseph D'Agnese

1
Feb
Laurel told her father not to get married.
By Joe Giordano

1
Feb
Rennie, a homeless drunk, is coerced into helping a strange woman get rid of a killer cop.
By Bill Connor

1
Feb
How far will a mother go to protect her child?
By Dr Bella Ellwood-Clayton

1
Feb
Bobby Earl's always gotten himself in trouble by living in the moment. But when a guard asks Bobby Earl to hold his rifle, he really should have thought more than one step ahead.
By Michael Guillebeau

1
Jan
Three teen girls, bored with their parents country club / marina lifestyle, turn to petty crime to liven up their nights only to run afoul of a murderous drug dealer.
By Buzz Dixon

1
Jan
A man discovers that his past isn't so easily forgotten when a former associate returns.
By Gregory L. Norris

1
Jan
Shirley's dog Tendy keeps her company through thick and thin. But when her wayward daughter Moira returns, Tendy is left fighting for a spot at the table.
By John Bosworth

1
Jan
Three narratives weave throughout this depression era noir that explores poverty, race, and deadly compulsions.
By J.D. Graves

1
Jan
Nepotism is never a good thing, especially when a small-time gang plans multiple bank robberies.
By Bruce Harris

1
Jan
Larry thinks that his biggest problem is his missing slippers, until he discovers that his car is gone. And that's not the most suspicious disappearance.
By A. Hayward

1
Dec
A bar patron recounts a chance meeting with a notorious criminal who performed an act of kindness that didn't go as he expected.
By Michael Thomas Smith

1
Dec
A hated billionaire, a snowed-in mountaintop mansion, and a fresh supply of poison—what could go wrong?
By Dave Creek

1
Dec
When a rock star visits his home town, his best friend teeters on the edges of sobriety and murder.
By Connie Johnson Hambley

1
Dec
Susan and Allen Horton seem the perfect couple, which makes Susan’s bludgeoning death at the hands of a homeless man outside a Providence restaurant after a 10th anniversary dinner all the more shocking.
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

1
Dec
Even in sleepy backyards, guarded by the timid and the well-fed, murders can be committed ... and upset the balance of nature.
By Jeff Somers

1
Dec
A gothic mystery in the golden-age tradition, inspired by the work of John Dickson Carr. It features a seemingly impossible locked-room murder in a snowbound country house.
By Tom Mead

1
Nov
Moving to a new town is stressful. Discovering people who share a hobby can help, as can learning the local community's gossip. When Rachael moves, the local knitting group is a lifesaver, and with the stitches come the stories.
By Steve Toase

1
Nov
A biblical revenge is fulfilled when a rogue minister justifies the murder of his brother by taking a New Testament phrase literarily.
By Dennis E. Hensley

1
Nov
Emerald Love, country music star and shapeshifter, drops in at the legendary Bluebird and gets more than the music: a duet with Nashville's next singing sensation, a stolen song, and murder.
By Elizabeth Zelvin

1
Nov
In a parallel world, Bonnie & Clyde didn't die in a hail of bullets; they became jazz musicians. But the Bonnie who died in our reality is still greedy to be reunited with Clyde, and she fights to steal the living Clyde from Bonnie the jazz singer.
By Adele Gardner

1
Nov
A quirky girl convinces her friends they have spectacular powers. After their belief takes flight, an accident claims a victim, and one detective follows a hunch that there's more going on beneath the surface.
By E. F. Schraeder

1
Nov
Michael’s father always told him to be prepared. Michael’s take on that advice isn’t exactly what the Boy Scouts had in mind.
By M.B. Manteufel

1
Oct
In ancient Alexandria, Magistrate Ovid must solve an unusual crime...
By Thomas K. Carpenter

1
Oct
A series of controversial prehistoric paintings on stone tablets recently discovered in a secret cave complex in the Pyrenees reveals the workings of the very first detective.
By Nik Morton

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes works to prevent a scandal that could rock the very foundation of Victorian England by destroying the reputation of one of the era's most respected and beloved figures, who cannot defend himself.
By Michael Mallory

1
Oct
What if a Miss Marple-type of detective is not as sweet and innocent as she seems?
By Tim McDaniel

1
Oct
Faced with minding his own business or not, the old beekeeper proves that old habits die hard.
By Eric B. Ruark

1
Oct
A locked-room mystery, with a brief pre-history of Holmes's arch-enemy, in which a young Bertrand Russell (imported from Cambridge to London for the purposes of the story) is featured in a cameo role.
By S. Subramanian

