Это - 1999 год. Год, который должен был стать временем Апокалипсиса - но не стал. Или все-таки стал, только мы пока не заметили этого - и не заметим, пока не станет поздно? Это - 1999 год. Такой, каким увидели его величайшие из мастеров `литературы ужасов` нашего мира. Писатели, хорошо знающие: Апокалипсис начинается не с трубного гласа, поднимающего мертвых, но со Страха, живущего в душе у каждого из нас. Это - 999 жестоким взглядом Эда Гормана. И Любовь превращается в Смерть... Это - 999 по Стивену Спрюллу. И льется кровь живых в вены Неумерших... Это - 999 Майка Маршалла Смита. И захлебывается человек в пучине убийств и безумия... Это - 999 год Кима Ньюмана, Томаса Лиготти, Джина Вулфа. И еще многих из тех, кому нет равных в умении повергать читателя в черный, иррациональный Ужас

Given its extraordinary span, its international scope, and its variant styles and groundbreaking stylists, A Century of Great Suspense Stories is a singular achievement. A bestselling master of suspense himself Jeffery Deaver had the enviable task of selecting from the thousands of stories written over the past one hundred years those which best represented the classic form, as well as the justly celebrated authors whose ironic twists and stunning payoffs left a lasting, vivid, and unnerving impression. The result is a triumph. In this ambitious anthology you’ll revel in the sardonic, overtly amoral plotting of Patricia Highsmith. You’ll rediscover the strangely poignant and surprising turns of Stanley Ellin, and the profoundly underrated Margaret Millar, a genius who mixed savage social satire with brooding horror. You’ll be treated to Stephen King at his chilling best. You’ll find yourself on the violent urban streets of Ross Macdonald and Mickey Spillane, and seeped in the ominous regional flavor of Sharyn McCrumb and Tony Hillerman. You’ll marvel at the cunning webs spun by Lawrence Block, Ruth Rendell, Anthony Boucher, and Sara Paretsky, all of whom defy expectations as they reinvent the genre. And you’ll understand the awesome reputations of those authors who set the standard, such as the legendary Harlan Ellison, Fredric Brown, the master of the twist ending, and James M. Cain, uncannily skilled at knowing what went on between men and women behind closed doors. (The darker the room the better.) Delivering everything from the one-two punch of the detective story to the ingeniously precise trappings of the police procedural, from the disquieting corners of the criminal mind to sheer dread-inducing horror, A Century of Great Suspense Stories is a rich anthology of this popular literary genre, a stunning tribute to the art of storytelling, and to the men and women who have done it best

When a particularly brutal serial murder is uncovered, investigators turn to criminal psychologist Robert Payne, who is trained in the science of psychological profiling. Using information gathered from hundreds of violent criminal cases, “profilers” are able to assemble a probable psychological portrait of a killer from trademark clues left on the body of the victim or at the scene of a crime. This technique is particularly effective in apprehending murderers who strike again and again over an extended period of time. But when the mysterious and beautiful Nora Conners asks Payne to help catch the psychopath who murdered her adored daughter, Payne finds himself up against what seems like insurmountable odds. He has only the names of three suspects given to Nora by a private investigator who was about to crack the case — until he became the next victim. Payne’s search leads him to a small Iowa town, where he probes beneath the pleasant surface to reveal a horrifyingly evil conspiracy and a dangerous link to a sensational murder case that took place years before and devastated a prominent family

An assassination attempt on a US congresswoman spells danger for Dev Conrad. Political consultant Dev Conrad is doing his best to help secure a re-election victory for congresswoman Jessica Bradshaw, who’s fighting a fierce battle with her far-right opponent, Michael Dorsey. But the campaign is thrown into chaos when an assassination attempt is made on Jessica’s life. She survives, and finds herself leading the race, but when the shotgun used in the shooting is found in the trunk of one of Jessica’s staffers, the ‘assassination attempt’ suddenly looks staged to win votes. With Jessica’s campaign in ruins, Dev investigates. Who wants Jessica dead, and is the reason solely political? Someone is determined Dev won’t find answers

Political Consultant Devlin Conrad had the feeling that his very married client Senator Robert Logan was a lot more involved with the beautiful and mysterious Tracy Cabot than he wanted to admit. But he learned too late that the Cabot woman was a spy working for a shadowy right-wing organization — too late because by then she’d been found murdered in Senator Logan’s fishing cabin, and the police are certain that he killed her. But Conrad finds numerous suspects in the Senator’s mansion and in the somewhat comic but dangerous figure of political saboteur Howie Ruskin. He must find the real killer if he is to win the election for a client whose vanity and arrogance make him right at home in the United States Senate

