When Kate Fox receives a late-night phone call, her seemingly perfect life on the Nebraska prairie shatters in an instant. Eldon, shirt-tail relative and owner of one of the largest cattle ranches in Grand County, has been killed. Kate's husband, Ted, the Grand County sheriff, has been shot and may never walk again. And worst of all, Ted is the prime suspect in Eldon’s murder. Desperate to clear Ted's name, Kate throws herself headlong into the hunt for the real killer. When she finds herself the victim of several mysterious “accidents”, she knows she’s running out of time.

After more than twenty years away from the law, Joe Hennessy is forced back into the courtroom. Trying to save his vineyard after years of drought, Hennessy returns to practice in Charleston, South Carolina–the city he walked away from after the murder of his ten-year-old son. When one of South Carolina's most powerful men is charged with possessing stolen artwork, Hennessy steps forward to defend him. But as Hennessy digs into the evidence, as he navigates the truth, he finds that the criminal charges are only the start of their problems…

When secretary Annie Parkes is snatched from the street outside of her workplace, David Kane is tasked with finding her. Strong, highly skilled, and secretive, he’s a loner and an outsider; the only man the military trust to find Annie before her kidnappers make good on their promise to kill her. But as Kane pulls Annie from a derelict building, gunshots ringing through the deserted streets around them, he realizes rescuing her is just the beginning. He needs to keep her close to find out who is behind her capture, and to keep her safe.

Actor Kelsey Grammer, best known for his roles in the TV sitcoms Cheers and Frasier, delivers Bitter Brew, a compelling mystery featuring Detective Bill Walsh, an upstate cop in the quiet, rural town of Beatriceville, 200 miles north of New York City, who suspects foul play in the death of millionaire city transplant Jonathan Kimball, even though the evidence points to suicide, not murder.

Sam Johnstone was hoping for renewal when he took a job at a boutique law firm in rustic Wyoming. The mountains and streams of the West would be a refreshing, quiet place to start over after years of war and turmoil in his personal life. But after a local woman is brutally murdered, Sam realizes that things aren’t so quiet in this rural American town. The accused is one Tommy Olsen, a known delinquent who had been sleeping with the victim. Sam is repulsed by the crime and wants nothing to do with the case but meets with Tommy to make sure he has legal representation.

Thirteen years ago, Winter Black came home early from a sleepover to find her parents brutally murdered and her little brother gone — taken by a serial killer called The Preacher. Now a rookie FBI agent assigned to her first murder case, Winter has returned to the small Virginia town where she grew up. But when bones found by a hunter lead to the discovery of a secret burial ground containing the remains of children, the investigation suddenly hits close to home as the past and future collide with each new shocking discovery.

Matthew Brooks and Vanessa Lyons are a perfect love match, both attorneys at a powerful New York City law firm. But there’s a hitch: Matt just made partner, and Vanessa is coming up for partner next year. And Vanessa’s husband has his suspicions. Vanessa is assigned to the biggest case at the firm, the one that will determine her future. Unfortunately, Matt has been working the case for years, leaving him no choice but to supervise his lover in violation of firm policy.

Emma Frederick bolts upright in bed, pulse racing. It must be a bad dream. Except it’s not. Crrrrrreeeeeeeeaaaaaaakkkkkkk. The sound of the loose step sends her body into overdrive, and she rushes for the secret room behind the wall. The screech of old hinges echoes through the house as he enters her bedroom. He starts whistling. Three blind mice. Three blind mice. She slaps a hand over her mouth, stifling her scream. He’s coming for her, but that can’t be. She killed him last month.

After losing her military K-9, former marine Maya Thompson swears she’ll never work with dogs again. But when she returns home to Colorado and accepts a job with US Forest Service law enforcement, fate brings K-9 Juniper into her life just as another tragedy unfolds. Juniper, a beautiful two-year-old Malinois, isn’t the only new addition to Maya’s life. Josh Colten, the local deputy sheriff, insists on helping with her new case. Handsome and mysterious, he’s all anyone in town can talk about, but Maya can’t let herself like him, let alone trust him.

When Nigel Baxter, a middle-aged married banker with an unremarkable past, is found dead in the bath of a plush hotel suite, his wrists slit, it looks as if he's taken his own life. At first. But when Detective Inspector Daniel Riley is assigned to the case, he soon realises all isn't as it first appears to be. When a postmortem shows Baxter was poisoned, Riley suspects foul play. And then there's the odd addition of a teddy bear left at the crime scene....