1
Sep
A young girl takes to the hills in rural Appalachia, but never comes back. When the sheriff goes looking for her, the search brings back painful memories of her own daughter's disappearance into the same hills. Are the two stories related?
By Chris McGinley

1
Sep
Tori bet embezzled town money on old Air Force swampland, and now she's in deep. As in, fake a Bigfoot scare deep. Any go-getter knows the best thing to do in a hole is keep digging.
By Robert Mangeot

1
Sep
Dessert King Teddy Baer intends to retire and name his successor at his 65th birthday picnic, but his daughter Bronwyn and his several ex-wives decide to stage a hostile take-over.
By Steve Liskow

1
Sep
Police Chief Mike Ryan is having a hard night: a child has disappeared with no trace, an old enemy has just been released from prison, and a huge storm is on its way. And things are about to get even worse . . .
By John M. Floyd

1
Sep
An aspiring novelist comes across evidence that a man on death row may be innocent of the crime that put him there. Was justice served, or does justice sometimes need a little doctoring?
By Earl Staggs

1
Sep
JD was skeptical that the rich old woman kept her money in a mattress, but people did crazy things. Finding her dead on the mattress was another problem.
By Jude Roy

1
Aug
Cindy was Sean Flynn's dream girl, until she met the cop who stole her away. When tragedy strikes, can Sean swallow his pride and team up with the very same cop to take on his own outlaw clan?
By Joseph S. Walker

1
Aug
Young high school student gets beat up by a policeman and he thinks his beloved and idolized uncle betrayed him.
By Jerry Cronin

1
Aug
Just your typical family reunion on a beautiful summer day. Till the truth comes out.
By Darren O. Godfrey

1
Aug
A mysterious death in the Russian wilderness. A town under siege by a man-eating tiger. And a pair of researchers who stop at nothing to find the truth.
By Ken Brosky

1
Aug
Bobby Coldiron is a man on a mission. He would like to enjoy life with the woman of his dreams while he's young. Two problems. One, he hasn't told the woman yet and two...he has told his boss, and his boss says retirement is out of the question.
By D. V. Bennett

1
Aug
Evil lurks inside the tourist destination of Temptation Square and only one lonely private investigator cares.
By Leland Neville

1
Jul
He was a brother policeman, so Dan Sullivan was inclined to give him a break, to extend some professional courtesy.
By Jim Doherty

1
Jul
When an elderly couple rent a cabin in the Canadian wilderness for their vacation, the ravenous blackflies prove to be the least of their worries.
By Rosemary McCracken

1
Jul
While the search for a young girl continues in a small rural town, a mysterious stranger hires a mentally challenged man to build him crates.
By Caroline Misner

1
Jul
Late at night in a laundromat, an unusual encounter occurs.
By Leslie Elman

1
Jul
A forgetful sheriff leads an eccentric group of characters trying to solve three puzzling murders.
By Peter DiChellis

1
Jul
The Head of Security and a homicide detective investigate the disappearance of a road crew member from a concert in a Reno casino.
By Lance Dean

1
Jun
Samantha was a spy and assassin in the war. But now it’s 1947, and she’s trying to make an honest living as a private eye, seducing women’s husbands to give them grounds for divorce. But the cold war is starting, and someone has a more dangerous job
By Tony Parker

1
Jun
After witnessing a hate crime on the graveyard shift, a janitor takes it upon himself to seek retribution and blurs the line between justice and revenge.
By Michael Ayoob

1
Jun
To what lengths would Molly Sullivan go to assist a blood relative claiming to be in potential jeopardy? Even if she wanted to help, could she adequately adapt her urban sleuthing skills to a rural setting?
By John H. Dromey

1
Jun
The sweet old granny in room six wasn’t supposed to find the body. But 86-year-old Betty had as good a motive as anyone for killing the man.
By Jennifer Collins Moore

1
Jun
Years ago, Tosh Molloy made the change from intergalactic smuggler to Witness Protection Marshal. She's particularly good at making people disappear. But now a troublesome Showgirl client threatens to upend Tosh’s perfect record…
By Melodie Campbell

1
Jun
When a deal goes bad you’ve only got once choice. Get in deeper. It’s the only way to protect the ones you love.
By Peter W. J. Hayes

1
May
Someone has tried to kill a famous mob figure. Someone apparently didn't finish the job. Someone is in deep doodee.
By Jazz Lawless