It’s 1963, in fact. June. All spring Freedom Riders have been advancing the cause of civil rights in the South, and even in the face of city commissioner “Bull” Connor’s police dogs and fire hoses demonstrators have marched through the segregated streets of Birmingham, Alabama. While no one’s marching in Black River Falls, Iowa, except maybe the high school band, the sleepy heartland town is showing signs of racial unease nonetheless. For the body of a black college student — David Leeds — has turned up dead. Close by him, in the woods just outside the town limits, lies a second victim: white; local photographer; shot twice in the face, apparently with the same weapon that got Leeds in the neck; also dead. The evidence points to blackmail, and to a scandal that could ruin the already encumbered campaign of the very white Senator Lloyd Williams for reelection, if photos exist to prove rumors that romantically link the senator’s daughter to the handsome, bright, ambitious and black — David Leeds. Prejudice runs mean and deep in Sam McCain’s hometown, as the amiable young attorney and sometime detective discovers in an investigation that takes him from the stench and suspicion of a local bikers’ club to the cliquey precincts of the martini-fortified rich

What are the ingredients of a hard-boiled detective story? “Savagery, style, sophistication, sleuthing, and sex,” said Ellery Queen. Often a desperate blond, a jealous husband, and, of course, a tough-but-tender P.I. the likes of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Perhaps Raymond Chandler summed it up best in his description of Dashiell Hammett’s style: “Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it... He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes.” Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories is the largest and most comprehensive collection of its kind, with over half of the stories never published before in book form. Included are thirty-six sublimely suspenseful stories that chronicle the evolution of this quintessentially American art form, from its earliest beginnings during the golden age of the legendary pulp magazine Black Mask in the 1920s, to the arrival of the tough digest Manhunt in the 1950s, and finally leading up to present-day hard-boiled stories by such writers as James Ellroy. Here are eight decades worth of the best writing about betrayal, murder, and mayhem: from Hammett’s 1925 tour de force “The Scorched Face,” in which the disappearance of two sisters leads Hammett’s never-named detective, the Continental Op, straight into a web of sexual blackmail amidst the West Coast elite, to Ed Gorman’s 1992 “The Long Silence After,” a gripping and powerful rendezvous involving a middle class insurance executive, a Chicago streetwalker, and a loaded .38. Other delectable contributions include “Brush Fire” by James M. Cain, author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raymond Chandler’s “I’ll Be Waiting,” where, for once, the femme fatale is not blond but a redhead, a Ross Macdonald mystery starring Macdonald’s most famous creator, the cryptic Lew Archer, and “The Screen Test of Mike Hammer” by the one and only Mickey Spillane. The hard-boiled cult has more in common with the legendary lawmen of the Wild West than with the gentleman and lady sleuths of traditional drawing room mysteries, and this direct line of descent is on brilliant display in two of the most subtle and tautly written stories in the collection, Elmore Leonard’s “3:10 to Yuma” and John D. MacDonald’s “Nor Iron Bars.” Other contributors include Evan Hunter (better known as Ed McBain), Jim Thompson, Helen Nielsen, Margaret Maron, Andrew Vachss, Faye Kellerman, and Lawrence Block. Compellingly and compulsively readable, Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories is a page-turner no mystery lover will want to be without. Containing many notable rarities, it celebrates a genre that has profoundly shaped not only American literature and film, but how we see our heroes and ourselves

Two teenage boys befriend an escaped bank robber — an act that changes their lives forever — in Moonchasers, a powerful short novel in the tradition of Stand by Me and To Kill a Mockingbird. Tom and Barney are only fifteen years old, and content to spend the summer sharing dime novels, monster movies, and all the other innocent pleasures Somerton, Iowa, has to offer. But when they conspire to shelter a wounded criminal who reminds them of their idol, Robert Mitchum, they set in motion a chilling chain of events that will teach them about trust, brutality, and courage. Moonchasers and Other Stories also contains several other compelling tales of suspense by Ed Gorman, including “Turn Away,” which won the Shamus Award for best detective story, and a new story that has never appeared in any previous book or collection, “Out There in the Darkness.” These and other stories make up an outstanding collection of fiction by an author who has been described by the San Diego Union as “one of the most distinctive voices in today’s crime fiction.”

