Short True Crime Thrillers

The Headlines Told You What Happened. These Stories Explore the Chilling Why... and the Terrifying What If. You’ve read the news clippings, seen the grainy photos. But behind every infamous crime lies a story far darker and more complex than any headline can reveal. From the masterful pen of Logan Carter comes TRUE CRIME: RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES, a harrowing collection of 30 fictionalized short stories, each plunging into the heart of real-life tragedies that shocked the world. Step beyond the yellow tape and into meticulously crafted narratives inspired by cases that continue to haunt ...

Paige Barrett was living her dream as a journalist in New York City, racking up bylines as a staff writer at The Razor, a cutting-edge online magazine. But when she’s suddenly fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, she finds herself back home in the quaint seaside town of Shoreham, Florida, waiting tables and living in her sister’s guesthouse. Restless and itching for something meaningful to occupy her time, she decides to launch a true-crime podcast about the death of Jessica Cady, a beloved teacher who died mysteriously 20 years earlier.

When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.

Heart-pounding Fear. Chilling Anguish. Heartbreak. Priceless Love. The Ultimate Sacrifice. All in less than a minute. Sometimes precious moments is all there is. Between one heartbeat and the next, Susa is plunged into a devastating nightmare, wounded and broken, yet desperate hope filled her heart and soul. Nothing in her life had ever prepared her for this. Adam Manning arrives at a crime scene and quickly sees that not everything is as it seems. Unknown to the town’s small police force, neither is he. If you enjoy clean mystery romance and inspirational women’s fiction filled with ...

On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.

He was a cop. She was his daughter. One of them wasn’t walking away. James Bradford wore the badge in St. Isidore for thirty-five years. He broke up bar fights, kept the town quiet—and never once had to draw his weapon. Until the night his daughter came home. Amanda Petrocelli’s got a record longer than Main Street, a husband with blood on his hands, and two kids caught in the middle. When they show up armed and angry, James doesn’t call for backup. He goes for the gun safe. In a town where loyalty is currency and regret comes due at midnight, this is one cop’s last stand—...

When a party goes wrong it must mean there's... Death on the Saturnalia.Following the Saturnalia Festival in the Forum, Secundus and his family head to a private Villa for a night of partying and celebration. When things take a turn for the worse and old resentments get the better of the guests, Death joins the festivities and there can be only one outcome! Step into the heart-pounding world of Secundus, where every page draws you deeper into the story and demands your total attention. As our sleuth grapples with a labyrinth of deceit spun by friends, family, and guests, you'll be swept ...

The mayor had a mistress, a wife who knew too much, and a secret he’d kill to keep. When a body turns up at a sleazy motel on the edge of town, the whole rotten heart of St. Isidore starts to bleed. The cops want it buried. The mayor wants it forgotten. But someone’s talking—and the truth has a nasty habit of crawling into the light. She was beautiful, dangerous, and smarter than any man in the room. He was powerful, cornered, and ready to make a deal with the devil. His wife? Cold as ice and twice as deadly. Lust. Lies. And one hell of a mess. This isn’t politics. This is The Case ...

Death and Madness in Four Tales A. M. Arimont shows in his stories that true horror is always and everywhere lurking around us. Just where we feel safest, horror strikes hardest. Four tales in which horror unexpectedly invades the everyday world. Jack Ketchum: "I've read his stories, A.M.Arimont is talented!" Daybreak A new summer day begins in a quiet suburban town. Here, where house after house is lined up, there is still peace and order. But how well do you really know your neighbors? What if death and madness lived right next door? Tunnel vision You feel safe in your apartment, but ...

WHEN WIZARDS WAR Deep in the woods lives a wizard called the Professor. In the depths of the Depression, the residents of Fester, Pennsylvania call on “powwowers” such as the Professor to heal ailments, tell fortunes . . . and exact revenge. When an upstart powwower threatens to horn in on the Professor’s business, he starts making plans for his own revenge. The sinister forces he sets in motion spiral out of control, and soon threaten to consume the leading citizens of the town.

One case that stood out to Flowers for its sheer brutality as well as shocking aftermath was that of Karla Faye Tucker and Daniel Garrett, who used a pickaxe to hack to death two people. It began in the wee hours of June 13, 1983, in Houston, Texas, as lovers Tucker and Garrett broke into the apartment of Jerry Lynn Dean. By the time the couple left, Dean and his companion, Deborah Thornton, were dead following a vicious attack with a pickaxe and hammer.

Psychic Jeff Resnick has no expectations when investigating the disappearance of a four-year-old, until he confronts the mind responsible - a shattering experience for all involved. L.L. Bartlett's "Cold Case" tells the emotionally packed story of Jeff Resnick, a psychic, who is asked to solve the disappearance of a four-year-old boy. The conclusion to this story is bound to have you questioning those around you.

Just when the residents of Crest Hill are getting past a shocking unsolved murder in the nearby groves, their greatest unspoken fear materializes a string of serial killings amongst their own citizens. There is now no mistaking the fact that one member of their small population is not what they seem to be. Detective Anita Heath finds herself perplexed at the crime scenes when the bodies begin turning up. Something about these murders just doesn’t profile right. As her suspicions are soon bent in unusual directions, she discovers she has attracted the attention of the culprit.