A collection of stories, both early and late, that show how James M. Cain made his name There is a hungry tiger loose in the house, and that is not good news for anyone. A jealous husband let the animal out of his cage hoping he would eat his wife alive, but tigers aren’t used to taking orders. This jungle cat will get his meal, and he doesn’t care where it comes from. “The Baby in the Icebox” begins with a murdered wildcat and ends with a dead human—and what comes in between is some of the most striking prose James M. Cain ever put to paper. It is one of the first stories this master of crime fiction ever wrote, and it shows all the hallmarks of the novels that would later make him famous—namely Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. The tales in this collection are short, but Cain never needed more than a few pages to thrill.

Edge begins with a massive and catastrophic shifting of the San Andreas fault. The fears of California someday tumbling into the sea--that have become the stuff of parody--become real. But even the terror resulting from this catastrophe pales in comparison to the understanding behind its happening, a cataclysm extending beyond mankind's understanding of horror as it had previously been known. The world is falling apart because things are out of joint at the quantum level, about which of course there's never been any guarantee that everything has to remain stable. Koji Suzuki returns to the genre he's most famous for after many years of "not wanting to write any more horror." As expected from Suzuki, the chills are of a more cerebral, psychological sort, arguably more unsettling and scary than the slice-and-dice gore fests that horror has become known in the U.S. Never content to simply do "Suzuki"--as it were--but rather push the envelope on what horror is in general and for which readers have come to know him, Edge City borders on being cutting-edge science fiction. The author himself terms this novel, which he has worked on for some years, a work of "quantum horror."

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen comes a new thriller that will have Eve Duncan questioning everything she thought she knew about her family and her past One woman held captive for decades… * Another one freed by the truth… * Forensic sculptor Eve Duncan knows what it's like to be haunted by the past.  For years after her daughter Bonnie was stolen from her, she fought for closure.  But now as she's striving to begin anew, she can't shake the feeling that something terrible is about to happen—or maybe already has.  When her mother, Sandra, asks for help in finding a missing friend named Beth Avery, Eve is sure that she's hiding something.  It’s odd that Sandra would get involved at all, and the fact that she adamantly refuses to go to the police for help reinforces Eve’s suspicions that something is very wrong. Eve learns that Beth has been locked away in a mental hospital for years, which makes it even harder to understand how she could have disappeared. As Sandra reluctantly reveals small pieces of the truth about Beth's identity, Eve is shocked to discover that their lives are strangely entwined, and Beth's disappearance now puts them all in grave danger. Desperate, Eve enlists a secret weapon to pick up Beth's trail: rogue profiler, Kendra Michaels. With an uncanny ability to detect clues and solve puzzles, Kendra begins to uncover the bizarre circumstances of Beth's escape from what should have been the safety of her hospital room. Beth is on the run, and as her mind clears--detoxing from the drugs that have held her prisoner--she begins to see the threads of a twisted plot within the powerful Avery family, threatening to destroy Beth and anyone else who might jeopardize the high-stakes game that is already in play. 

Meet Charles Boxer - ex-army, ex-police and now a high-stakes kidnap recovery specialist, he knows only too well how the dark forces in the city can reach out and ensnare an innocent victim. The hostage is the beautiful Alyshia D'Cruz, daughter of Indian tycoon Francisco 'Frank' D'Cruz. After a boozy night out she gets into the wrong cab home and Boxer is the only man Frank will trust to go down into the criminal underworld to retrieve her. Boxer knows that Frank's crooked business empire has made him plenty of enemies, but despite the vast D'Cruz fortune, the kidnappers don't want his cash. They prefer a crueller, more lethal game and to have any chance of saving Alyshia, Boxer must play it out with religious fanatics, London's home-grown crime lords and Indian mobsters, as his trail crosses paths with a terrorist plot on British soil. Capital Punishment is a thrilling journey to the dark side of people and places hidden just out of sight, waiting for the moment to tear a life apart.

Native American ingenuity faces criminal-element in this suspenseful, dynamic and exciting tale of an P.I. whose has the Native-foxlike skills to outwit, investigate and capture some of the modern American West's culprit.Bo Jon is an private investigator who works out of the West. He is native-American, a former-Marine and Green Beret stationed at DMZ and went on to attain his Masters in Economics... Intelligent, wise and cunning he's learned from his heritage a father sitting Chief of his tribe, and many accolades from as a Reservationalist-officer to retiring to live on his ranch, Secato S. A very capable detective. He works out of the Modern day West from Alaska to discover fishery disease to Houston TX to uncover a heist thought impossible. He aids, assists and solves many sorts of crimes that he has the innate ability to solve and apprehend.

A page-turning serial killer thriller From million-bestselling author Bella Forrest comes a dark and delicious new crime novel... Megastar Isabel Morales has never been one to shy away from controversy. But after a particularly daring, full-nude shoot on Wall Street, it's not only the media that has spiraled into a frenzy. Fans, and heck, the entire world seem to be turning against her. Rants, insults and death threats - Isabel has experienced it all in her time... But never like this. Her stunt was meant to be a statement of empowerment to women - a show of taking back her body from the capitalists who claim it as their own. But people don't get it. When Isabel vanishes in broad daylight from a building, Private Investigator Erin Bond receives a desperate call from Isabel's manager requesting her to join forces with the police in the case. Erin suspects she's in for the ride of her career, but given Erin's own celebrity status as an abducted child, she never thought it could become the ride of her life... Nothing is as it seems in the search for Isabel Morales. Buy now to join the hunt...

