A collection of suspense stories, puzzle stories, whodunits and tricky whydunits involving police detectives, private eyes, talented and sometimes lucky amateurs, armchair detectives, and ethnic detectives

It's a nightmare no parent should ever endure. Especially Alice Glendenning, a South Florida real estate agent who hasn't managed to sell a single home — or collect any insurance money — after her husband's fatal boating accident. Her daughter and son's kidnappers demand $250,000, the exact amount she's supposed to receive from the insurance company. To complicate matters, her housekeeper has contacted the police — a glaring error in judgment that puts a spotlight on the crime, the children's lives at risk… and Alice in jeopardy

Here is an irresistibly charming tale, beautifully packaged in a small, illustrated and slipcased gift book. All’s quiet at the 87th Precinct on Christmas Eve... until Steve Carella’s fellow detectives appear with a kid who’s stolen a sheep, a robber with a bagful of gold, two guys fighting over a sack of frankincense, and a young couple who give birth to a baby boy at midnight! “And All Through the House” was first published in Playboy in December, 1984

When the affable owner of a checkered-tablecloth restaurant in Little Italy is cut down by the bullets of a pair of ski-masked thugs, Fifth Precinct Police Detective Reardon has his hands too full to give a damn about some odd things going on uptown. For instance, why does a noted Madison Avenue art lover suddenly decide to sell his entire collection in an effort to raise a cool million? And why was a well-known Arab oil magnate assassinated? Almost too late, Reardon sees the connection between the deaths of a multi-millionaire and a smalltime restaurateur, and the fluctuations in the international markets for crude oil, fine art, and precious metals. And now that he knows the truth, just how long has he got to live? ANOTHER PART OF THE CITY is a brilliant, hard-hitting foray into Manhattan’s tangled web of twisting downtown streets and crooked uptown lives

Eighty-six-year-old George Lasser was the superintendent of a building in the 87th Precinct until just recently. Unfortunately his tenure ended in the building’s basement with a sharp, heavy blade of an ax in his head… There are no witnesses, no suspects, and no clues. The wife and son? They’re both a little off-kilter, but they have alibis. Just when Carella and Hawes are about to put the case on the shelf, the killer strikes again. Now the detectives are hot on the trail of a man crazy enough to murder with an ax. One of the 87th Precinct series’ finest installments, Ax is a sharp, intense crime thriller that is classic Ed McBain. The New York Times hails it as “the best of today’s police stories—lively, inventive, convincing, suspenseful, and wholly satisfactory

A killer is out for blood, and it’s up to Detective Steve Carella to bring him in ― but a shocking surprise awaits when a survivor fingers the suspect in a lineup

Benjamin Thorpe is married, a father, a successful Los Angeles architect — and a man obsessed. Alone in New York City on business, he spends the empty hours of the night in a compulsive search for female companionship. His dizzying descent leads to an early morning confrontation in a mid-town brothel, and a subsequent searing self-revelation

Matthew Hope spots her on Saturday, exquisitely beautiful, strolling topless on the beach. On Monday, she shows up in his law office, beaten and bruised, ready to file for divorce. By Tuesday, she is dead — and her big, ugly husband is arrested for murder. But Matthew believes he is innocent; now, he has to prove it

DESCRIPTION: From some of the greatest literary minds of our time comes a collection of stories about dangerous women. With an unprecedented lineup of authors, Mysterious Press proudly presents an extraordinary collection of short stories. Lorenzo Carcaterra, Michael Connelly, John Connolly, Jeffery Deaver, Nelson DeMille, J.A. Jance, Andrew Klavan, Elmore Leonard, Laura Lippman, Ed McBain, Jay McInerney, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Perry, Ian Rankin, S.J. Rozan, and Thomas H. Cook combine their talents in a collection which is certain to find a large audience eager to read stories by some of the most distinguished names in the genre

She was a living doll — until she was slashed to death. Detective Steve Carella wants Bert Kling on the case, even though Kling is making enemies of everyone. Then finally even Carella has had it with Kling, and suddenly the detective is missing and suspected dead. The men from the 87th Precinct go full tilt to find the truth. But they really need to find is a little doll — the little doll with all the answers