1
May
A 1950s detective is haunted by a legend from the deep.
By Troy Seate

1
May
Smart car technology is growing by leaps and bounds; but what if that technology leaps into terrorism?
By Cecily Winter

1
May
A househusband keeps the home fire burning, while his hard working wife is out committing armed robbery.
By Craig Terlson

1
May
When a middle-aged man wakes to find a piece of himself missing, he is determined to find out why it happened. All the while, the kid sent to collect from him might not be as stupid as he initially seems.
By Jody Wenner

1
May
How many little mutilations does it take till you’re only a piece of what you once were or could be?
By Edward Musto

1
Apr
Two gut-shot gunslingers try to solve a mystery without moving an inch.
By Michael Cebula

1
Apr
An aging writer of crime fiction ends up becoming the hardboiled inspector he so often writes about out of necessity (well, perhaps out of vengeance).
By Gregory Cioffi

1
Apr
When an L.A. cop walks into a medical marijuana shop, things appear to be normal and routine. They are not.
By David M. Hamlin

1
Apr
When a stranger moves in across the street and threatens his family, a mild-mannered middle aged man must dig deep within himself to discover what he stands for.
By Tom Hallman Jr

1
Apr
Alone in Hiroshima's Peace Park, a retired elderly assassin overhears a murder - or does he?
By M. H. Callway

1
Apr
Ted Milner, divorced, broke, and living in a shabby motel, learns that his neighbor has struck it rich. . . and no one else knows. Just a few bullets could solve all of his troubles.
By Mike Murphy

1
Mar
While tending bar, Karin reads the lips of two men planning a murder. She's never seen them before and nobody else heard them, so how can she stop them before someone dies?
By Steve Liskow

1
Mar
While she was housesitting for a friend in an unfamiliar neighborhood, people-watching seemed like a perfectly harmless pastime for an amateur sleuth. Then something untoward happened next door.
By John H. Dromey

1
Mar
An ultra-valuable tropical spider has popped up in the French badlands, where no tropical spider should ever survive. Legend-in-his-own-mind arachnologist Nick Torthwaite is on the hunt. He’s out of his element, too.
By Robert Mangeot

1
Mar
An investigator goes undercover to discover why four ex-employees of the Lexicon Corporation committed crimes they do not remember committing.
By Michael T. Best

1
Mar
Talk is cheap, but stories are expensive. Our tale won't last long, and neither will its protagonist.
By Eric Cline

1
Mar
A Christmas trip to London turns bleak for William and Evangeline Posters.
By Josh Pachter

1
Mar
An ambulance crew is summoned to a lonely street where they find a bullet-ridden ambulance. There, they find a dying man with a large stash of money.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Feb
A man finds a finger in his front yard and investigates the neighborhood to find the owner.
By Chad Lutzke

1
Feb
A New York City bagman runs afoul of gunmen on a Cape Cod beach and into a femme who is fatale in just the right measure.
By Gary Cahill

1
Feb
Old detectives never die—they retire, become poets, and try for the quiet life. But when the peace of the Southern bayou in his backyard is violently shattered, John, 80, suddenly finds himself back on duty.
By Craig A. Strickland

1
Feb
Small towns are simple places. Their streets run in grid-like patterns. So why can he not find her?
By Justin Rempel

1
Feb
While entertaining at a child's birthday party, a young woman becomes embroiled in the secrets of suburbia.
By Jack Bates

1
Jan
A retired cop has his doubts about his ex-wife's death ... and his step son.
By Jeff Somers

1
Jan
An uptight assistant in the International Marketing department of a major Hollywood movie studio has to overcome his natural insecurities when his roommate is accused of murder.
By Ricky Sprague

1
Jan
Sixteen-year-old Ephraim begins his pickpocketing apprenticeship, mentored by a notorious criminal, the Pale Shadow.
By Tim Major

1
Jan
When a controversial specimen is taken from a locked vault, every scientist is a suspect.
By Carlos Orsi

1
Jan
When an elderly birdwatcher witnesses a murder, the killer sets out to eliminate him. But the hunter picks the wrong prey.
By Arthur Carey

1
Dec
One man’s work of art is another man’s weapon of choice. Or so it seems…
By Lawrence Buentello

1
Dec
Mrs Walker hates Christmas parties, but when one of the guests dies, the party becomes a lot more interesting than she bargained for.
By Katie Ginger

1
Dec
Elizabeth enjoys the simple things in life, such as diamonds, Prada and chauffeurs – earned them all with hard work. But Elizabeth has been kidnapped by two men who want what she has. Except Elizabeth is much more than a tough negotiator.
By Michael McGlade

