Brooke and Jenny had the perfect Key West getaway planned. What was supposed to be a long weekend of fun in the sun quickly changed to hunting for stolen treasure with the two handsome men they met their first night at the resort. Ollie is a businessman with a past that he keeps from Brooke. Ollie’s past causes others to judge him too quickly and one that could be putting him and his new friends in danger. On the other hand, Luke is Ollie’s closest friend, who seems to have a sinister side that could also place the others at risk.

Lori once lived the perfect life with her husband Howie and their teenage daughter Molly—until the day Howie left for work and vanished without a trace. Haunted by her loss, Lori, a former investigative journalist, retreated from the city to rural isolation to become an author, seeking solace in the company of her beloved dogs. However, Lori's ordered, solitary existence is about to be turned upside down. As Frankie Evans, the man she helped convict for murder, has walked out of prison a free man. And he is intent on finding her.

Duncan Hunter is driven by his sense of duty. So when a plane crash forces the ambitious pilot out of the Marine Corps, he hungrily searches for another way to fight terrorism. And he finds it in an intelligence officer's invitation to come aboard a clandestine project scouting and destroying Mexican poppy fields in the War on Drugs.

Thomas Caine is a dangerous man. A former CIA assassin, he was burned, betrayed, and left for dead. Now, he struggles to stay off the grid, and hides from his dark past in the seedy underworld of Pattaya, Thailand. But when human traffickers detonate a bomb in a crowded Thai market, it sets off a chain reaction that drags Caine out of the shadows. This new syndicate has taken the one person Caine has sworn to protect, and the vengeful former assassin will wage a bloody one-man war to get her back.

I finally have everything I’ve ever wanted: a career saving lives, my dream home among the pines, and my caring fiancé, Elton. He doesn’t know about my past. And I’ll do anything to keep it that way....

This is Reaper speaking. So begins an anonymous letter published in a Utah newspaper after a young couple is viciously murdered. Tooele County sheriff Elizabeth Gray leads the investigation into the double homicide, which is eerily reminiscent of a string of brutal killings years ago. When the letter leads detectives to yet another body, Gray calls on an old friend for help.

Once a luxurious Southern getaway on a rustic lake, then reduced to a dilapidated crash pad, the Summer House is now the grisly scene of a nighttime mass murder. Eyewitnesses point to four Army Rangers - known as the Night Ninjas - recently returned from Afghanistan. To ensure that justice is done, the Army sends Major Jeremiah Cook, a veteran and former NYPD cop, to investigate. But the major and his elite team arrive in sweltering Georgia with no idea their grim jobs will be made exponentially more challenging by local law enforcement....

A video of Deputy Eve Ronin’s off-duty arrest of an abusive movie star goes viral, turning her into a popular hero at a time when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is plagued by scandal. The sheriff makes Eve the youngest female homicide detective in the department’s history. Now Eve, with a lot to learn and resented by her colleagues, has to justify her new badge. Her chance comes when she and her soon-to-retire partner are called to the blood-splattered home of a missing mother and her two kids. The horrific carnage screams multiple murder - but there are no corpses.

When Ellie tells me she has a new boyfriend, I am absolutely thrilled and can’t wait to meet him. She finally seems so happy and in love. But there’s a catch. Ellie has never met him in person. In fact, he doesn’t even live in the same country. Our home is in England, but Daryl is in Los Angeles.

Cleo Forsum is a best-selling novelist turned scriptwriter whose TV series The Baking Detective is a huge success. Writing is all she's ever wanted to do, and baking and murder stories have proved a winning combination. But now she has decided to walk away from it all—including divorcing her husband, Wallace—before her past secrets catch up with her. As Cleo drafts the final ever episodes of the series, people she knows start getting hurt. And it's soon clear that someone is trying to frame her for murder.

Chelsea Jameson married the perfect husband, but he doesn't like to talk about his past. She finds out why when his parents invite them to stay at their off-the-grid cabin in the woods. His mother dominates his life, even though her only son is in his thirties. Her mother-in-law creates conflict and tries to manipulate her husband against Chelsea. When Chelsea discovers more about her husband’s parents, dark family secrets are unearthed, revealing the truth. This is not a regular visit to the in-laws.