Ed McBain, author of the best-selling 87th Precinct novels, now takes you Downtown in a bold, new departure of a novel that will make you laugh, cry, and tingle with the special brand of electrifying suspense that only McBain knows how to generate. Downtown you’ll meet Michael Barnes, a lone out-of-town businessman in New York City on Christmas Eve with a couple of hours to kill before his plane leaves. It promises to be a sweet interlude when he meets a lovely blonde in a bar. But first his identification and all his money are stolen, and next his rental car — only to resurface on the other side of town with an unexpected passenger: a corpse. Here are every readers brightest, glittering fantasies and blackest nightmares about the Big Apple: big-shot movie producers, muggers with the instincts of Vietnamese guerrillas, cops who arrest the victims, mobsters who embrace you, thugs who tie you up, beautiful women who take you into their limousines, beautiful women who try to drive their stiletto heels through your skull, warehouses full of furs, jewels, and other valuables, smoky gambling dens in Chinatown, ritzy penthouse apartments, miserable dives... Michael Barnes has only twenty-four hours to survive the wildest ride in his life

A sunny, quiet, perfectly ordinary school day in autumn turns suddenly dark when sixteen-year-old Rebecca Patton runs down and kills a pedestrian during a driving lesson. It all happens so quickly, so inexplicably, like an accident. The victim — a woman carrying a red handbag — had been stepping off the curb at the corner of Grove and Third. Then she was lying in the street, in critical condition. When police detective Katie Logan arrives at the station house, she finds a distraught but cooperative Rebecca. Her driving instructor, Andrew Newell, is totally disoriented, however. He appears to be drunk. Or on drugs. Certainly, his apparent incompetence warrants his arrest in what has now become a case of negligent homicide. The situation in this adroitly told tale by a master at the top of his form grows far more sinister, though, when Logan learns that the victim’s handbag has been recovered. It identifies the dead woman as Andrew Newell’s wife

Stan Gifford is the ultimate comedian. A pro through and through, when Stan’s act dies, so does he—in front of forty million viewers from coast to coast, including the 87th Precinct’s Steve Carella. But what seemed to be death by natural causes quickly turns into a case of murder, and Carella must unravel the motivations behind the comedian’s final act. Meanwhile, Cindy Forrest has been working to put herself through college since the sniper who held the city hostage three years ago murdered her father. But now she’s in the crosshairs, and the only thing standing between her and a killer is Detective Bert Kling of the 87th Precinct

It’s Christmastime and Detective Carella gets assigned three murders — including a bestselling author of ghost stories — and is soon after ghosts, mediums, and a crazed killer

Patrolman Richard Genero couldn’t see clearly in the driving rain. The man — or perhaps the tall woman — standing at the bus stop was dressed entirely in black. Black raincoat, black slacks, black shoes, black umbrella which hid the head and hair. A bus pulled to the curb, spreading a canopy of water. The door snapped open. The person — man or woman — boarded the bus and the rain-streaked doors closed, hiding the black-shrouded figure from view. The bus pulled away from the curb, spreading another canopy of water which soaked Genero’s trouser legs. “Hey!” he yelled after the bus. “You forgot your bag!” Genera picked up the bag — a small, blue overnight bag issued by an airline. He unzipped the bag and reached into it. Then he gripped the bus-stop sign for support. The bag held... a severed human hand. The police lab gave both bag and hand a thorough examination and discovered next to nothing. Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, Meyer Meyer and the other 87th Precinct detectives had a murderer to find, and they had to begin without even knowing who the victim was. The Missing Persons Bureau files supplied two leads, both of which led nowhere. Everything that looked even faintly like a clue was checked and double-checked and they all led to the same place — a dead end. Then, when the break finally came and several clues turned up at once, they neatly contradicted each other. It was the toughest case the 87th Precinct detectives had ever faced

Goldilocks... The Other Woman Goldilocks-stealing into someone else’s house, with no particular interest in the chairs or the porridge, but with more than a passing fascination with Poppa Bear’s bed. On the steamy west coast of Florida, in the quiet of their home, a woman and her two little girls have been brutally murdered. None of the alibis add up. The one person who couldn’t possibly have a motive for the crime is the only one confessing to it, and he insists on Matthew Hope for his defense. Now Matt finds himself tangled in the unravelling threads of three heartless killings in which every half-sister, stepson, and first wife could have had a hand. Somebody’s lying. Maybe everybody

Ed McBain's astonishing 87th-Precinct series continues with a hard look at what passes for love in a city grown used to crimes of passion. When a beautiful blonde tells Detective Steve Carella that her husband's former chauffeur has made two attempts on her life, Carella immediately begins tracking her assailant -- only to find him far uptown, hanging from a basement pipe, a bullet in his head. Who killed the chauffeur? And why, now that her would-be murderer is dead, does the blonde's wealthy husband insist on retaining the services of the private eye from Chicago? "He loves me, " she insists, but Carella has his doubts. It appears the husband is involved with another blonde, also from Chicago. Can Carella prevent another murder-before someone else is betrayed with a kiss?