When a young girl is found dead in the mountains outside Timber Creek, lifelong resident Officer Mattie Cobb and her partner, K-9 police dog Robo, are assigned to the case that has rocked the small Colorado town. With the help of Cole Walker, a local veterinarian and single father, Mattie and Robo must track down the truth before it claims another victim. But the more Mattie investigates, the more she realizes how many secrets her town holds. And the key may be Cole's daughter, who knows more than she's saying.

Recently engaged and deeply ensconced in her third year of surgical residency in Chicago, Emily Hartford gets a shock when she is called home to Freeport, Michigan, the small town she fled a decade ago after the death of her mother. Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a senator's teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town.

A fresh start. That's what Becca hoped the move from New York to Redemption, Wisconsin would be for her troubled family. A way to get her crumbling marriage back on track, and to bond with her difficult 16-year-old stepdaughter. But instead of a new beginning, Becca is thrust into a mysterious past she barely remembers. A past that includes the complications of interacting with her old teenage crush, Daniel, as well as living in her aunt's old house. A house with a violent past. A house the locals swear is haunted.

A fresh murder in Arizona throws a family into chaos, and unravels a decades-old mystery. It’s been 20 years since the accident. A nighttime car crash on a desert road that left her parents dead and her sister disabled. Now a law enforcement officer with the Arizona Rangers, Michaela Sanchez has tried to get over the guilt she feels. She’s tried to move on. But when her brother is charged with the murder of a local activist, echoes of her family’s tragic night come crashing back. Michaela will do everything in her power to prove her brother’s innocence.

When two rookie cops are killed in a fiery crash near Richmond, Virginia, crime reporter Nichelle Clarke is sent in to investigate. But as Nichelle digs deeper into the case, she discovers this was no ordinary accident. People and evidence soon begin to disappear. Someone is one step ahead of her. A master criminal with a deadly secret, covering their tracks with ruthless efficiency. The killer will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden. But as she draws closer to unraveling the mystery of two dead cops, Nichelle realizes that she's become the next target.

The town of Northfall, Minnesota, will never be the same. Meteors cratered hardwood forests and annihilated homes, and among the wreckage a new metal was discovered. This “omnimetal” has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source…and a weapon. John Frontier returns for his sister’s wedding to find his family embroiled in a cutthroat war to control mineral rights and mining operations. His father rightly suspects foreign leaders and competing corporations of sabotage, but the greatest threat to his legacy might be the US government.

Moving from Boston to remote Bearkill, Maine, isn't homicide cop Lizzie Snow's idea of a step up. But breaking away from tragedy and personal betrayal is at least a step in the right direction. Her dead sister's fate still torments her, as does her long-missing niece's disappearance. The town is full of people who see everything, say little, and know more than they'll share with an outsider.

Twenty years ago, ex-beauty queen Didi Storm worked the Vegas strip as a celebrity impersonator. Now, in death, she’s finally getting the publicity she always craved. To the police, it looks like suicide, or a stunt gone wrong. Her estranged daughter, Remmi, knows the answer isn’t so simple. Though dressed in Didi’s clothes and wig, the broken body on the sidewalk isn’t Didi...

Feared just as much on the streets as at a crime scene, homicide detective Max Jagger has dedicated his life to one thing: speaking for the dead. Everyone and everything else be damned, including his own demons. During one of the most oppressive heat waves to hit the small, southern town of Berry Springs, the former Navy SEAL is called to a scene where a real estate heiress is found standing over a dead body, holding the murder weapon.

It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.

New Mexico Undersheriff Bill Gastner is presented with a case that appears to have brought big-time crime, including drug gangs, into Posadas County.

There are people in Edgewater, Oregon, who think that twenty years ago, Rachel Gaston got away with murder. But Rachel still has no idea how a foolish teenaged game turned deadly - or who replaced her soft pellet air gun with a real weapon. When a figure jumped out at her from the darkness, she fired without thinking. By the time she recognized her half-brother, Luke, it was too late.

Dallas Phillips refuses to believe her father committed suicide, even though things were tough on his farm and he was deeply in debt. When she hears he'd told a neighbor about an upcoming windfall, she grows suspicious, and her suspicion only deepens when she realizes someone is lurking in the nearby mountains after dark. For help, she turns to Trey Jakes, local police chief - and her former lover. As they begin to investigate, another mystery comes to light.