Jack Dwyer, ex-cop turned amateur actor, is delighted when his agent lands him a role in a local production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The real drama starts, however, when Michael Reeves — the play’s angry, bullying director — is found murdered, and Dwyer’s friend Stephen Wade — a sweet has-been of an actor — is charged with the crime. Dwyer knows that Wade has been set up. But who did it? And why? Was it David Ashton, an apparent fortune-seeker and heir to the Bridges Theater by marriage; or Richard Keech, the handsome, pushy young actor who shared the woman whom the dead man loved? Or could it have been Anne Stewart — the aging actress who carries a secret as dark as that of the character she plays? And what of Lenora Bridges — the matriarch of the theatrical family, who never comes out of her room in the building high above the stage? Sure, all the world’s stage but, for Dwyer, it’s not that simple because a real man’s life is on the line. In order to save him, Dwyer’s going to have to discover what’s really going on behind the scenes at the most bizarre, mysterious, complex theater company west of Times Square

Tobin, a five-foot-five, red-headed film critic — co-presenter of a syndicated movie-review TV show — is in trouble. He’s been found kneeling over the body of his dead partner, fingering the knife that’s sticking out of the dead man’s back, and it’s clear that the police are not going to look for any other suspects. Not when it’s Christmas. Not when they know that Tobin has been having an affair with his partner’s wife. Not when Tobin and his partner had been involved in an on-camera free-for-all just moments before the murder. Tobin didn’t kill bis partner — but will anyone believe him? Did anyone else have such clear motive? Did anyone else have the opportunity? Do Siskel and Ebert ever have problems like this?

At ten o’clock “straight up”, just as the Channel 3 newscast begins, TV anchorman David Curtis clears his throat, looks into the camera, smiles — then falls face-first across his desk, murdered. Cyanide. The likely suspect is a teenage prowler who, earlier that evening, narrowly escaped the arms of part-time security guard (also ex-cop, sometime-actor) Jack Dwyer. What was the boy after? And, as far as the case is concerned, why does Dwyer sense that the news team is hiding more than they are reporting? Murder Straight Up is an intense, gritty crime thriller that pits Dwyer against both the glittery world of television journalism and a sleazy, dangerous criminal underworld — with an innocent boy’s life hanging in the balance. Who really engineered the death of the anchorman? Was it Kelly Ford, Channel 3’s aging, less-than-beloved news consultant? Or maybe her boss, Robert Fitzgerald, owner of a station whose ratings have declined almost to the point of bankruptcy? What about Mike Perry, pro-football player turned sports announcer, whose sturdy good looks help him hide a secret the victim knew all too well. Where does grizzly old Dev Roberts, Curtis’s co-anchor, fit in? Or Bill Hanratty, the singing weatherman? Dwyer knows there’s a terrible secret haunting the news team. What is it? And what will all this mean to the ratings?

Jack Dwyer is an ex-cop turned part-time actor (and, sometimes, part-time security guard in a discount supermarket — but he doesn’t particularly like talking about that) who, since giving up police work, really tries to mind his own business. But when Jane Branigan — his ex-live-in-lover — is found in a state of shock, holding a recently fired gun, he knows that his quiet days are about to become very complicated. Stephen Elliot — Jane’s present lover and one of the hottest young advertising executives in town — is found dead, and all evidence points to Jane. As far as the police are concerned, the case is closed; but not according to Dwyer. Who was Stephen Elliot — and who would have wanted him dead? Dwyer’s investigation takes him deep into the workings of the advertising industry, and into the sometimes luxurious, sometimes seedy, sometimes volatile lives of the people who work there. Could the murderer be Carla Travers — the blowsy, alcoholic media rep whom Elliot publicly humiliated weeks before; or David Baxter — the man who seemingly encouraged his wife’s affair with Elliot; or Bryce Hammond — the ineffectual owner of the Hammond agency — whose company falls into jeopardy with Elliot’s demise; or Phil Davies — the Hammond client who seemed to have a strange attraction toward Elliot’s women? New, Improved Murder is a gritty page-turner of a whodunit, whose solution lies in the secrets of the cutthroat world of advertising. In order to help Jane, Dwyer’s going to have to discover the truth behind the most brilliant — and deadly — hype campaign ever devised

