It was a hell of a long shot.... CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever - in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element.

Deputy Dorie Berenger knew the day would go from bad to worse when she found a stoned alligator in the town drunk’s swimming pool. Then DEA agent Richard Starke shows up in Gator Bait, Louisiana, giving out orders and insults faster than you can cast a fishing line. Dorie knows the residents of Gator Bait aren’t going to talk to a stranger, but she stuck with Richard until he catches his bad guy. With no other alternative to restore peace to the town, Dorie agrees to help Richard and in the process, uncovers decades of secrets that have been hiding deep in the Louisiana bayou.

Scientist Maryse Robicheaux thought that a lot of her problems had gone away with her mother-in-law's death. The woman was rude, pushy, manipulative and used her considerable wealth to run herd over the entire town of Mudbug, Louisiana. Unfortunately, death doesn't slow down Helena one bit. DEA Agent Luc LeJeune is wondering what his undercover assignment investigating the sexy scientist has gotten him into - especially as it seems someone wants her dead.

It was a day like any other day for Marina Trahan…until she caught her husband in bed with another woman. Before that eye-opening wake-up call, Marina would have described her life as average or uneventful, maybe even boring. But now, chaos and confusion reign supreme.

Bodyguard Brian Marcentel knew Justine Chatry had a job to do, but so did he. He’d been hired to keep her safe—from whatever lurked behind the walls of a long-neglected mansion. And yet, the beautiful researcher insisted on helping him investigate every suspicious noise and following him through the murky bayou as he tracked down trespassers. All of that paled in comparison, though, to his greatest challenge: trying to resist her when the fear took over and she looked to him for protection.

It was a hell of a long shot.... CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever - in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element.

Dr. Morton Handler practiced a strange brand of psychiatry. Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old Melody Quinn.

After receiving unexpected inheritance from her grandfather, Mercy and her twin sister Lizzie are now the proud owners of a charming antique bookshop in the tiny Irish village of Shamrock Cove. But before they can take in the beautiful view of the sea, one of their neighbors drops dead! Mercy finds the Judge, a well-respected man who lives next door, dying on his own doorstep. She rushes to help, but with his final words, he accuses Mercy of murder! Most of their new neighbors hear his words and, with suspicion pointing at Mercy, she decides to investigate the case to clear her name.

At the end of her first unsuccessful season out in society, Lady Georgiana has all but given up on attracting a suitable man - until she receives an invitation to a masked Halloween ball at Broxley Manor. Georgie is uncertain why she was invited, until she learns that the royal family intends to marry her off to a foreign prince, one reputed to be mad.

At age 26 Agatha Raisin has already come a long way. She has clawed her way up since leaving the Birmingham slum where she was born. She's lost her Birmingham accent, run away from her drunken husband, and found a job at a public relations office as a secretary. Then her boss asks Agatha to go to the home of Sir Bryce Teller to tell him that he is soon to be arrested for the murder of his wife and that the agency no longer wants to represent him.

A reluctant ex-spy with demons of her own, Elinor finds herself facing down one of the most dangerous organized crime gangs in London, ultimately exposing corruption from Scotland Yard to the highest levels of government. The private, quiet “Miss White" as Elinor is known, lives in a village in rural Kent, England, and to her fellow villagers seems something of an enigma. Well she might, as Elinor occupies a "grace and favor" property, a rare privilege offered to faithful servants of the Crown for services to the nation.

Ellie Christie is thrilled to begin a new chapter, having recently returned to her tiny Colorado hometown to run her family’s historic bookshop with her elder sister, Meg, and their friendly bookshop cat, Agatha. Perched in a Swiss-style hamlet accessible primarily by ski gondola, the Book Chalet is a famed bibliophile destination known for its maze of shelves and relaxing reading lounge with cozy fireside seats and panoramic views. At least, until trouble blows in with a wintery whiteout, and a man is found dead on the gondola.

In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect - a rich, eccentric 23-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.

TJ Devlin is the charming disappointment in the prominent Devlin family, all of whom are lawyers at their highly successful firm—except him. After a stint in prison and rehab for alcoholism, TJ can’t get hired anywhere except at the firm, in a make-work job with the title of investigator. But one night, TJ’s world turns upside down after his older brother John confesses that he murdered one of their clients, an accountant he’d confronted with proof of embezzlement. It seems impossible coming from John, the firstborn son and Most Valuable Devlin.

Kurt Argento, an ex-Detroit street cop who can’t let injustice go—and who has the fighting skills to back up his idealism. If he sees a young girl being dragged into an alley, he's going to rescue her and cause some damage. When he does just that in a small corrupt Missouri town, he’s brutally beaten and thrown into a maximum-security prison. Julie Wakefield, a grad student who happens to be the governor's daughter, is about to take a tour of the prison. But when a malfunction in the security system releases a horde of prisoners, a fierce struggle for survival ensues.

It was a day like any other day for Marina Trahan…until she caught her husband in bed with another woman. Before that eye-opening wake-up call, Marina would have described her life as average or uneventful, maybe even boring. But now, chaos and confusion reign supreme.

It’s been fifteen years since Kimmy Devine promised herself she’d never move back to Rocky Cape, the idyllic South Jersey beach town where she grew up. She doesn’t want to relive the crushing heartbreak and scandal that ravaged her world as a teen. Her younger sister Erin shares those feelings, the wounds she caused so many years ago forever binding her and Kimmy. As the sisters celebrate their homecoming at their parents’ yacht club, a handful of familiar faces arrive to dampen the revelry. The next morning, a body is found floating nearby.

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

In 1887 New York City, Nellie Bly has ambitions beyond writing for the ladies pages, but all the editors on Newspaper Row think women are too emotional, respectable and delicate to do the job. But then the New York World challenges her to an assignment she'd be mad to accept and mad to refuse: go undercover as a patient at Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum for women.

Elly Griffiths has always written short stories to experiment with different voices and genres as well as to explore what some of her fictional creations such as Ruth Galloway, Harbinder Kaur, and Max Mephisto might have done outside of the novels. The Man in Black gathers these bite-sized tales all together in one splendid volume.