1
Dec
Is it true love or something much more sinister?
By Steve Shrott

1
Dec
A life is at stake and Hal and three friends must take extreme measures or the blood will be on their hands. But is it guilt that drives them, or something else?
By Laura Gianino

1
Dec
An elderly woman enlists her delivery boy in the search for a crying child.
By Claude Chabot

7
Nov
When a failed history professor falls in love with a bad witch he discovers that sometimes fortune does favor the bold. At least for a while.
By R. S. Morgan

7
Nov
There's a new kid at school. And she's not laughing.
By Stef Donati

7
Nov
A woman with a nefarious sense of fun meets her match on a train.
By David Vardeman

7
Nov
In the 1940s, a young woman returns to her Appalachian town to avenge her father's murder.
By Joseph D'Agnese

7
Nov
Lust, money and a recipe for murder.
By Edward Palumbo

7
Nov
What happens when two famous authors discuss the existence of ghosts at dinner in a London flat and they are joined by a noted third (female) author.
By Tom Tolnay

7
Nov
Sometimes what's in Day After Thanksgiving Soup is a real gamble. …
By Debra H. Goldstein

1
Oct
Ever considered writing Sherlockian pastiche? Here are some thoughts to ponder.
By Vincent W. Wright

1
Oct
Sherlock Holmes must discover who murdered a man. But first, he must discover who murdered a pig.
By Eric Cline

1
Oct
The part-time yoga instructor at an active retirement community is murdered in a fellow resident's apartment.
By John Hearn

1
Oct
In a Victorian London substantially different from the one we know, no consulting sleuth is as extraordinary as Ponder Wright, the mechanical detective. Yet even his wits are tested by a murder where the suspects are all automatons.
By John Longenbaugh

1
Oct
At long last, the maker of Sherlock Holmes's clay pipe is revealed.
By Bruce Harris

1
Oct
Roger Sherrington replaces Dr John H Watson to provide invaluable assistance to Sherlock Holmes in a monster-god investigation.
By Ralph E. Vaughan

1
Oct
At the request of Bram Stoker, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson investigate the deadly occurrences plaguing a production of Macbeth.
By Michael Mallory

1
Sep
They said doing time was like a river. But a river was forgotten in the ocean. Paying for the past was nothing like a river.
By D. S. White

1
Sep
An interview with a blogger brings back some horrifying memories for the daughter of a deceased crime writer with a cult following.
By Greg Herren

1
Sep
Bonnie is in love with a man she's never met, but she sees him on camera every time he drives through one of Florida's toll gates. She tries to think of ways they can be together, but can't do anything about it until his wife finally disappears.
By Erik Deckers

1
Sep
Getting into the mob is easy, it's having a good plan to get out that's hard.
By Peter W. J. Hayes

1
Sep
Mrs. Hitt was a satisfied customer of her mysterious hit man. Then Detective Snapp threatened to ruin everything.
By Lani Steele

1
Sep
A stranger arrives in a town and finds himself embroiled in corruption and murder.
By James Blakey

1
Aug
In Victorian London, private enquiry agent Adam Cole races to track down a killer who taunts and terrorizes with disturbing photographs of his victims, taken both before and after death.
By R.R. Scott

1
Aug
At the height of the Renaissance, a shrewd churchman takes extraordinary steps to protect his family's good name from scandal.
By Joseph D'Agnese

1
Aug
Junior diplomat Casey Collins volunteers to work in a war-torn country and her nature gives her only two ways to manage the risk. Go numb and avoid trouble. Or live life with every nerve end tingling …
By Diana Deverell

1
Aug
Walter hates dirty cops and has already executed justice on three of them. Now it's time for a corrupt judge to pay.
By Michael T. Coolen

1
Aug
Some people will do anything to win, but it's risky.
By Dale T. Phillips

1
Aug
A homeless man comes into possession of skeleton key that has special powers. The man uses the key to improve his situation but it seems he talked too much to the wrong person.
By Don Herald

1
Aug
Decades ago two strangers made mad love; he never knew she killed herself that same day ... until moments before he took a bullet in the neck, meant for the Marseilles accountant slow-mo diving beneath the table next to his.
By Eugene H. Davis

1
Aug
Some people are very good at their jobs. Just as long the instructions are kept nice and simple …
By Liam Hogan

1
Jul
A madcap Edwardian supernatural romp through a vast and ancient manor house. Who killed Sir Reginald Gastleigh? Who, indeed?
By Melanie Atherton Allen

