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

In this first of a new series of spirited historical mysteries set in 1890s San Francisco, former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her partner, ex-Secret Service agent John Quincannon, undertake two apparently unrelated investigations. Sabina's case involves the hunt for a ruthless pickpocket who uses fiendish means to relieve her victims of their valuables. She strikes most often at an amusement park, in a torchlit pitchman’s bazaar, and among the crowds along the evening Cocktail Route. Quincannon is after a slippery housebreaker who targets the homes of the city’s wealthy residents. Following the trail leads Quincannon to the infamous Barbary Coast, an oyster pirate’s lair, and a Tenderloin house of joy. The cast of characters also includes a pair of receivers of stolen merchandise, a retired lady “dip,” an alcoholic lawyer and his wife, a mysterious carriage driver — and a man claiming to be Sherlock Holmes. The two cases eventually connect in surprising fashion, but not before matters are complicated by two murders, assorted felonies, and the constant interference of the bughouse Sherlock — a shrewd “crackbrain” who hinders, exasperates, and nearly outshines both Sabina and Quincannon with clever detective work of his own