Aimee Wheels loves her free-living lifestyle. She doesn't need the trappings of money to find happiness. All she needs are her crazy friends, her job as a courier in New York City, and her skateboard.

Like millions of Americans, Dr. John VanDuyne is stunned to watch President Tom Winston announce his plans to legalize narcotics in a radical bid to destroy the power of the drug cartels. Especially since, as Winston’s personal physician and a government health spokesman, VanDuyne might have expected some prior warning. And now he’s going to be right in the firing line when the uproar begins. For President Winston, his daring plan could turn out to be political suicide. For VanDuvne, it’s going to be much worse than that.

King Grim Vasteri is the strongest and most feared warrior in the Tornian Empire. He is the King of Luda, blood brother to the Emperor, and his line will die with him. He will have no offspring for no female would join with him for once he was scarred he was considered "unfit". The Tornian Empire has been dying ever since the great infection caused the birth of females to become a rarity. Since then they have been searching the known universes for compatible females.

Del Sol, New Mexico is known for three things: its fry-an-egg-on-the-cement summers, its strong cups of coffee - and, now, a nationwide manhunt? Del Sol native Sunshine Vicram has returned to town as the elected sheriff - thanks to her adorably meddlesome parents who nominated her - and she expects her biggest crime wave to involve an elderly flasher named Doug. But a teenage girl is missing, a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of this is reminding Sunshine why she left Del Sol in the first place.

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.

Tech millionaire Miles Cookson has more money than he can ever spend and everything he could dream of - except time. He has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and there is a 50 percent chance that it can be passed on to the next generation. For Miles, this means taking a long hard look at his past. Two decades ago, a young, struggling Miles was a sperm donor. Somewhere out there, he has kids - nine of them. And they might be about to inherit both the good and the bad from him - maybe his fortune, or maybe something much worse.

There is a serial killer on the loose preying on vulnerable women. The only identifiable mark the killer leaves are letters - sometimes one, sometimes two - all carved into the torsos of his victims. Together, they spell “Sydney”. When he grabs Daisy Dawson, he believes he has found his next victim. But despite her small stature, she fights back with an expertise that quickly frees her. Before fleeing the scene, Daisy also manages to grab what proves to be crucial evidence: a necklace from around the killer’s neck.

In the lonely woods around Grizzly Falls, Montana, the first body is discovered, stripped naked and tied to a tree. Alvarez and Pescoli have been hoping for a career-making case, but this is a nightmare. The killer stages car accidents on icy, isolated roads and “rescues” his victims. He toys with them, heals them, earns their trust...before subjecting them to a slow, agonizing death.

Santa's helpers don't always dispose of bodies, but that's what Tucker Smith is doing right now. Specifically, the body of his own Santa - one of thousands worldwide - who was just murdered in an apparent random act of violence. Now, Tucker will have to somehow manage to deliver Christmas to his assigned region while he struggles to patch things up with his family, all while training the replacement sent to him by The Organization and trying to uncover the mystery of who killed Santa. And there's only five days left until Christmas.

Alex Reid, a member of the US Coast Guard, is on the brink of divorce. On the day his wife arrives on the east coast to have him sign papers, the nation's crippled by a string of increasingly bizarre disasters. When the internet, communication, and power grid goes down, and explosions erupt across America, they soon find themselves fighting to stay alive. Desperate to protect family, they're forced to venture across a chaotic and powerless country in search of their daughter. As the world ends and panic takes hold, they must overcome more challenges than a broken marriage to survive.

On a crisp autumn day in the small town of Mount Chester, Detective Kay Sharp comes face-to-face with the past she has spent the last decade running from. Her ex-husband, Brian, has been accused of murder.

When treasure hunters excavate the long-lost wreck of the Steamship Arcadia from a Kansas corn field, a buried creature awakens - a mindless brute made of accursed earth, shaped like a man, but in no way mortal. A century and a half after its creation, the golem’s sole mission resumes: to assassinate a savage pro-slavery guerilla commander named “Bloody Bill” Wolcott. Wolcott, of course, is long dead, but his closest surviving descendant - a corporate IT burnout named Ben Middleton - is quite available.

Private investigator Jim Bean is a straightforward, to-the-point man. He likes his cases to follow suit. But when his latest client, Sophie Evers, asks him to find her brother Daniel, Jim has no idea how complicated his life is about to become. As he falls deep into a manipulative game of cat and mouse, Jim uncovers the horrible truth about Sophie. Now he must set things right before her plan leads to the loss of innocent souls...even more than it already has.

Teaming up with New York Times best-selling author Jeffery Deaver, Suspense Magazine offers up a nail-biting anthology titled Nothing Good Happens After Midnight. This thrilling collection consists of 13 original short stories representing the genres of suspense/thriller, mystery, sci-fi/fantasy, and more.

Can't win for losin'...As any gambler will tell you, luck runs hot and cold. For my many sins I've been forced to scrape a life out of poker games and side-jobs on the fringes of civil society. I thought I hit it big when I raked 50-grand off the table at a roadhouse in Texas. It is amazing what a win can cost you. Now, on the run from a drug cartel headed by an unstoppable juggernaut, pursued by a shape-shifting killer, and framed for attempted murder, I have to protect a girl with a bounty on her head.

Deputy Clay Starke has come home to Wrangler's Corner for one reason only: to solve his brother's murder. Denied the official resources that will help him unravel the case, Clay is forced to rely on his wits - and on the help of beautiful social worker Sabrina Mayfield. But Sabrina's willingness to assist him soon draws her into the troubles of Clay's past. Now both Clay and Sabrina have targets on their backs, and Clay is at risk of losing not only his heart, but also his life. Will finding his brother's killer cost him the woman he has come to love?

Maximilian Oceanus arrives in Spellbound Falls just in time to save Olivia Baldwin from an overly aggressive suitor, only to find himself attracted to the beautiful, if rather aloof, widow. And although Mac has come to Inglenook to get a handle on fatherhood, his newly discovered six-year-old son has set his sights on finding his father a wife. Olivia, however, is busy getting Inglenook ready for its new season, so she doesn't have time to deal with her growing attraction to the dangerously seductive Mac.

Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD is stunned when he gets the report. Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed.

When the Red Rose Killer leaves his calling card for Staff Sergeant Felicity Monroe, she knows exactly what that means-she's on his revenge list. Her boss, Master Sergeant Westley James, and K-9 German shepherd Dakota become her guardians, but they'll have to act fast to escape the man who wants her dead.

Though his methods may be rough, when it comes to protecting what’s his, Russian vor Sergei Petrovyh’s heart is always in the right place. That’s never been more true than when the gorgeous Evette Labadie asks him for a job. He knows enough to keep his hands off someone as beloved by the locals as Evie, but there’s something about her that calls to him - no matter how badly he burns to make her his.

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.

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

Tess McBray was dying. The solstice syndrome had no cure, and she resigned herself to an early grave. But just when she gave up on survival, all her symptoms mysteriously disappeared. All but one symptom, anyway. Something is wrong with Tess’ hands. They absorb any material they touch, and her skin turns to wood, steel, or concrete. It doesn’t take this comic book obsessed 21-year-old long to figure out what’s going on: somehow, she’s developed super powers. And she’s not the only one; across the country, people are coming forward and sharing their gifts with the world.

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.