EBOOK ORIGINALS

Hitman with a heart of gold Michael Hendricks is back in this digital-exclusive short story.

When a strip-club mogul puts out a hit on a dancer who won't give him off-the-clock attention, Hendricks takes a detour to Las Vegas to stop the job in its tracks. With tech genius Lester in his ear and a fake identity as cover, Hendricks has only one problem: he has no idea what the target looks like. Against the scorching heat of the city's desert outskirts, a case of mistaken identity nearly turns fatal, but our principled hitman has a few tricks of his own up his sleeve.

Michael Palmer and Matthew Palmer join forces to pen the story of John, a low-level criminal looking for the next big score in the in the factory town of Logan.
A small-time criminal joins a gang, he does a year in prison, and he swears he's better than all of it. That's when he decides he will rob the home of the Harpy, an ancient women living out her last days in a moldering mansion above town. But things don't go as John expects, and Harpy is given a reward that may well be a curse. With this information, John swears he's invincible...but has he thought of every angle?

"The Deal" by Michael Palmer and Matthew Palmer is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books's Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the most legendary authors in the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and listen to them all!

From the renowned American playwright Tennessee Williams, a glimpse of college life on the eve of graduation.
It's the last day of the academic year, and the students of a small, mid-western university are preparing for a bacchanalian celebration called Crazy Night. Our chaperone for the evening is Phil, a freshman on the verge of flunking out, who roves the fraternities in search of beer, women, and the meaning of life. It's just after the Great Crash, with Prohibition in sobering effect-a bleak time for college graduates and drop-outs, who have one more night to do everything, before they enter a world that offers them nothing.

"Crazy Night" by Tennessee Williams is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books's Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the most legendary authors in the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and listen to them all!

Olen Steinhauer's crafty story begins as an affectionate recounting by Tom, a down-on-his-luck graduate caring for his sick mother and reconnecting with his awkward friend, Jerry McLaughlin. Jerry lives in a relative's basement in Chicago, and over the intervening months the two young men strategize Jerry's seemingly innocuous plan to become a super-villain in the spirit of Bond greats like Blofeld. Things turn dark, however, when Jerry's plans find success, and he enlists the wayward Tom to help him expand his little start-up to the next level. At turns witty and diabolical, "The Start-Up" is a fiendish take on the spy genre, as well as the dangerous friendships of Highsmith, le Carré, and others.

"Start-Up" by Olen Steinhauer is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books's Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the most legendary authors in the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and read them all!

From the author of the Inspector Morse series, a short story about a freelance investigator and what should be a simple case.
Mrs. Isobel Rodgers is an investigator's perfect client: beautiful, wealthy, and offering a straightfoward assignment. Mrs. Rodgers suspects her husband of an affair, and it's up to the investigator to determine the object of Mr. Rodger's affections. For someone with brilliant deductive powers, this should be an open-and-shut case-but Mrs. Rodgers may know more than she's letting on.

"The Other Half" by Colin Dexter is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books's Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the biggest names in mystery from the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and listen to them all!

From New York Times bestselling author Philip Kerr, comes a story of a young man growing up in colonial America.
No one knows when "something infernal" crept into the heart of young Master Edgar, a well-bred British orphan in the hands of a cool stepfather in 19th century Richmond, Virginia, and under the care of the home's educated and proper slave, Scipio. Was it when his actress mother died, years after moving Edgar and his brother from England to America? Was it during his strange education at the hands of the calculating Scipio? Or was it when he plotted another boy's death so that he could gain entry, through the boy's grave, into the underworld?

"The Pocket Handkerchief" by Philip Kerr is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books's Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the most legendary authors in the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and listen to them all!

Meet Detective Kevin Byrne, rising star of the Philadelphia police force. Christmas Eve, 1988: Partnered with streetwise veteran Frankie Sheehan, Byrne is called to investigate the brutal assault of a young woman in a crime-ridden neighborhood, The Devil's Pocket.

There, with the rest of the city hunkered down in their holiday celebrations, relentless rookie Byrne must step out from his partner's shadow to outwit a terrifying predator. It's the beginning of a long career for Byrne, who will revisit the same vicious streets in Richard Montanari's beloved Byrne and Balzano series. "A Christmas Killing" is a short story that includes an excerpt from Richard Montanari's terrifying Byrne and Balzano novel, Shutter Man.

Struggling detective Alisha Barba is trying to get her life back on track after almost being crippled by a murder suspect. Now on her feet again, she receives a desperate plea from an old school friend, who is eight months pregnant and in trouble. On the night they arrange to meet, her friend is run down and killed by a car and Alisha discovers the first in a series of haunting and tragic deceptions.

Determined to uncover the truth, she embarks upon a dangerous journey that will take her from the East End of London to Amsterdam's murky red light district and into a violent underworld of sex trafficking, slavery and exploitation.

