The Year's Best Crime & Mystery Stories contains the best crime and mystery stories that were originally published in 2015 in either print or electronic format as selected by editors Kristine Kathryn Rusch and John Helfers.Reading through thousands of titles and carefully narrowing their favorite reads down to the ultimate list that is presented in this volume, the editors chose their top picks of notable works from hundreds of anthologie...

There's been an awful murder at Elizabeth Bell's otherwise quiet household in this classic mystery from the author of The Yellow Room.Elizabeth Bell runs a quiet household, with no family and no more than the usual number of servants. She passes her time thinking about crime and working on her biography of a relative. When a young cousin comes to stay, life in the house becomes uncharacteristically lively. First, cousin Judy burns a hole in Miss Bell's desk...

“It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore.”—The New York Times Book ReviewEmbark on a year of murder and mystery. It begins at Christmas with a party and a poisoning, then blossoms into spring with sudden death at the Easter Parade. With a killer in the crowd, the Fourth of July is no picnic, and the calendar is overbooked with corpses when death is in season. Here are four cunning cases that leave everyone guessi...

National Book Award Finalist: A lonely Southerner forges a surprising bond with a New York family in this "brilliant" novel by the author of The Moviegoer ( Time).Will Barrett has never felt at peace. After moving from his native South to New York City, Will's most meaningful human connections come through the lens of a telescope in Central Park, from which he views the comings and goings of the eccentric Vaught family.But Will's days as a...

In this "tour de force" of a mystery, the British detectives investigate a disappearance in a deceptively idyllic Yorkshire village ( San Diego Union-Tribune).Reginald Hill "raised the classical British mystery to new heights" when he introduced pugnacious Yorkshire Det. Inspector Andrew Dalziel and his partner, the callow Sgt. Peter Pascoe ( The New York Times Book Review). Their chafing differences in education, manners, technique, and temperame...

Val Carew had come a long way—from Oklahoma to Wall Street—only to be clubbed to death at his wife’s tomb. The wealthy financier had built the magnificent crypt in memory of his beautiful Cherokee bride, whose premature death left behind a lot of unanswered questions. Now Carew himself is dead, struck down by a reminder from his past: an Indian war club.The case lands in the capable hands of Inspector Cramer of the New York Homicide squad. The cigar-chomping detective has to follow...

When a serial killer stalks a sleepy English village, a Scotland Yard detective must search for clues among terrified townsfolk in this classic mystery.Samuel Bracknell is found dead in his home with a knife in his back. It's the third murder of its kind in as many weeks, and the residents of Carleton Unthank are left shaken. When Superintendent Littlejohn learns that all three crimes were committed with the same knife, a disturbing question arises: why, then, was t...

A PI goes undercover with her pit bull partner as a dog therapist in a crime novel from a Shamus Award–winning author "canine fans will relish" ( Publishers Weekly).When Lady, the beloved therapy dog of the Harbor View residential home goes missing, private investigator Rachel Alexander and her dog Dash slip in easily as the new service dog and trainer, though figuring out who murdered Harbor View's owner is not so simple. Dash brings order and calm to Har...

A private detective and her dog investigate a cop's death in this "page-turner" that will have "even die-hard mystery readers . . . guessing until the end" ( Publishers Weekly).Officer Timothy O'Fallon's death may have been ruled an accident, but private investigator Rachel Alexander can't let the details of his case go. Allegedly, the cop was cleaning his service revolver when it misfired—but why did he name Alexander as the executor of his will? O'Fallon...

Tecumseh Fox has a sharp eye for solving murders—but this time he’s seeing double. Fox has been hired by the headstrong niece of a man charged in the shooting of wealthy financier Ridley Thorpe. The problem is that there are two gorgeous suspects, two powerful motives, two hotheaded suitors, and two murder weapons. And to top it off, Ridley Thorpe, or someone claiming to be him, is not only alive and well but has an airtight alibit for the night of the shooting. Only one thing is certain: ...

A museum robbery leaves a guard dead, and two Boston sleuths investigate: "If this is your first meeting with Sarah Kelling, oh how I envy you" (Margaret Maron).It's only been a few months since Sarah Kelling's elderly husband passed away, and she's struggling to adapt to life as a penniless young widow. To make ends meet, she converts her stately Boston home into a boardinghouse, a decision that brings something even better than money: the company of art-fraud inv...