Las Vegas. Lost Wages. Sin City. An artificial oasis of pleasure, spectacle, and entertainment, the gambling capital of America has reinvented itself so many times that its doubtful that anyone knows for sure what's real and what isn't in the miles of neon and scorching heat. Las Vegas is considered the ultimate players destination-no matter what your game. Almost anything is available-for a price, mind you, and sometimes losers walk away from the tables with even less than just an empty wallet or purse-sometimes they don't walk away at all. Now the International Association of Crime Writers and New York Times-bestselling author Michael Connelly have gathered twenty-two crime and mystery stories about the ultimate playground, Las Vegas, and what can happen behind the glitz and glamour. Come to the true city that never sleeps, where fortunes are made and lost every day, and where snake-eyes aren't found just on a pair of dice. Featuring stories by: James Swain, S.J. Rozan, Wendy Hornsby, Michael Collins, T.P Keating, J. Madison Davis, Sue Pike, Joan Richter, Libby Hellmann, Tom Savage, Edward Wellen, K.j.a. Wishnia, Linda Kerslake, John Wessel, Lise McClendon, Ronnie Klaskin, Ruth Cavin, A.B. Robbins , Gay Toltl Kinman, Micki Marz, Rick Mofina, Jeremiah Healy

When you are a gypsy who was raised by non-gypsies, you have an identity problem. When you are a gypsy, an antique dealer, and you've been entrusted with a very old highboy in which a dead body is discovered, you have a major problem. Sorcery and the dark sciences lie at the heart of a terrible murder that threatens to force the police into a confrontation with New York's gypsy community. However, Roman Grey decides to unearth the truth about the killing, whatever the cost.

Only a few months ago, Amber Reed would have called herself an ordinary girl in an ordinary world…until she moves to Scotland and is pushed into a world she never knew existed by the sexy and daring McAllister brothers, unable to withstand its perils. Aidan McAllister, the irresistible leader of the Morganefaire brethren, has what he always wanted: the girl of his dreams. His love for Amber is getting stronger, but for all his wants and needs, there’s a price to pay. As a mystery draws them deeper into the heart of an intricate organization ruled by shifting allegiances, Amber realizes she’ll have to choose between her one true love and doing the one thing she swore she’d never do: break the rules by taking someone’s life.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Mrs. Humphry Ward, the pen named used by Mary Augusta Ward, was a British novelist best known for Lady Rose's Daughter, a best seller in America.

Louis Tracy (1863 - 1928) was a British journalist, and prolific writer of fiction. He used the pseudonyms Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser, which were at times shared with M. P. Shiel, a collaborator from the start of the twentieth century. He was born in Liverpool to a well-to-do middle-class family. At first he was educated at home and then at the French Seminary at Douai. Around 1884 he became a reporter for a local paper - 'The Northern Echo' at Darlington, circulating in parts of Durham and North Yorkshire]; later he worked for papers in Cardiff and Allahabad. During 1892-1894 he was closely associated with Arthur Harmsworth, in 'The Sun' and 'The Evening News and Post'.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Charlotte Anthony is a forty-something divorcée, single mother and magazine editor who suddenly finds herself unemployed, and on the verge of bankruptcy. She gratefully accepts an editing position but things rapidly deteriorate when she discovers her client left for dead on her first day on the job.Broke, friendless, and career in freefall--will solving a murder get her life back on track?An Uncollected Death introduces Charlotte Anthony, a forty-something divorcée, single mother and magazine editor who suddenly finds herself an empty-nester, unemployed, and on the verge of bankruptcy. She gratefully takes the job of editing the journals of Olivia Bernadin, a long-lost nouveau roman author. Things rapidly deteriorate, however, when she finds Olivia left for dead the first day on the job--and herself a suspect in the crime.Charlotte turns amateur sleuth as she works out cryptic clues to find Olivia's hidden journals and to clear herself of suspicion, all while reinventing her life by downsizing to a tiny apartment in the small college town of Elm Grove, Indiana.But efficient and independent Charlotte must also learn to accept the help of a new group of friends when she finds herself threatened by criminals who will stop at nothing--not even murder--to get their hands on something of immense value hidden within Olivia's hoard of collectibles.The Charlotte Anthony novels are traditional, character-driven mysteries whose overarching theme is how the past informs the present, and how even a small town in the American Midwest can be connected to a much larger world.

Seven blistered corpses are found in a derelict hogweed field. Seventy-four years prior, a family of seven suddenly vanished and left their establishment - the "Grau Kiefer" inn - in the hands of fate. Are these cases related? Or the killer just wants everyone to believe they are? Those are the questions the detectives are asking.Seven people, two adults and five children, found dead in a hogweed field. A video of the grueling crime scene is leaked online and becomes a viral sensation, thus putting even more pressure on the police to find the killer. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that this is not the only shady business local residents are involved in. On top of that, a question that looms over everyone's head is: Why did the killer try to relate these murders to the disappearances of the owners of the "Grau Kiefer" inn and their five children seventy-four years ago?Rebecca tries to indulge Albert by discussing the case with him. Yet the former assassin questions his motivation for helping her and the police in general.

Jillian Conrad's blood has killed the vampire king. Now an enemy to all vampires, she is targeted for elimination. So is the infant daughter of the dead king. If Jillian doesn't stand in the way of her death, then everyone, living or dead, is in great peril.

Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he'd only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole." While Gamache doesn't talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache's help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. "There's power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he gets up. And joins her. Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence river. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it the land God gave to Cain. And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul.

Exclusive Charley Davidson Short Story featured in the December newsletter.

Dr. Cindy Shahi is resigned to being mateless, but her inner jaguar has needs that must be sated. An encounter with a deliciously sexy stranger is the perfect chance for a night of no-strings primal passion. Elias was content to be a lone wolf until the moment he laid eyes--and much more--on Cindy. Their intense attraction can mean only one thing: the mating call. And when it becomes clear someone isn't happy about their budding relationship, all of Elias's protective instincts go on high alert. He'll do anything to keep Cindy safe--and convince her that he intends to claim her as his own, no matter what.

One of the most revered novelists of our time - a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life - Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family. Riveting and suspenseful, arguably the most accessible novel to date from the creator of Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich’s The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction - at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.

October "Toby" Daye, a changeling who is half human and half fae, has been an outsider from birth. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the Faerie world, retreating to a "normal" life. Unfortunately for her, the Faerie world has other ideas... The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening's dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby must resume her former position as knight errant and renew old alliances. As she steps back into fae society, dealing with a cast of characters not entirely good or evil, she realizes that more than her own life will be forfeited if she cannot find Evening's killer.