Macy Tucker was five years old when her beloved grandfather dropped dead in his spaghetti. At 12, her father left his family in the dust. At 25, her husband gave his secretary a pre-Christmas bonus in bed, and Macy gave him the boot. To put things lightly, men have been undependable. That's why dating's off the menu. Macy is focused on putting herself through law school - which means being the delivery girl for Papa's Pizza.

Mary Cardwell Savage never meant to send that letter to her ex, Chase Steele. How could she know her words would bring the gorgeous cowboy back to Big Sky, Montana - with an unstable and dangerous stalker following close behind? Now, Chase wants to prove that their love deserves a second chance. And this time, nothing will keep him from his heart's desire...not even a killer.

Father John O'Malley discovers a frozen body on the Arapaho Reservation, a corpse that later disappears. O'Malley and Vicky Holden draw upon ancient traditions to stop the murderer.

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

Shaken by the death of his beloved wife and wrestling with powerful personal demons, Professor Gabriel McKenna leaves New York City for New Mexico to claim an inheritance from mysterious distant relatives. He finds something other than a Land of Enchantment. Unseen enemies threaten his life. Old friends turn up and rally to his side. Together they plunge into a lethal struggle for a 19th century treasure, the fabled Lost Adams gold.

Corporate lawyer Ava Burch has had enough of the big city and the daily grind. She grew up with her father, who raised search-and-rescue dogs, in rural Texas and has moved to the small town of Cuervo to spend time in the dry, rugged wilderness near Big Bend National Park. When she and her dog, Huck, discover an abandoned campsite on a volunteer search-and-rescue mission, she’s perplexed, but she carefully photographs it all the same.

Colorado rancher Sam Bridger will do anything for a friend, even if it means babysitting a rich city girl who knows more about high fashion than horses. Blond, beautiful Liberty Hale looks like a model - and acts like a spoiled brat - but Sam senses another side to the young woman who has lost so much of her family, and he can’t deny the heat just one look at her ignites. Libby is determined to get through her time on the ranch - her inheritance depends on her putting in a solid month’s work. She hadn’t imagined her boss would be a sexy, straightforward cowboy.

When Kate Fox receives a late-night phone call, her seemingly perfect life on the Nebraska prairie shatters in an instant. Eldon, shirt-tail relative and owner of one of the largest cattle ranches in Grand County, has been killed. Kate's husband, Ted, the Grand County sheriff, has been shot and may never walk again. And worst of all, Ted is the prime suspect in Eldon’s murder. Desperate to clear Ted's name, Kate throws herself headlong into the hunt for the real killer. When she finds herself the victim of several mysterious “accidents”, she knows she’s running out of time.

In the remote mountains of Arizona, Native American history is being torn apart by corporate greed and corruption. Nora Abbott is caught in the middle, struggling to keep her small business alive. But when Nora’s womanizing husband is murdered in cold blood, local law enforcement suspect that she killed him. As allies become enemies and friends become suspects, Nora takes it upon herself to find who killed her husband - and why. But in this unforgiving terrain, the price of truth may be too steep.

A fresh murder in Arizona throws a family into chaos, and unravels a decades-old mystery. It’s been 20 years since the accident. A nighttime car crash on a desert road that left her parents dead and her sister disabled. Now a law enforcement officer with the Arizona Rangers, Michaela Sanchez has tried to get over the guilt she feels. She’s tried to move on. But when her brother is charged with the murder of a local activist, echoes of her family’s tragic night come crashing back. Michaela will do everything in her power to prove her brother’s innocence.

When a man is shot in the head, Bree Taggert and her new partner, veteran detective Dana Romano, respond to the call. They break the news to the victim’s ex-wife and learn the estranged couple’s five-year-old daughter was supposed to have been with him. What starts as a murder investigation quickly morphs into a desperate search for a missing child. The case stirs memories of Bree’s own traumatizing childhood. To find the little girl, Bree will have to relive her own terrifying past.

Recently engaged and deeply ensconced in her third year of surgical residency in Chicago, Emily Hartford gets a shock when she is called home to Freeport, Michigan, the small town she fled a decade ago after the death of her mother. Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a senator's teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town.