Sixteen delightful holiday short stories by some of your favorite Soho Crime authors! Featuring short crime fiction by: Helene Tursten, Mick Herron, Martin Limon, Timothy Hallinan, Mette Ivie Harrison, Colin Cotterill, Ed Lin, Stuart Neville, Tod Goldberg, Henry Chang, James R. Benn, Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis, Gary Corby, Cara Black, Stephanie Barron, and Peter Lovesey This captivating collection of short mysteries and crime capers-which features New York Times bestselling authors, Crime Writers Association Gold and Diamond Dagger winners, and Edgar Award nominees-contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season. Nine mall Santas must find the imposter among them. An elderly lady seeks peace from her murderously loud neighbors at Christmastime. A young woman receives a mysterious invitation to Christmas dinner with a stranger. Niccolo Machiavelli sets out to save an Italian city. Sherlock Holmes's one-time nemesis Irene Adler finds herself in an unexpected tangle in Paris while on a routine espionage assignment. Jane Austen searches for the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough's stolen diamonds. And other adventures will whisk readers away to Christmases around the globe, from a Korean War POW camp to a Copenhagen refugee squat to a Thai street child's quest for the perfect gift for her friend.

Volume 1 of Ursula K. Le Guin's best short stories explores her earthbound stories which range around the world from small town Oregon to middle Europe in the middle of revolution to summer camp.

With their staccato rhythm and attention to detail these stories recall emotions, memories, atmosphere, and even physical sensations with a powerful freshness. Gasparini's ability to render passion and humanity ensure a truly memorable and compelling collection.

Six amusing stories of the erudite and witty defending barrister, upholding the principle of the accused being presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The Tragedy of Errors is the lengthy and detailed plot outline for the final but never published Ellery Queen novel, containing all the hallmarks of the greatest Queen mysteries. It also contains six uncollected Ellery Queen short stories.

The heart and spirit of an indomitable people travel far in time and space … The unexpected luxury of a day spent at the home of a Hollywood star leads three old friends to share secret facets of their lives, both tragic and triumphant. Excited to retu to the home of her youth after a lifetime spent away, a woman lea s that the life of a childhood friend has been a bleak, awful shadow of her own. The streets of Vancouver seem to glitter with promises of love and success, but a young man is forced to perceive the grittier reality that hides beneath. A young woman, unwilling to stay at home with her baby while the rest of the world is celebrating, performs an impulsive act of love and selfishness that will shatter the lives of a family she cares for as much as her own. These are only a few of the stirring, unforgettable, often heartbreaking stories in a lyrical collection exploring life and love, terror and joy, fury and deep sorrow. Above all the tales explore the bonds of family and friendship, while celebrating the Newfoundlander's vital sense of identity. The Topography of Love will resonate deeply in the hearts of readers everywhere who cherish subtle, eloquent, evocative fiction. Be ice Morgan is the author of previous novels published to widespread popular and critical acclaim, including Random Passage and its companion Waiting for Time, which won the Canadian Author's Association Award

Giller Prize-winner Lynn Coady's unforgettable Christmas story "The Three Marys," is adapted from her award-winning debut novel, Strange Heaven, published in 1993. Published on the occasion of Goose Lane Editions's 60th anniversary, it is also a part of the six@sixty collection.

The stories in Farnsworth’s The Things She’ll Be Leaving Behind explore what it means to be a woman in the modern world, struggling against circumstances that are often unfair, inexplicable, and destructive. The women in this book don’t always behave in ways that are sensible or advisable or, for that matter, likely to result in success, but there’s a warped logic to what they do and the reasons they do it are intrinsically human. These women have nothing in common except that they all find themselves trying to find their footings, preserve their sanity, and just generally survive in circumstances they never thought they would encounter. They don’t always do it gracefully. Occasionally alcohol or firearms are involved. Just like in real life. The twenty-eight stories in the collection vary in length, intensity and impact. The short pieces that fluctuate between flash fiction and apologue are interspersed with events where women explore how to pick up a man, with more surreal episodes that deconstruct office reality, or even experimenting with rainfall with God and the devil. The longer stories in The Things She’ll Be Leaving Behind stray into the deep and dark territories of women’s suffering, guilt, and survival. In these tales, anxiety, restlessness and volatility are tapped like raw nerves, and the dangers and menace of events only mitigated by Farnsworth’s savvy use of black comedy and irony. Here women go toe-to-toe with chronic liars, dead grandfathers, beleaguered sons, mysterious voices, unfaithful husbands, midnight callers, spiteful sisters, and hallucinated clowns. Husbands go crazy or wayward or missing. Life hits walls and somersaults and does breathless, tactless things. The end result is fascinating inventive fiction.

In these twelve riveting stories, the award-winning Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explores the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie's signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.