There's a murderer on the loose—but that doesn't stop the girls of St. Etheldreda's from attempting to hide the death of their headmistress in this rollicking farce. The students of St. Etheldreda's School for Girls face a bothersome dilemma. Their irascible headmistress, Mrs. Plackett, and her surly brother, Mr. Godding, have been most inconveniently poisoned at Sunday dinner. Now the school will almost certainly be closed and the girls sent home—unless these seven very proper young ladies can hide the murders and convince their neighbors that nothing is wrong. Julie Berry's The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place is a smart, hilarious Victorian romp, full of outrageous plot twists, mistaken identities, and mysterious happenings.

Patrick Cosgrove used to think he'd do anything not to be a prisoner of Sandstone State Reformatory. Fifteen years on the inside for a victimless crime, under the care of a warden whose penchant for violence is legendary--surely nothing could be worse. But when an unbelievably Samaritan act by a psychologist he's never met places Cosgrove in the care of Roland "Doc" Luther, Cosgrove's not so sure he hasn't traded the frying pan for the fire after all. On the one hand, Doc claims that Cosgrove owes him nothing, and seems at times like the most decent man alive. But at other times, Doc's potential for cruelty seems unimaginable. As it turns out, freedom's not as freeing as he thought it would be--especially when it might end up getting him killed.

From New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Hunter comes a thriller that plunges deep into the world of high-tech national security, the hearts and minds of those who kill for duty, and the latest mission for veteran sniper Bob Lee Swagger— who may have finally met the only man who can outshoot him. Who killed Whiskey 2-2? And why won’t it stay dead? A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the team’s sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka “the Cruise Missile,” is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a thirty-foot crater where a building used to be—and where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding. Months pass. Ray’s target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called “The Beheader,” becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency. He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul. But so does a mysterious radio transmission, in last year’s code. It’s from Whiskey 2-2. MISSION WILL BE COMPLETED. CONFIDENCE IS HIGH. Is Ray Cruz back? Has he gone rogue, is he insane, or just insanely angry? Will he succeed, though his antagonists now include the CIA, the FBI, and the same crew of bad boys that nearly killed him in Zabol province? Not to mention Bob Lee Swagger and a beautiful CIA agent named Susan Okada who gives Swagger more than just a patriotic reason to take the case. Swagger, the legendary hero of seven of Hunter’s novels from Point of Impact to last year’s bestselling I, Sniper, is recruited by the FBI to stop the Cruise Missile from reaching his target. The problem is that the more Swagger learns about what happened in Zabol, the more he questions the U.S. government’s support of Zarzi and the more he identifies with Cruz as hunter instead of prey. With its hallmark accuracy on modern killing technologies, Dead Zero features an older, more contemplative Swagger, but never lets up on the razor-sharp dialogue, vivid characterizations, extraordinary action scenes, and dazzling prose that define Hunter’s landmark series. And with this installment, the stunning revelations— both political and private—will leave readers begging for more long after the last bullet finds its way home.

Destiny, restlessness, and greed moved the white man west, into lands occupied for centuries by a proud and noble people: Arapahoe, Navajo, Apache, Sioux. The bitter misunderstandings and brutal clashes of cultures that resulted ultimately shaped the nation we know today. In seven classic western tales, the New York Times-bestselling Grand Master re-creates a world of violence, deception, vengeance, and strange beauty with the same peerless storytelling power that distinguishes his acclaimed suspense fiction.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer best known for gothic and mystery novels like Carmilla. This is one of his most popular works.

Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience.

It was the trial that electrified the world. Not only because of the defendant, Maggie Bradford, the woman whose songs captivated the world's heart. Not only because of the victim, Will Shepard, the world's most glamorous athlete. But also because everyone said Maggie had murdered not just one husband, but two. And because in Maggie's world - the world she feared and despised but could not escape, the world of the powerful, the rich, and the ruthless - both death and life could never be what they seemed. From James Patterson, bestselling author of KISS THE GIRLS and ALONG CAME A SPIDER, comes his most brilliantly realized thriller, a story that will shatter your expectations...and hold every last one of your nerves in thrall, with each twist of the plot and every turn of the page.

Original Sin is book two in the Alexandra Jones series, the sequel to First Bitten. Alex has run. Leaving everything she knows and loves … Nathan, behind. She’s a fugitive; hiding from the Original Vârcolacs who want to claim her for themselves. Hiding in Italy, she has changed her identity and her appearance; working in a coffee shop in the quiet town of Sassano. Then Zeff steps into her life. He’s solid, sturdy, but more so he’s human – he’s someone real, tangible, a friend throwing her a lifeline in a world of loneliness. Believing she's safe from attack, nothing prepares Alex for what's lurking in the woods, on her doorstep, intoxicating her into a web of control and deceit. Danger is closer than her shadow ... the hunt is on again, forcing Alex into the hardest dilemma yet. Praise for First Bitten, the first book in the Alexandra Jones series: ‘The ending - god what an ending! It's so emotional I think I spiraled for a while, unwilling to let it go. As a reader, hooked from the first chapter, I'm prepared to send death threats to get a sequel to this novel. There MUST be more, I need more!’ Poppet, author of the Pravus series and The Gods and Thurs series. ‘So much happens that you just want to know, “What happens next”, “Will everything work out okay” , “WHY!” and to top it off the ending has a cliffhanger that has you saying, “That’s it?!?!” It definitely leaves you wanting to read the next book.’ Marie, Paranormal Reads. ‘I'm ultra-excited to have found such a brilliant new series! First Bitten is Book 1 in The Alexandra Jones Series and I devoured it in a day. I don't want to give anything away, so all I'll say is it has all the elements to make up the perfect urban fantasy: a very real and sympathetic main character, a terrifying supernatural situation and the hottest love interest you could imagine!’ Shalini Boland, author of the Marchwood series and Outside. Readers please be advised that the author has dropped this series and will not be writing the final book in the trilogy.