1
Jul
A crime fiction writer, frustrated with his mountain of rejection slips, kidnaps a magazine editor and unwittingly discovers what true crime is all about.
By Kevin Z. Garvey

1
Jul
When her brother Johnny comes home to roost, Teri is ready.
By Tapanga Koe

1
Jul
The horrible movie adaptation of Robert Caldwell's novel killed his literary career. But Jason Stearne wonders if Caldwell's revenge got him murdered.
By J. Michael Major

1
Jul
The mysterious death of a retired fortune teller. Is it murder? Suicide? Or something else?
By Bruce Harris

1
Jul
Uncle Charlie usually refuses to loan out money, but when he does you better not renege. Even his favourite nephew was not immune.
By Thom Bennett

1
Jul
A blind man is the only witness to a murder. Detectives sort through the clues he provides.
By Peter DiChellis

1
Jul
A show-down at a small tavern defines characters on both sides of the gun control issue..
By Tom Tolnay

1
Jun
Artist, Tru Jameson, gets in deep when he answers the call of a friend who ran away with the circus. Evie's partner in her knife-throwing act has disappeared and she asks Tru for back up in finding the rumored, illicit after-hours show.
By C.M. West

1
Jun
A cell of the Melbourne mafia meet to discuss the issue of a recalcitrant member. With the Don's power waning, and each party harbouring his own ulterior motives, the conversation at dinner takes them to places they could never have imagined.
By Natalie Satakovski

1
Jun
What do you do when the girl you love doesn't love you back? Murder is always an option.
By Antony Mann

1
Jun
A birth injury takes control of a man who transforms into a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde murderer.
By Arthur Davis

1
Jun
Truth is stranger than fiction when a young tennis pro woos and wins the wife of the world's most famous author.
By David Afsharirad

1
Jun
A bank heist getaway goes horribly wrong.
By Jim Farren

1
May
To kill and kill is the only way this aged employee can get ahead.
By J.A. Becker

1
May
An Elizabethan law student investigates a curious case.
By Anna Castle

1
May
Curious old Mrs Walker investigates the death of the local barmaid when the killer dumps the body in her back garden.
By Katie Ginger

1
May
Jackie Plumm is the hottest television star of 1950, but when he turns up murdered, it's up to Buddy Barker, his comedy stooge, to find out who wanted his boss dead: the mob, the government, or one of his co-workers.
By Michael Mallory

1
May
In the six years I spent looking for David Alamont, it never occurred to me that I might actually find him.
By Charles Roland

1
May
Two thousand dollars richer and with a dead client, John LeGrand must now find what happened.
By Jude Roy

1
Apr
When Jed Pinto unlocks his subconscious, his muse paints a scene of rare interest to a most unusual patron.
By Delbert R. Gardner

1
Apr
Would a professor just elected president of his university kill himself?
By Carlos Orsi

1
Apr
While on vacation, a sweet pair of senior citizens turn the tables on the world's worst serial killer.
By Joseph D'Agnese

1
Apr
He can never undo what he did, but maybe he can atone for his sin.
By Michael Bracken

1
Apr
A down-and-out millennial scours dark bars searching for an estranged friend who has disappeared into thin air.
By David Gibb

1
Apr
Private Investgator Adam Pike's latest case strains him to the breaking point as he pits himself against bullets, mobsters, and a failed case from his time on the job that cost an innocent girl her life.
By Carl Adams

1
Mar
It's a whirlwind marriage for Cory Moss. Then his wife dies of a drug overdose and he's the only suspect.
By Michael McGlade

1
Mar
A PI travels to east Texas in search of a missing young man but finds more than he bargained for.
By Earl Staggs

1
Mar
Two career kidnappers approach their last grab, but their loss of nerve may cost them everything.
By Ben David Orlando

1
Mar
“Beyond the Grave” is the story of Edgar Allan Poe’s efforts to discover the killer of his child-bride, Virginia Clemm.
By Edward Francisco

1
Mar
A ruthless interrogator for a private enterprise
By Peter Hochstein

1
Mar
A heist turns into something unexpected
By George Garnet

7
Feb
Crags was determined to face life - and death - on the streets the same way he did in war. Alone.
By Martin Roy Hill

1
Feb
With the family business failing, Sal D’Amico is tempted by an unusual offer to bring back the boom times and carry on the tradition.
By Troy Soos

