A prequel to the nationally best-selling Jeff Resnick Mysteries, this collection of short stories chronicles Jeff's (and his brother, Richard Albert's) backstory. What forces molded these men into the people they are today? Find out in these 11 thought-provoking tales that span from Jeff and Richard's first meeting until two years before the first book in the series, Murder on the Mind. These stories are not mysteries.

Never a doubt. Never a mistake. Always for justice. Never for revenge. She's the person you hire when you need something fixed-permanently. With a strict set of criteria, she evaluates every request and chooses only a few. No more than one job per country, per year. She will only step in if it's clear that justice will not be served any other way. Her jobs are completed with skill and precision, and never result in inquiry or police investigation. The Fixer is invisible - and quite deadly.

As Peyton returns from her family leave, following the death of her father, she wants nothing more than to get back to solving crimes. However, her first case, the double homicide of a prominent wine-growing couple, has brought back all of the despair she felt upon losing her father. Can Peyton put aside her own loss in order to bring justice to the Saint-Pierres?

What really happened to Audrey Nealon’s mother? Did she die in a tragic accident? As the successful owner of an estate sale business, Audrey has put the past behind her. Her mother is a distant memory, her father a problem she keeps closed away. Until the day Audrey clears out the home of a lonely old widow and finds some shocks. Street drugs in the silverware drawer, a trunk full of jewels in the attic, and the distinctive ring Audrey’s mother was wearing the night her car supposedly sank to the bottom of a New Jersey lake.

In Patricia Highsmith's debut novel, we encounter Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno, passengers on the same train. But while Guy is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who manipulates Guy into swapping murders with him. As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy is trapped in Highsmith's perilous world - where, under the right circumstances, anybody is capable of murder.

A twister, a kidnapping, and a murder - oh my! Scumble River may never be the same. For school psychologist Skye Denison, there's certainly no place like home. When a violent tornado devastates her small hometown of Scumble River, she can't see how the community will ever recover - especially since town councilman Zeke Lyons appears to have perished in the twister. But things get even worse for Skye when her police chief husband, Wally, disappears in the midst of investigating Zeke's death, and evidence arises pointing to foul play.

Twenty years ago, the Metcalf sisters witnessed a murder and formed a pact of silence. Now they're estranged and scattered because they all fell in love with the same man. When the sisters converge at their childhood home, old wounds are laid open against the backdrop of liquidating their parents' antiques business. And when the playboy who broke up their family shows up, things go from bad to worse!

Lilly may be losing a husband, but she's gaining a toy poodle. That could be seen as a win-win, since her new adopted pooch, Aggie (named after Agatha Christie), is cute and adorable and Lilly's dirty dog of a spouse is cheating on her with a blonde bimbo - except for one problem: Albert Echosby's just been murdered, and Lilly is the number-one suspect.

As a young single parent, Mackenzie Elizabeth Taylor has struggled to provide for her teenage daughter. She finally catches a break when she inherits half of an apartment building in Boston from her uncle Al, along with his P.I. business. So what if she doesn't know the first thing about investigation or if their hot-but-crabby downstairs tenant is a police detective who's looking for any excuse to handcuff her?

The ever-popular Mary Stanton always impresses in this series featuring a haunted law firm in Savannah, Georgia. Life has been challenging since Bree started taking cases for the dead. Paying the bills has been especially tough. But when she agrees to defend a teen thief whose father recently died, she’ll find that earning extra cash is the least of her worries.

When 17-year-old Katherine McCall awakened one morning to find her beloved sister, Sara, brutally murdered, her whole life changed in the blink of an eye. Kat was named the prime suspect and, on a string of circumstantial evidence, charged and tried. While the jury found her innocent, not everyone else agreed, and her only choice was to go into hiding. But she carried a dark secret with her, one that made her worry she might actually have had something to do with Sara’s death....

The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn't be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration. With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless - and supposedly cursed - copy of Goethe's Faust for safekeeping.

Five years after the brutal slaying of her husband, software technology executive Jill Shannon is finally ready to take the next step in her life. With her wedding to Phoenix Arizona prosecuting attorney Conner Manning just eight weeks away, the only cloud on Jill's horizon is her future father-in-law's political ambitions for his son. Jill has dark secrets in her past. Secrets she can't afford to have exposed under the relentless lights of a political campaign.

Back in Balsam Dell to heal after the death of her husband, Carly Hale is finally pursuing her lifelong dream — opening Carly's Grilled Cheese Eatery. After only five months, business is booming as Vermont vacationers and townspeople alike flock to lunch on her Party Havartis and other grilled-cheese concoctions. That is, everyone is but Lyle Bagley, her one-time high-school boyfriend who’s now the town bully — and he just bought the building that houses her eatery and wants her out.

