From Lagos to Mexico City, Australia to the Caribbean, Toronto to Los Angeles, Darjeeling to rural New Zealand, London to New York--twenty-two bestselling crime writers from diverse cultures come together from across the world in a razor sharp and deliciously sinister collection of crime stories--

Murder - it's one of the staples of mystery fiction. One of the unwritten rules of the mystery novel is to start your murder in the first chapter...and on the first page, if possible! Collected here are 22 tales of murder. Some are fiendish. ("The Doorbell" is especially chilling.) Some are exotic. (Egyptian mummy murder? You bet!) Some take place in far-off locations. (The Canadian woods? At sea? In foreign countries? Why not!) What they all have...

Haley Farrell is taking a chance on herself. After receiving her interior design certificate, she quits her job at the local furniture store and decides to open her own interior decorating business. But with all the advantages of her new career-meeting new people, and decorating new and old homes-comes a huge pitfall. Her new job allows her access into her clients' homes and their lives . . . but also their deaths. When Haley's mentor, Marge Norwalk,...

"Ghelfi's Russia is a soul-numbing nightmare of corruption, crime, deadly pollution, and lost hope. This one merits comparison with the brilliant thrillers of Martin Cruz Smith and Tom Rob Smith."-Booklist Prominent journalist Katarina Mironova, known around the world as Kato, is found murdered, shot to death on the banks of Russia's Techa River near the radioactive village of Metlino. She could simply fade from the public eye, one more journalist...

Hannah Payne, sentenced to being dyed a stigmatizing red for the crime of having an abortion, must learn to adjust to her new circumstances in a United States where her married lover, Aidan Dale, is Secretary of Faith.

When Maisie Dobbs is hired to find the missing daughter of a wealthy grocery magnate, she discovers that three of the heiress's friends have died violently, leading her to investigate the connection between the disappearance and the murders.

The Chichester is making a routine journey across the English Channel on a pleasant afternoon in June, when the steamer's crew notice something strange. A yacht, bobbing about in the water ahead of them, appears to have been abandoned, and there is a dark red stain on the deck... Two bodies later, with no sign of a gun, there certainly is a mystery in the channel. Inspector French soon discovers a world of high-powered banking, luxury yachts and international...

Blaming himself for the death of his younger brother years ago, homicide detective Jack Leightner learns from a stranger that the killing was ordered by a local Mafioso, a discovery with ties to the murder of an alleged terrorist.

In Paul Doiron's riveting follow-up to his Edgar Award–nominated novel, The Poacher's Son, Maine game warden Mike Bowditch's quest to find a missing woman leads him through a forest of lies in search of a killer who may have gotten away with murder once before.
While on patrol one foggy March evening, Bowditch receives a call for help. A woman has reportedly struck a deer on a lonely coast road. When the game warden arrives on

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Twenty-two-year-old Siobhan O'Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother. It's been a rough year for Siobhon, but it's about to get rougher. One morning they discover a man seated at a table with a pair of scissors protruding from his chest. It's up to Siobhon to solve the crime.