1
Feb
Two groups of street performers who are jockeying for prime position in The French Quarter of New Orleans both try to court the unnamed narrator to inflict damage upon the other group.
By Andrew Davie

21
Feb
Two L.A. losers concoct a car theft scheme perfect for their city and it works like a charm, until it doesn't.
By David M. Hamlin

1
Feb
Bodies don't stay buried in Florida
By Ross Gresham

1
Feb
What is the point of casting a shadow, if those who stand within it don’t feel its chill?
By Francesgrace Mary-Hedwyck Ferland

31
Jan
Real secret agents lead lives full of intrigue, and danger. But when a spy goes missing, could it be because of bad reading habits?
By Raymond Michaels

24
Jan
The widows of three drowned sailors plot to extract restitution from the miserly ship owner by stealing a valuable piece of ambergris.
By M. Bennardo

17
Jan
Merrill Ross has never been lucky—and now that his plan to escape his gambling debts has failed, he finds himself fighting for his life.
By John M. Floyd

10
Jan
When he’s framed for murder, an elderly book dealer must discover which of the guests at Sir Reuben’s dinner party wanted to kill his charming young ward.
By Faith Allington

1
Jan
Southern hospitality isn't always so hospitable.
By Alan Orloff

1
Jan
Assigned to the Office of Executive Development in an organization that won’t fire anyone, Bob Haas finds more hazard than he expected on the fast track.
By Bob Tippee

27
Dec
A Roman soldier's gruesome murder threatens the legion's honor and a precarious peace with a conquered, but still hostile Celtic tribe.
By Mark C. Harwell

20
Dec
A hitman gets more than he bargained for when he accepted a job to take out a guy named Nick.
By Micki Browning

13
Dec
A Native American sheriff gets some unlikely help solving a murder mystery -- from the ghost of Billy the Kid.
By Scott Merrow

6
Dec
Warren Pace is the CIA's most senior field agent, and has a wealth of experience—if he can remember it.
By Sonny Zae

1
Dec
Finally, after thirty years, a mysterious disappearance is solved by retired LAPD Detective Cliff Stover—or maybe not.
By Robert S. Levinson

1
Dec
When Lord Imhotep's cook is found murdered, it sets of a chain of events that his young cousin Anitepsut seeks to unravel before a friend loses her life.
By A. L. Sirois

29
Nov
A canoe trip on a swollen river, a baby lost, a new husband with a love for campsites with high vistas--what else could a woman want to become unencumbered?
By William R. Eakin

22
Nov
If you could kill anyone with a wish, whom would you choose?
By Dan Crawford

15
Nov
Is the race always to the swift -- even on the moon?
By Manny Frishberg

8
Nov
When contractors open your wall, you're in for a mess of trouble.
By JM Taylor

1
Nov
What's it take to kill an old woman? One less idiot.
By James Mathews

1
Nov
A fictional tale based on a factual lighthouse islanded a mile off coast, where the four keepers tending to this seaward lamp begin to distrust and suspect one another of strange happenings when no man claims the actions as his own.
By Jake Teeny

1
Nov
Years after Florence's two friends disappear into the woods, one returns to her life, forcing her to confront her flawed memories of that fateful day.
By Kassandra Montag

25
Oct
If an amateur scientist can't find a ghost, what can he do? Make one!
By Allen Lang

18
Oct
When they suspect a coworker of cheating in the office dead pool, two experts in risk take a big chance to try to catch a killer.
By Karl Lykken

11
Oct
A couple make their living targeting lonely hearts for easy cash, but nothing's ever easy in a world of lies, greed, and jealousy.
By Dan DeVoto

4
Oct
Sherlock Holmes must find who is responsible for a man's death .... before a mile-long bridge opens!
By Eric Cline

1
Oct
An incompetent escape artist manages to disappear from his full-body cast.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Oct
The second most gruesome start of an investigation that Sherlock Holmes ever conducted!
By Jaap Boekestein & Roelof Goudriaan

1
Oct
Dr. Frederick Treves enlists the help of Sherlock Holmes to investigate the suspicious death of his famous patient,
By Michael Mallory

27
Sep
Recovering Coke Queen Finds Her Voice
By Michael Guillebeau

20
Sep
He couldn't stop writing stories, and she couldn't take it anymore.
By Mark Steven Long

13
Sep
Murder will not lie easy in Ellen Cobble's knot of lies, secrets, and the supernatural.
By A.A. Azariah-Kribbs

6
Sep
Sometimes she's the only one standing between you and the bad guys.
By Laura Ellen Scott

1
Sep
A rookie cop investigates the mysterious slayings of Rodney Rhodes, Tillie and Jacqui Gleason, and trips up a cunning killer.
By Agnes Hooper