1971: When we last saw Sam McCain he had been drafted to fight the war in Vietnam. But Sam’s military career ended in boot camp when he was badly hurt in an accident that forced him to spend months recovering in a military hospital. Now Sam is back in his hometown of Black River Falls, where he works as a lawyer (and part-time investigator) for the court of the snobbish but amusing Judge Esme Ann Whitney. Enter Will Cullen, who accidentally killed a young girl during a firefight with the Viet Cong, and is deeply troubled by his wartime experiences. When Will announces that he has joined the national Vietnam Vets Against the War, many fellow vets feel he has betrayed them. But it comes as a great surprise when war vet Steve Donovan brutally belittles and savagely beats his old friend Will when he hears that Cullen has joined the anti-war group. When Donovan is found murdered, the obvious suspect is Cullen, but Sam has serious doubts about the man’s guilt. At least three people had reasons to murder Donovan, and Sam begins to suspect he’ll discover even more as his investigation heats up, in this dynamic, politically charged mystery novel by a master of the form

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

Have yourself a crooked little Christmas with The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries. Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories — many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant. Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for — suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural — can be found in these pages. FEATURING: — Unscrupulous Santas — Crimes of Christmases Past and Present — Festive felonies — Deadly puddings — Misdemeanors under the mistletoe — Christmas cases for classic characters including Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe

Хмурым дождливым вечером десятки тысяч американцев спешили к экранам телевизоров, чтобы стать, свидетелями дебатов по вопросу о смертной казни между окружным прокурором Джессикой Дэннис и священником отцом Уильямом Джозеком. Вопрос не праздный, если учесть, что спустя несколько часов в тюрьме штата должны были привести в исполнение смертный приговор особо опасному преступнику. Обыватели ждали шоу, и они его получили, но большинству участников это зрелище стоило слишком дорого…

В это уникальное собрание вампирских историй вошли лучшие образцы жанра, корни которого теряются в древних мифах и легендах всех народов Земли. Вы найдете здесь все — жутких злодеев в черном, обитающих в древних замках среди призраков и летучих мышей, с отсветами ада в глазах и выступающими классическими клыками, и элегантных вампиров-аристократов в эффектно развевающихся плащах, с кроваво-красной розой в петлице фрака. Дракула, Лестат, Носферату — у представителей племени детей ночи множество имен и обличий. Но их всех объединяет одно — идут века, сменяются поколения, интерес же к этим сумеречным героям не иссякает, а со временем лишь усиливается

Журнал «Cemetery Dance», основанный в 1988 году 22-летним студентом университета Мэриленда Ричардом Чизмаром и впоследствии объединивший вокруг себя сотни тысяч фанатов хоррора и саспенса, отпраздновал свое 25-летие! За эти годы сомнительный любительский проект поднялся до уровня мейнстрима, солидного издания, на страницах которого обрели жизнь истории таких известных авторов, как Стивен Кинг, Питер Страуб, Ричард Матесон, Бентли Литтл, и многих других. Юбилейный сборник рассказов представляет читателю самые страшные, зловещие и мистические истории от ведущих мастеров жанра

Когда-то давно доктор Виктор Франкенштейн был вынужден собственноручно разрывать могилы преступников, чтобы из их «запасных частей» сконструировать сверхчеловека. Теперь масштабы изменились. Лучший друг и единомышленник Гитлера, Сталина и Мао Цзэдуна, Франкенштейн тоже стремился к господству над миром. После загадочной смерти Иосифа и кончины Мао зловещий доктор перенес свою деятельность в Новый Орлеан. По мнению Франкенштейна, даже своим названием этот город наилучшим образом подходил для сотворения Новой расы… Впервые на русском языке!

Добро пожаловать в Мир Реки! В мир, порожденный полетом воображения первого Великого мастера фантастики нового тысячелетия — Филипа Хосе Фармера! В мир странной планеты, опоясанной миллиономильной Рекой. Рекой, на берегах которой загадочные «творцы» создали «искусственный рай». «Рай», в котором возрождаются все люди, жившие когда-то на Земле. Возрождаются на берегах Великой Реки… Нет двух рассказов

Это — двадцать две истории ужаса. Истории страха, крови, смерти. Истории Безумия, Боли, Безнадеги. Откройте свое сердце для «Темной любви». Для страсти — Одержимости, страсти — Кошмара. Позвольте Стивену Кингу пригласить вас в Готэм — кафе, где вам подадут на ленч... вашу голову. Станцуйте с безумной балериной из рассказа Кейт Коджа танец ненависти и убийства. Полюбуйтесь вместе с маньяком Бэзила Коппера блистанием полированных лезвий. Поиграйте с Джоном Пейтоном Куком в игру молодых влюбленных, в которой выигравший выживает. Эти двадцать две истории дарят вам лучшие мастера современной литературы ужасов. Прочтите это один раз — этого вам не забыть никогда... Антология получила премию «Deathrealm», а также номинировалась на премию «Локус» и Всемирную премию фэнтези