Reclusive tycoon Sir Oswald Coote and his melancholy wife, Lady Coote, have hit upon the ideal plan to spice up their quiet lives. They'll host a lavish weekend party at Chimneys -- their isolated estate. But the festive mood is clouded by doom. A practical joke involving seven clocks and a sleeping guest has ended in death -- indeed, in cause for alarm.

From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman....

They were cat and mouse. Antagonists in a deadly game of survival, Ward Cameron and William Olive were linked together by the most fearful word in the West: bounty. Olive was a thrice-hardened Foreign Legionnaire turned bounty-hunter. And Cameron was a fugitive with a newly minted price on his head. An ex-Confederate officer, Cameron had murdered a carpet bagger tax-collector in a fit of rage. As if punished by the gods, he was pursued by a man seeking...

"Caught between land-hungry settlers and war-hungry Utes, government agent Dave Rand tries to avert an Indian war without compromising what he knows to be right"--

"After finding a dead man in the street, drifters Missouri Sloper and Elmer Law decide to help discover the identity of the murder in the title Western story. Five other short stories with unexpected endings are also included"--Provided by publisher.

On Bernadine Brown's fifty-second birthday she received an unexpected gift--she caught her husband, Leo, cheating with his secretary. She was hurt--angry, too--but she didn't cry woe is me. Nope, she hired herself a top-notch lawyer and ended up with a cool $275 million. Having been raised in the church, she knew that when much is given much is expected, so she asked God to send her a purpose. The purpose turned out to be a town: Henry Adams,...

Helen Hawthorne's latest dead-end job is in Miguel Angel's Fort Lauderdale hair salon, where a trim can cost as much as a car payment and a blowout can wipe you out. But when one of the salon's most famous clients, gossip blogger and cable-TV show host Kingman 'King" Oden is murdered at his own wedding, things get a little hairy and King becomes the prime suspect. To save her boss--and her job--Helen is determined to find the murderer. When she...

In Harmony, Texas, twenty-year-old Reagan Truman has found her place and her family. But with her uncle taken ill and her friend Noah lost and disheartened with his life, Reagan is afraid of ending up alone again- and she's not the only one. Harmony seems to be full of people yearning to make a connection. Like funeral director Tyler Wright, who longs to take his relationship with his friend Kate to the next level, but doesn't know how. And Ronelle...

When their "no frills" wedding turns into the event of the decade with the help of well-meaning neighbors, former high school sweethearts, Lily Fontaine and Trent July consider eloping until something happens to remind them that happiness is to be shared.

When second-rate illustrator Ernie MacGuffin's artistic works triple in value following his apparent suicide off the Brooklyn Bridge, Dorothy Parker smells something fishy. Enlisting the help of magician and skeptic Harry Houdini, she goes to a séance held by MacGuffin's mistress, where Ernie's ghostly voice seems hauntingly real...