Who is the racketeer? And what does he have to do with the judge's untimely demise? His name is Malcolm Bannister, a former attorney now incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland. When a federal judge and his secretary fail to appear for a scheduled trial and panicked clerks call for an FBI investigation, a harrowing murder case ensues and culminates in the imprisonment of a lawyer who imparts the story of who killed the judge...

An unprecedented collective features pairings by 23 best-selling and critically acclaimed suspense writers, who in short high-action stories pit their most popular characters against one another.

"Miranda Wood arrives home to a dark, cold cottage--and her ex-lover, Richard Tremain, lying in her bed, stabbed to death. Miranda is the obvious suspect, and she looks even guiltier when her bail is paid by an anonymous donor. With her world falling apart around her, Miranda is determined to clear her name and discover who killed Richard. But proving her innocence may become secondary to staying alive..."--Jacket.

President Will Lee is having a rough week. There are some loose nukes in Pakistan--and a rogue CIA agent--that might just trigger World War III if Lee's diplomatic efforts fall short. It's up to Holly Barker, Lance Cabot, and a few other Stuart Woods series regulars to save the world--and the upcoming election.

Riley Crane woke up fully dressed, a gun under her pillow, and covered in blood. Even more frightening, she didn't remember what happened the night before. In fact, she barely remembered the previous three weeks. An ex-army officer, now a federal agent assigned to the Special Crimes Unit, Riley was a chameleon--a clairvoyant who could blend in with her surroundings, be anyone or anything she chose to be. The SCU's expert on the occult, she'd been...

From the bestselling author of The Cold Moon, unabridged stories of spine-tingling suspense! In the tradition of O. Henry and Edgar Allen Poe, Jeffery Deaver's latest collection of intricately plotted, bone-chilling short fiction includes an all-new story featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. While best known for his twenty-four novels, Jeffery Deaver is also a short story master -- he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader's Award...

A tale of international skullduggery involving drug dealers. It begins with the disappearance of an Oregon woman after a car accident. The woman is the sister of FBI agent Ford MacDougal and his search for her takes him to the jungles of Costa Rica.

As a volunteer at the San Diego Zoo in California, Margaret has been making good use of her psychic ability to communicate with animals such as Zaran, a stubborn tigress who refuses to accept her cub. Late one night, just as she shuts Zaran's cage, Margaret feels a gun in her back. John Lassiter, a former CIA operative, is prepared to use force to ensure that she joins him on a mission to rescue his mentor, CIA agent Sean Patrick. Patrick has been...

"Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After he broke with the Orphan Program, Evan disappeared and reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, a man spoken about only in whispers, reachable only at a secret phone number passed around by those in need, and dedicated to helping the truly desperate. But this time, the desperate voice on the other end is Jack Johns, the...

A series of anonymous threats intended for others puts a man, and everyone he loves, in the path of a relentless killer. Daniel Brasher has always been something of a disappointment to his old-money aristocratic San Francisco mother. Daniel left his high-paying job as a money manager to marry his community organizer wife and work at a job he loves, leading group counseling sessions with recently paroled ex-cons. Now he is ready to move on and start...