Jimmy Harris lost his eyesight in Vietnam. But it was on a cold city street that he lost his life. Somebody chloroformed his guide dog and slit Harris's throat. Detectives Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer of the 87th Precinct shook their heads at the blood and waste of it all, then took the groggy dog back to headquarters, where it told them all it could — nothing. Jimmy’s blind wife didn't tell Carella much more. And by the next morning, she wasn’t talking at all. She was dead. The only clue Carella could find to the double murder was a nightmare Jimmy had told an Army shrink ten years before... and the detective was too blind to see how a bad dream of sex and violence was the key to the dark places in a killer’s mind

Savvy, sexy, and very bad, these are the ladies that plague the 87th precinct. Pregnant hookers, brunettes with bombs, and the fat lady lead the hit parade of femme fatales

Here are excerpts from more than 30 years of Grand Master Ed McBain's bestselling 87th Precinct series of police procedurals, featuring some of his most lovable female characters

Las mujeres más peligrosas son aquellas que resultan irresistibles. ¿Qué hace peligrosa a una mujer? Su gran belleza, su encanto, su inteligencia, la manera en que se aparta el cabello de los ojos, o el modo de reírse. Puede tener conciencia absoluta de su poder, o desconocerlo por completo. Utilizarlo comoa rma o protegerse detrás de él. La intención y el propósito no aumentan ni disminuyen el poder, y ése es mayor peligro de todos los que son seducidos y sometidos por él

Prudence Ann Markham was as careful as her name. Before heading out to her car in the deserted parking lot she packed up the film she’d been editing, checked the studio gear, set the alarm, and locked the outer door. It was 10:40 P.M. — but Prudence Ann never made it to 10:45. Carlton Barnaby Markham didn’t know what his wife had been working on at the time of her death. All he knew was that the film was missing...  and that he was in Calusa County Jail, charged with her murder. For Matthew Hope, the months since he’d decided to switch to criminal law had not been encouraging. He’d lost his first case and refused his second. When Carlton Markham says he is innocent, Hope takes the case. But as he digs into the evidence, it becomes clear that it will take more than claims of innocence to spring his client

They were dead, the husband and wife. Both were shot in the face at close range with a shotgun. The husband, in fact, still had his finger on the trigger, the barrel pointing toward what used to be a significant portion of his head. It was clearly a suicide — or did it just look that way? For Detectives Steve Carella and Bert Kling, what seems to be the truth on the surface often reveals something far different underneath. A killer is murdering married women and their husbands. But setting up shop in the 87th Precinct was the wrong move. Carella and Kling don’t buy the suicide theory, and soon enough they are on the killer’s trail. The only trouble is the murderous crime wave ripping through the city has gathered momentum

When Anthony Forrest walked out of the office building, the only thoughts on his mind were of an impending birthday and a meeting with his wife for dinner. And a deadly bullet saw to it that they were the last thoughts on his mind. The problem for Detectives Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer of the 87th Precinct is that Forrest isn’t alone. An anonymous sniper is unofficially holding the city hostage, frustrating the police as one by one the denizens of Isola drop like flies. With fear gripping the citizenry and the pressure on the 87th mounting, finding a killer whose victims are random is the greatest challenge the detectives have ever faced — and the deadliest game the city has ever known. A gritty, relentless pressure cooker of a thriller, Ten Plus One is one of bestselling author Ed McBain’s finest, the ultimate addition to the 87th Precinct series where time threatens to stand still and murder rules the day

In this city, you have to pay attention. In this city, things are happening all the time, all over the place, and you don't have to be a detective to smell evil in the wind. Take this week's tabloids: the face of a dead girl is splashed across the front page. She was found sprawled near a park bench not seven blocks from the police station. Detectives Carella and Brown soon discover the girl has a most unusual past. Meanwhile, the late-night news tracks the exploits of The Cookie Boy, a professional thief who leaves his calling card - a box of chocolate chip cookies - at the scene of each score. And while the detectives of the 87th Precinct are investigating these cases, one of them is being stalked by the man who killed his father. Welcome to the Big Bad City

Detective Steve Carella of the 87th precinct had a pretty complete description of the man he was looking for: The man was tall, blond, handsome — a powerhouse of strength and sex. Women gave him whatever he wanted. And he made some strange requests. After seducing a woman, he would ask her to have a small heart tattooed on her hand, to show the world that she belonged to him. When the woman had been thus branded as his property — he murdered her

