A woman is haunted by dreams of her dead mother. An adulterous couple step over the line. A widow discovers unsettling truths about a total stranger. These ten stories will not only astonish and delight but will also convey the unspoken mysteries at the heart of all human experience.

Jeffery Deaver
The Empty Chair

Since a beam crushed his spinal cord years ago, Lincoln Rhyme is desperate to improve his condition, and goes to the University of North Carolina Medical Centre for high risk experimental surgery. But he and Sachs have hardly settled in when the local authorities come calling. Tanner's Corner has seen a local teenager murdered and two young women abducted. And Rhymes and Sachs are the best chance to find the girls alive...

Lawrence Block
In The Midst Of Death

Jerry Broadfield thinks he's a good cop. But he's been charged with extortion - and his former buddies in the NYPD would like to see him laid out on a morgue slab for squealing to a committee on police corruption. And when a dead hooker turns up in his apartment, he's saddled with a murder rap as well. Nobody believes he's been framed except ex-policeman-turned-private investigator, Matthew Scudder. But finding a killer among the cop's sleazebag connections isn't going to be easy...