"Vibrant and utterly contemporary . . . An altogether superior thriller." -- Los Angeles Times

From bestselling thriller author David Morrell comes a brooding Thomas De Quincey short story about the coldest of deaths and their heartbreaking aftermath.

Thomas De Quincey -- the central character of Morrell's acclaimed Victorian mysteries, Murder as a Fine Art and Inspector of the Dead -- was one of the most notorious and brilliant literary personalities of the 1800s. His infamous Confessions of an English Opium-Eater made history as the first book about drug dependency. He invented the word "subconscious" and anticipated Freud's psychoanalytic theories by more than a half century. His blood-soaked essays and stories influenced Edgar Allan Poe, who in turn inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes.

But at the core of his literary success lies a terrible tragedy. In this special-edition novella, based on real-life events, Morrell shares De Quincey's story of a horrific snowstorm in which a mother and father died and their six children were trapped in the mountains of England's Lake District. Even more gripping is what happened after. This is the true tale of how Thomas De Quincey became the Opium-Eater, brought to life by award-winning storyteller David Morrell.

An afterword contains numerous photographs of the dramatic locations in the story.

A kinetic standalone from "first class storyteller" Michael Robotham (San Francisco Chronicle).

Sami Macbeth is not a master criminal. He's not even a minor one. He's not a jewel thief. He's not a safe-cracker. He's not an expert in explosives. Sami plays guitar and wants to be a rock god but keeps getting sidetracked by unforeseen circumstances.

Fifty-four hours ago Sami was released from prison. Thirty-six hours ago he slept with the woman of his dreams at the Savoy. An hour ago his train blew up. Now he's carrying a rucksack through London's West End and has turned himself into the most wanted terrorist in the country.

Fast, funny, hip and violent, Bombproof is a non-stop adventure full of unforgettable characters and a heartwarming hero -- Sami Macbeth -- a man with the uncanny ability to turn a desperate situation into a hopeless one.

In this digital-only short story, DA Rachel Knight and her besties take a Caribbean vacation and end up solving a crime.

With her besties Bailey and Toni in tow, Rachel leaves work and rainy LA behind and sets off for a much needed vacation in Aruba. Greeted by glittering sand and a balmy breeze, the three friends can't imagine anywhere more perfect.

But just minutes after hitting the beach, they're approached by a panicked young woman. A gofer on the biggest reality hit since "Survivor," she's lost the show's child star and must find her, now, before anyone else realizes she's gone. Rachel, Bailey, and Toni put their dreams of paradise on hold and embark on a whirlwind search for the girl -- a search that ends with a twist so disturbing no one, not even a fortune-teller, could have seen it coming . . .

It started with a haunting image: a Ford Explorer, iridescent in the moonlight and alone on a desolate stretch of beach. Its owner, Melissa Gibbons, has gone missing. Her husband says she flew the coop. But Los Angeles Deputy DA Rachel Knight is convinced otherwise: Melissa Gibbons has been murdered.

So begins the confounding case that Rachel must present before a disbelieving jury. A dissatisfied heiress and her philandering husband -- what really happened? The husband has a fiendishly convincing case that Melissa faked her own death and fled. But with the support of her trusty sidekick, Detective Bailey Keller, Rachel pieces together a much more sinister truth.

In this short, standalone Rachel Knight thriller, readers follow our savvy and riotously entertaining heroine through the surprising world of LA crime.

A cajun cop infiltrates the mob...but is he too close?

A Morning for Flamingos is a classic Dave Robicheaux Louisiana mystery by New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke.

Clutching the shards, of his shattered life, Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux has rejoined the New lberia police force.

His partner is dead -- slain during a condemned prisoner's bloody flight to freedom that left Robicheaux critically wounded and reawakened the ghost of his haunted, violent past.

Following the trail of the escaped convicts, Robicheaux is soon drawn back to New Orleans. But this time, the stakes are even higher. He's working for the DEA undercover in an attempt to incriminate Tony Cardo, a clinically insane drug lord. But all Robicheaux's really got is revenge on the mind. And he'll only be satisfied when the killers who upended his life have been brought to justice.

Dave Robicheaux was once a Louisiana homicide cop. Now he's trying to start a new life, opening up a fishing business and caring for his adopted girl, Alafair.

Compared to Louisiana, Robicheaux thought Montana would be safe — until two Native American activists suddenly go missing. When Robicheaux begins investigating, he is led into the dark world of the Mafia and oil companies. At the same time, someone from his past comes back to haunt him. Someone who was responsible for Robicheaux's flight from New Orleans — someone who brutally murdered his wife — and now is after young Alafair...

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, Black Cherry Blues spans from the mystical streets of New Orleans to the endless mountains of Montana, and ranks among James Lee Burke's finest work — an enduring classic, darkly beautiful and thrilling.