1
Sep
He stole some money from a mobster. Now he has to steal enough to pay it back, or die trying.
By Clifford Royal Johns

30
Aug
Trapped in a cycle of violence and manipulation, a British crime writer takes the knife into his own hands.
By J.A. Thorndyke

23
Aug
When a fellow member fails to upload his fitness data at the end of their group's weekly challenge, other members want to know why.
By Michael Bracken

16
Aug
An old man receives a letter that threatens to expose the dark secret of his past
By James Kester

9
Aug
A Vietnam veteran has to escort a competitive eater to a contest in Philadelphia, but what they don't know might hurt them.
By Tim Zatzariny Jr.

2
Aug
Will Juut die trying to collect on his dead former friend's unpaid debt?
By Susan Koefod

1
Aug
In the days before World War I, German saboteurs succeed in blowing up the munitions stored on Black Tom Island, but they fail to reckon with librarian Beatrice Winser.
By Albert Tucher

1
Aug
A young woman is abducted by an artist who uses his paintings to enlist her aid against an imminent threat.
By Joseph Cusumano

26
Jul
Christmas mystery story about the adventures of a wannabe burglar
By Deborah Lacy

16
Jul
Clogged drain? Troubled marriage? The plumber will fix it.
By Michael Turner

12
Jul
I didn't realize, the first time I met him, that this client was dead...
By Sherry D. Ramsey

5
Jul
One year after her mum disappeared, Mandy's family gather to remember her.
By Abigail Shepherd

1
Jul
Old man takes law into his own hands and District Attorney finds a way to cover up the murder.
By Arthur Davis

1
Jul
A small town sheriff investigating a ritualistic homicide finds links to a similar crime that has remained unsolved for twenty years.
By Jack Bates

27
Jun
A mafia defector is rightfully paranoid for his life, after he agrees to cooperate with the FBI.
By Jack Bristow

20
Jun
Who better to stage a haunted Victorian than tree-hugging, vegetarian, observant-of-detail interior designer Becki Green?
By Cynthia St-Pierre

13
Jun
A rural doctor finds the bear didn't kill the meth cook.
By Brian Haycock

6
Jun
Park ranger Neil Brody has his hands full when anarchists attending a nearby music festival commit potentially murderous mayhem at a park campground.
By Jim Courter

1
Jun
Four on a lifeboat, adrift at sea, but who tells the truth?
By Meghan Rose Allen

1
Jun
An inmate at Attica state prison recalls the tragic events of a summer night in Harlem.
By John Clinch

30
May
Detective Mark Gibbon cleans up a few last details before retirement by shooting a deacon at the cathedral.
By Bob Williamson

23
May
Six tiny mason jars, half full of water, sparkle in the sunlight.
By Francesgrace Mary-Hedwyck Ferland

16
May
When a greenhorn Brit tries to outwit the laws of physics, frontier law responds.
By Warren Bull

9
May
Divorce turns deadly in Bitter End when serial bride Louise Tellier Hannington Brown hires her best friend to assess her husband's...assets.
By Anne Stephenson

2
May
A suicide's widow searches for her friend, a hoarder and a bridesmaid from her wedding.
By Peri Dwyer Worrell

1
May
In a document put into a time capsule, a man describes the events that led him to murder his father.
By Eric Cline

1
May
It's not enough to know who did the crime. You have to catch them.
By Jerry Peterson

25
Apr
Max Kalb, deli counterman in 1925 Brooklyn, NY, finds himself involved in a missing person case that six of his mobbed up regular customers may have done.
By Jim Norman

18
Apr
Katherine Carney keeps a dental appointment she won't forget--and won't remember.
By Kathi L Reed

11
Apr
A con gets conned.
By Paul R. Lees-Haley

4
Apr
Forest fires are devestating, destroying everything in their path, but but when the fire passes, new life grows
By Kathleen Delaney

1
Apr
The story of a paranoid busy-body who decides his new neighbour is a serial killer. But could he be right?
By Charlie Hughes

1
Apr
Neil Brand solves two murders at the Knightsbridge movie studio.
By Ray Dyson

28
Mar
A priest serving a parish in a Korean village offers himself as bait to nab a killer
By J. R. Lindermuth

21
Mar
A PI's exwife dies leaving two and possibly three wills, and he's suckered into figuring out which is the authentic one.
By Bonnie Stanard

