Davis (More Deadly Than the Male, editor) makes a welcome addition to early English detective fiction anthologies. Unlike scholars who date the birth of the genre to Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Davis starts with an earlier short story, "The Secret Cell" by Poe's nemesis, William Evans Burton. That tale remains enjoyable today, with its dramatic account of the search for a missing 17-year-old servant, who stood to inherit a fortune from...

Fenton Hardy, the famous private detective and father of the Hardy Boys, asks his sons to help him with his latest case involving a criminal named Snattman and the illegal drug trade smuggling of stolen drugs. Hardy directs Frank and Joe to a house on the cliff, whose location overlooking Barmet Bay offers an excellent vantage point to watch for smugglers. The Hardys are tricked into the house by cries for help, and are trapped for a short time in...

An anthology of crime stories. In John Helfers' The Better to Eat You With, a woman bank robber holds up a woodsman and is punished for it by wolves, while in Ed Gorman's Of the Fog a woman hitchhiker frames a man for rape because he refused to give her a ride.

"Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international bestseller Lee Child has selected the twenty most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume. Includes stories by: Alison Gaylin, David Morrell, James Lee Burke, Joyce Carol Oates, Martin...