I gaze at my husband’s once handsome face, so still and pale in the hospital bed. The doctors say I should keep talking. He might be able to hear me even after the terrible accident that left him fighting for his life. But all I have to whisper to my husband is this: "I know what you did."

Sergeant Wade McKinnon knows who killed Samantha the moment he arrives at her crime scene. Problem is, he watched her killer die a year ago.

When district attorney Tory Carson returns home after a long day in court prosecuting a gang leader, she finds her house trashed. Concerned that the vandalism is connected to the trial, the local police chief calls the Texas Rangers...and her former love, Cade Morgan, responds. Tory's history with Cade - and the secret they share - makes her reluctant to let him back into her life. But Tory doesn't want to choose between bringing down a gang leader and protecting her teenage daughter.

Detective Mary Joe Court sleeps with a shotgun beside her bed and a lovable bull mastiff at her feet. For the past 12 years, she’s hidden from a nightmarish past, but with every passing day, her scars fade, and her heart grows lighter. Now, for the first time in her life, she looks forward to her future. She’s happy. Then she finds the body. Someone shot the victim in her chest and left her to die in a cheap motel. Joe knew her well. She grew up with her. They were sisters, of a sort.

When district attorney Tory Carson returns home after a long day in court prosecuting a gang leader, she finds her house trashed. Concerned that the vandalism is connected to the trial, the local police chief calls the Texas Rangers...and her former love, Cade Morgan, responds. Tory's history with Cade - and the secret they share - makes her reluctant to let him back into her life. But Tory doesn't want to choose between bringing down a gang leader and protecting her teenage daughter.

When a sudden crime wave hits several small midwestern towns, the US Attorney for the region calls on Harry Duncan to investigate. An ex-cop known for his unorthodox methods, Duncan is reluctant to go up against a widespread criminal organization—but the attorney in question is Ellen Leicester, the wife who left him fifteen years earlier, and to her, he can't say no.

Forced into early retirement at 37, smart, attractive, and fiercely independent Major Holly Barker trades in her bars as a military cop for the badge of deputy chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida. But below the sunny surface of this sleepy, well-to-do island town lies an evil that escalates into the cold-blooded murder of one of Holly's new colleagues.

When a Gulfstream jet goes down in the Bahamas carrying a fortune in cash and ill-gotten diamonds, expat diving instructor Michael Gannon is the only person on the scene. Assuming himself the beneficiary of a drug deal gone bad, Gannon thinks he’s home free with the sudden windfall until he realizes he forgot to ask one simple question: Who were the six dead men on the plane? Gannon soon learns the answer to that fateful question as he is thrust into an increasingly complex and deadly game of cat and mouse with a group of the world’s most powerful and dangerous men.

When a vibrant young woman is found in bed by her hotshot businessman husband, carved from belly to throat with a very sharp knife, the elite Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD responds in full force. Best-case scenario for lead Detective Lena Gamble: Nikki Brant's husband killed her, case closed, and on to the next crime scene before the ravenous Hollywood media can get their lurid tabloid machinery up and running.

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

Mason "Mace" Reid lives on the outskirts of Chicago and specializes in human-remains detection. He trains dogs to hunt for the dead. Reid’s coming off a taxing year - mourning the death of a beloved springer spaniel as well as the dissolution of his marriage. He adopts a rescue dog with a mysterious past - a golden retriever named Vira. And when Reid begins training Vira as a cadaver dog, he comes to realize just how special the newest addition to his family truly is....

Harper Winston’s brother has disappeared. Pursuing his dream of sailing the Caribbean, Michael hasn’t responded to texts or emails in days. When even the Coast Guard can’t find him, Harper is forced to take desperate measures. Which means going to Chase Garrett, once her brother’s best friend, now the only man she can trust...or so she hopes.

Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.

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.