This issue, we have 6 original stories, including top-drawer mysteries by Shannon Taft and Mark Thielman (thanks to Acquiring Editors Barb Goffman and Michael Bracken) and Michael Wiley, plus great science fiction from Alex Marchenko and Subodhana Wijeyeratne. Our novels are The India-Rubber Men, by Edgar Wallace, and Screamworld, by Edmund Glasby (this is the genre-defying Screamworld’s first American publication). We also have classic reprints by E.C. Tubb and ...

Introducing maverick Chicago private investigator Sam Kelson in the first of a hardhitting new crime noir series.Sam Kelson is a PI like no other. As a consequence of being shot in the head while working undercover as a Chicago cop, he suffers from disinhibition: he cannot keep silent or tell lies when questioned. But truth be told—and Kelson always tells the truth—he still feels compelled to investigate and, despite the odds, he's good at his job.Hired by ...

For several decades, interest in the British Romantics’ theorizations and representations of the world beyond their national borders has been guided by postcolonial and, more recently, transatlantic paradigms. GlobalRomanticism: Origins, Orientations, andEngagements, 1760–1820 charts a new intellectual course by exploring the literature and culture of the Romantic era through the lens of long-durational globalization. In a series of wide-ranging but complementary chapters, this provocative...

A case of stolen shoes leads maverick Chicago PI Sam Kelson into something far darker and deeper in the second of this hardhitting crime noir series."My boyfriend's been stealing my Jimmy Choos."Genevieve Bower has hired private investigator Sam Kelson to recover her stolen shoes from her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. The problem is that no one's seen Genevieve's boyfriend for the past two weeks. Events take a disturbing twist when, in his search for th...

In his impressive and confident debut, Michael Wiley delivers a thrilling tale about how greed and revenge play out on the streets of Chicago.Private eye Joe Kozmarski has just been asked to clear his childhood friend Bob Piedras of murder. Bob's latest girlfriend, a young Vietnamese American beauty, has turned up dead in an airport hotel. No one is very surprised; she had a taste for hard liquor, drugs, and stripping in front of a camera. And Bob has a history of violence. But Bob...

Michael Wiley’s first novel, The Last Striptease, was nominated for a Shamus Award and hailed as “riveting” (Chicago Tribune), “delightful” (Toronto Globe and Mail), and “hard-boiled fiction with tenderness and compassion” (New York Newsday). Now he offers another exciting, fast-paced page-turner with The Bad Kitty Lounge.Greg Samuelson, an unassuming bookkeeper, hired Joe Kozmarski to dig up dirt on his wife and her lover, Eric Stone. B...

Michael Wiley’s third mystery—following The Bad Kitty Lounge and the Shamus-nominated The Last StripteaseWorking late-night surveillance at a luxury condominium development in a city world-famous for corruption, Chicago private detective Joe Kozmarski encounters a burglary crew. Two of the crew members show up in a police cruiser. In the chaos that follows, Kozmarski shoots and kills a thief, who is also one of Chicago’s finest. Kozmarski is in for many a bad nigh...

Chicago private investigator Sam Kelson uncovers more than he bargained for when he investigates a series of suspicious deaths at the Clement Memorial Hospital."My friend, this place is killing people."While in the hospital recuperating from a gunshot wound, Chicago PI Sam Kelson is approached by a nurse who's troubled by three recent deaths. No pattern, no connection—except that three patients died when they shouldn't have.Initially skepti...

The message is one simple word: Vengeance.Anonymous threats aren’t unusual for a crime reporter. Even direct threats face to face are common, most never amounting to more than words. Michael Elliott has assisted the police with putting enough criminals behind bars to have earned his fair share.But when Megan Scott, the love of his life and frequent investigative partner, goes missing, Michael realizes this threat is real. He has a list of five potential kid...

"Hotel rooms often come with perks. A corpse isn’t one of them."Ghostwriter Megan Scott and investigative reporter Michael Elliott discover the body of a young woman in their Ottawa hotel room. Not what they expected on a business trip to Canada’s capital. She’s wearing a black lace teddy. A carafe of red wine and two glasses sit on a table. A closer look inside her purse reveals thousands of dollars, three business cards, and a supply of pills.Who...

"Where evil lurks, no one is safe."The suspicious fire that destroyed the shed exposes a surprise corpse—not what ghostwriter Megan Scott and investigative reporter Michael Elliott expected when they reserved a cabin at their friends’ lakeside resort in rural Ontario.Fear overshadows their visit like a looming storm. Their friends are receiving anonymous threatening letters. An elderly resident is reported missing. Then a child vanishes. Locals are...

Ashley Hope is an average Southern woman, happily engaged, her whole life ahead of her,—until dark secrets from her past come bubbling up. She soon finds herself in a race against time to save herself—and her marriage—from her ex-husband turned serial killer, who will stop at nothing until he has her back.Ashley has spent years trying to forget her past and the poverty-wracked childhood she escaped from. Her life is finally perfectly normal—and she’s worked hard to make it that way...