Amid death and destruction, hurricane-savaged New Orleans has a new dark force to fear. As the rescue efforts unfold, a grisly discovery is made at one of the massive refrigerator "graveyards". One of these metal hulks contains six human hands - all female, all right hands. The press has dubbed the unknown perpetrator "The Handyman". Captain Patti O'Shay is the straight-arrow, by-the-book cop assigned to the case.

When Skye Denison left Scumble River years ago, she swore she'd never return. But after a bout with her boyfriend and credit card rejection, she's back to home sweet - homicide....

In a charming cozy mystery series debut, Leslie Nagel's irrepressible small-town heroine finds that her fellow book club members may be taking their Agatha Christie a bit too literally - and murder a bit too lightly.

Lindsey is getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a New York editor visits town, creating quite a buzz. Lindsey's friend Beth wants to sell the editor her children's book, but Beth's boyfriend, a famous author, gets in the way. When they go to confront him, he's found murdered - and Beth is the prime suspect. Lindsey has to act fast - before they throw the book at the wrong person.

The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn't be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration. With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless - and supposedly cursed - copy of Goethe's Faust for safekeeping.

Five years after the brutal slaying of her husband, software technology executive Jill Shannon is finally ready to take the next step in her life. With her wedding to Phoenix Arizona prosecuting attorney Conner Manning just eight weeks away, the only cloud on Jill's horizon is her future father-in-law's political ambitions for his son. Jill has dark secrets in her past. Secrets she can't afford to have exposed under the relentless lights of a political campaign.

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.

New Orleans Detective Quinn Conners is haunted by her father’s whiskey-soaked, last words—that he solved the Hudson murder and kidnapping. It wasn’t the first time he’d made that drunken claim, and she didn’t believe him. Twenty-four hours later she found him dead by his own hand.

Merry is making a fresh start in small-town Autumn Vale, New York, in the mansion she's inherited from her late uncle, Melvin. The house is run-down, and someone has been digging giant holes on the grounds, but with its restaurant-quality kitchen, the place has potential for her new baking business. She even has her first client - the local retirement home. Unfortunately, Merry soon finds that quite a few townsfolk didn't like Uncle Mel, and she has inherited their enmity as well as his home.

When hardworking attorney Clare Westbrook learns that her ambulance-chasing boss has been murdered, she's shocked - but not exactly surprised. Harvey Kredd was known for his less-than-ethical business dealings, and even his acts of generosity were tinged with greed. Clare, working at Kredd and Associates to pay off the law school loan Harvey had granted her several years before, knows she's got no choice: indentured servitude, twenty-first-century style.

Kate Connor is your average, everyday mom with two kids, a husband, and one very big secret...she used to be a Demon Hunter for a secret arm of the Vatican. Now retired, she's more interested in the domestic than the demonic. So when she catches sight of a demon in Walmart, she tells herself it's some other Hunter's problem. But when that demon attacks her in her kitchen, retirement is no longer an option.

Abby Cooper is a P.I., psychic intuitive. But her insight failed her when she didn't foresee the death of one of her clients - or that the lead investigator for the case is the gorgeous blind date she just met. Now, with the police suspicious of her abilities and a killer on the loose, Abby's future looks more uncertain than ever.

Madison is booming with dreamers and drifters, visionaries and entrepreneurs. Among them is Sydney Richardson, the daughter of a cop who died on these streets and now the proud, stressed-out owner of Hush Money, one of the city's top new restaurants. Like everyone else in town, Sydney is shocked when Madison's popular mayor - a crusty, charismatic man of the people - is shot to death in his own home. But the news hits especially close to home for Sydney because one of her own stands accused of the brutal crime. Sydney's the one person that Wanda Fields, a quiet, hardworking waitress and single mother, can think to call after her arrest.

Maddie James has arrived in Daybreak Island, just off the coast of Massachusetts, eager to settle down and start her own business - and maybe even fall in love. When a stray orange tabby pounces into her life, she's inspired to open a cat cafe. But little does Maddie know that she's in for something a lot more catastrophic when her new furry companion finds the dead body of the town bully. Now all eyes are on Maddie: Who is this crazy cat-whisperer lady who's come to town?

Jamie Bond is a former cover model who switches gears to take over the family business: The Bond Agency, a high-powered P.I. firm located in Los Angeles that specializes in domestic espionage - catching cheating husbands. Jamie's assembled a team of other disenchanted former models to help her take names and kick derrieres among L.A.'s wealthiest philandering husbands.

Lurking in the dark corners of J. P. Beaumont's bizarre case was not just a demented mind obsessed with murder, but secrets so deadly that even a street-tough cop could die guessing.