14
Mar
Elderly widow Helen McKinnon leads a quiet life now that she's retired, but discovering a child in her backyard with sinister connections may change that.
By K. McGee

7
Mar
A reporter investigates the murder of an escape artist who was shot to death while inside a sealed coffin.
By Martin Hill Ortiz

1
Mar
Charlie Main discovers some secrets on Beale Street he wishes he'd not.
By Corey Mesler

29
Feb
The Chicago Blade's homeless freelance newspaper reporter finds himself covering front-page news in suburban Gravel City.
By Tim Kane

18
Jan
A detective must use her wits and modern technology when a criminal catches her tailing him.
By Marta Tanrikulu

15
Feb
Struggling to come to terms with a recent breakup, a college student planned the perfect murder, or so he thought.
By Benjamin Cooper

8
Feb
Mad at the Hatter, who will kill him first: Tweedledum, the Queen of Hearts, or a March Hare?
By Maddi Davidson

1
Feb
Blackmailing a hitman for the mob is rarely a smart proposition.
By Tom Barlow

1
Feb
An Ohio private investigator seeks a runaway girl in Florida, but when he discovers the sordid circumstances of her death, he decides to get justice for her grieving parents.
By Robb White

25
Jan
A wealthy man is found murdered in his locked bedroom and it's up to Detective Tubert to figure out how the seemingly impossible murder was committed and by which of his heirs.
By Craig Faustus Buck

11
Jan
A possessive man warns his wife against peeping pervs while preparing for his own evening of peeping.
By Nick Sweeney

4
Jan
Neglected by her parents, a lonely girl idolises a police officer and tries to solve the murder of her teacher.
By Cathy Bryant

1
Jan
In a story that blends mystery with horror, artist Megan Walsh decides to spend a few quiet weeks in Persistence, South Dakota, a small town where everybody already seems to know her, even though she’s never been there before; too late, she realizes
By B.K Stevens

28
Dec
A divorced school principal struggles to raise his children.
By Robert Petyo

21
Dec
When a herd of unicorns go missing, it's up to Sheriff Dan Morgan to sift through a cast of colorful suspects to find the real thief.
By James Blakey

14
Dec
A lady believes information she has given has led to the end of a serial killer's reign.
By Calvin Demmer

7
Dec
Could there be a connection between a wealthy woman's home development project and the jewelry thefts in her neighborhood?
By Nupur Tustin

1
Dec
Playing stand-in for a famous Hollywood actress should have been the role of a lifetime.
By Carolyn E. Kourofsky

30
Nov
A detective story with a difference by K D Holdsworth
By K D Holdsworth

23
Nov
What's Thanksgiving without (almost) everyone's favorite dish? Potentially deadly, Becca learns, when her aunt's cranberries go missing.
By C. A. Verstraete

16
Nov
What happens when a war wound removes your conscience?
By John Clark

9
Nov
When her father is murdered, Molly Capriccioso is considered the prime suspect, but for the record she had nothing to do with it.
By Micki Browning

2
Nov
A famous actress dies during what appears to be a robbery.
By Jacqueline Seewald

1
Nov
A nocturnal serial stabber has a small town on edge.
By Stephen Baily

26
Oct
When a madam hires Jack Gardner to avenge one of her girls, Gardner learns that power and money always insulate the rich from the consequences of their actions.
By Tom Andes

19
Oct
A retired detective finds himself embroiled in a murder at an auction house.
By Matthew Masucci

12
Oct
Auditors balance the scales of justice, as well as the books.
By Laird Long

5
Oct
Julius Caesar has to solve a client's murder quickly or risk the collapse of his political career.
By Jean Airey

1
Oct
After her Episcopal Priest boss is murdered, the secretary learns some lessons about pride.
By Jan Christensen

28
Sep
The Bochent Street Bridge Club has a way of murderously helping its members.
By Mary Stojak

21
Sep
Abel needs to sell the Volvo—but the dead man in the trunk makes it evidence until his murder is solved.
By Nancy Sweetland

14
Sep
An English professor, shot dead in his office -- a violent dispute over academic disciplines, or something more prosaic, and more sinister?
By Karl El-Koura

7
Sep
A mystery short story by Nikki Dolson. A father and daughter reunite but there aren't any hugs or happy endings to be found.
By Nikki Dolson

1
Sep
Jack Daniels and married blondes are a deadly combination.
By Michael Bracken



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