Three chillers from the files of the 87th Precinct: A young, wealthy woman is found strangled to death in a slum apartment leaving behind only her name, some cancelled checks, and an unknown killer in The Empty Hours ... A big, ugly "J" is painted on the synagogue wall by a killer who had brutally stabbed the rabbi on Passover ... A bright red pool of blood spread into the snow as Cotton Hawes watched his quiet ski weekend turn into a hunt for a ski-slope slayer in Storm

When Ralph, a loving older brother upset by his brother’s gay lifestyle, is accused of his murder and the evidence points to his guilt, Matthew Hope must work with a few fleeting but crucial clues to prove Ralph’s innocence

Twenty stories from the man who created the 87th Precinct. Stories of the street and the city, stories of the cops and their prey. Life in a Chinese lobster-shop, the making of a porn queen, and the agony of being jailed with a non-stop talking cellmate. Places and people only he could describe

The fiftieth is pure gold: from the author The New York Times calls "the man with the golden ear" comes the fiftieth novel in the th Precinct series. In this city, you can get anything done for a price. If you want someone's eyeglasses smashed, it'll cost you a subway token. You want his fingernails pulled out? His legs broken? You want him more seriously injured? You want him hurt so he's an invalid his whole life? You want him skinned, you want him burned, you want him — don't even mention it in a whisper — killed? It can be done. Let me talk to someone. It can be done. The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby little apartment in a meager section of the th Precinct was nothing much in this city, especially to detectives Carella and Meyer. But everyone has a story, and this old man's story stood to make some people a lot of money. His story takes Carella, Meyer, Brown, and Weeks on a search through Isola's seedy strip clubs and to the bright lights of the theater district. There they discover an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug and a killer who stays until . is 's fiftieth novel of the th Precinct and certainly one of his best. The series began in with Cop Hater and proves him to be the man who has been called "so good he should be arrested."

This mugger is special. He preys on women, waiting in the darkness… then comes from behind, attacks them, and snatches their purses. He tells them not to scream and as they're on the ground, reeling with pain and fear, he bows and nonchalantly says, “Clifford thanks you, madam.” But when he puts one victim in the hospital and the next in the morgue, the detectives of the 87th Precinct are not amused and will stop at nothing to bring him to justice. Dashing young patrolman Bert Kling is always there to help a friend. And when a friend's sister-in-law is the mugger's murder victim, Bert's personal reasons to find the maniacal killer soon become a burning obsession… and it could easily get him killed

Hillerman, author of the Joe Leaphorn mysteries, and Herbert, editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, trace this short-story genre from its beginnings in the hands of Edgar Allen Poe through its development by the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner, Mary Roberts Rinehart and Anthony Boucher to its current practice by such masters as Marcia Muller. Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which established a great many of the whodunit conventions, is indispensable to such an overview. Raymond Chandler's "I'll be Waiting" emits a doom-laden atmosphere right from the first line; William Faulkner shows unexpected economy of language?and a transparent plot?in "An Error in Chemistry." Ed McBain scores high marks in "Small Homicide," in which the tiny details of a baby's untimely death resonate uncomfortably. As represented in this competent, unstartling collection, Linda Barnes ("Lucky Penny") easily outsasses Sue Grafton ("The Parker Shotgun"). Hillerman makes a solid appearance with "Chee's Witch," and in "Benny's Space" Muller captures the full subtle force of her novel-length vision

A cadre of trained men, led by a ruthless former naval officer, succeeds in taking over a small town on the Florida coast and shutting it off completely from all communication with the outside world. Why? What is their goal? As suspenseful as it is frightening, The Sentries piles excitement on excitement as a group of super-patriots mounts an almost foolproof scheme to force America’s hand in the Cold War and change the course of history. It is a chilling tale of what could happen tomorrow in today’s balance-of-terror world

When three immigrants are found dead in a grisly tableau, a Florida attorney defends the man who insists he’s innocent… though he’s thrilled to see the trio slaughtered

In a walled garden surrounded by skyscrapers, Father Michael Birney met an unholy end, stabbed by an assailant who invaded his vespers prayers and then vanished as twilight overtook the big city. A stone's throw from the crime scene, a congregation of Satan worshipers chants its disturbing incantations - an irony not lost on Detectives Carella and Hawes, who search among the cultists for a killer. But it will take more than a leap of faith for the cops of the 87th Precinct to expose the truth behind the deadliest - and bloodiest - of sins