Wyatt Gillette, a cyber genius who's never used his phenomenal talent for evil, is sitting in a California jail doing time for a few harmless computer capers when he gets a temporary reprieve - a chance to help the Computer Crimes Unit of the state police catch a super hacker called Phate who's using his ingenious program, Trapdoor, to lure innocent victims to their death by infiltrating their computers.

Jeffery Deaver loves writing short stories. "All bets are off," he says. "Short stories are like a sniper's bullet. Fast and shocking. I can make good bad and bad badder, and most fun of all, really bad seem good." And that is exactly what he does in these 17 superb tales. This is a collection of short stories that is instantly gripping and impossible to leave alone, taking your breath away time and time again. Nothing is as it seems...

This collection of short stories from king of suspense Jeffery Deaver grips with every listen. An aging actor attempts to revive his career by entering a celebrity poker game for a reality TV show. A successful crime writer dies under seemingly natural circumstances, but for one cop, doubts are lingering. Lincoln Rhyme is at the end of the line, or is it just another twist in the tale?

Murder: a millionaire philanthropist is shot while he sleeps. His terrified wife made a narrow escape. Or did she? Mystery: a crime writer's violent fictions start to come chillingly true. Has he unwittingly inspired a murderer? Suspense: a young woman is trapped in a tunnel deep underground. Two men battle to rescue her. Are they heroes, or driven by some darker motive?

A killer is changing the rules. One murder at a time. You wake up all alone, in the middle of a forest, miles from anywhere. Beside you lie five objects - a lighter, grease, picture-frame wire, a piece of silk, a bottle of water - which you will need to use if you want to survive. You’ve been taken by the Whispering Man, and there is no escape. He makes the rules, and nobody ever gets out alive. Enigmatic investigator Colter Shaw is fighting to stop the murders. But another victim has been snatched from her family, and he’s running out of time.

A highway cop finds a memorial cross on the side of the road and a kidnapped girl in the boot of a car. The victim points Special Agent Kathryn Dance to a vicious online community. When further crosses appear it becomes a race against time to find the attacker before he can carry out his chilling plans in the cyber world and the real.

A woman awakes in the morning to find that someone has picked her apartment’s apparently impregnable door lock and, terrifyingly, rearranged personal items, even sitting beside her while she slept. The intrusion, the police learn, is a message to the entire city of carnage and death to come. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are brought in to investigate and soon learn that the brilliant, sociopathic intruder, who calls himself 'the Locksmith', can break through any lock or security system ever devised. 

A trio of desperate convicts has hijacked a bus carrying a group of deaf and mute schoolgirls who are now being held hostage in a disused slaughterhouse. FBI agent Arthur Potter is flown in to negotiate with the men, as are local police, state troopers, politicians and the media. Not everyone has the same agenda. And the killers will kill one innocent child an hour, on the hour, until their demands are met.

In a secluded farm house in the Pacific Northwest, a family has been slaughtered - and a teenage son has disappeared. Single mother and cop Emily Kenyon spearheads a dark hunt for a killer. But Emily's teenage daughter, Jenna, is one step ahead of her. Then another family is butchered, and another. As Emily fits the puzzle pieces together, she makes a chilling discovery: The killer is coming after her and her daughter.... 

Danny Buchanan is a top Washington lobbyist who once earned a vast fortune serving the interests of giant corporations. But then, appalled by the desperate poverty he witnessed on his global travels, he decided to use his political genius to help the world's poor. With the aid of his loyal assistant, attractive and committed Faith Lockhart, Danny now works tirelessly, and in secret, to redress the balance of power. But Robert Thornhill has rather different ideas about what constitutes public service.

First, Patrick receives a DVD in the post. It shows footage of him and his wife, Ariana, walking, dressing, going to work - all filmed by cameras hidden in their house. Someone is clearly out to get him. And then the email arrives: GO ALONE. TELL NO ONE. DO WHAT WE SAY. OR SHE DIES. Patrick’s life is turned upside down. Suddenly this has become a matter of life and death.

When best-selling thriller writer Andrew Danner wakes up in a hospital bed with no idea how he got there, he is horrified to be told that he is responsible for the murder of his ex-fiancee.

How far will you go to protect your child? Tia and Mike Baye never imagined they'd become the type of overprotective parents who spy on their kids. But their 16-year-old son Adam has been unusually distant lately, and after the suicide of his classmate Spencer, they can't help but worry. They install a sophisticated spy program on Adam's computer, and within days, they are jolted by a message from an unknown correspondent addressed to their son.

In German East Africa on the eve of the First World War, two freebooting adventurers - one a flamboyant Irish American, the other an impeccable young Englishman - pit their wits against the gross German Commissioner from whose territory they are making their living as game hunters and ivory poachers. But the outbreak of war gives the signal for their private skirmishing to flare into a relentless vendetta pursued with devastating violence by land and sea, so that what begins as a comic escapade gives way to chilling horror....  

A decade ago, Emily Carlino vanished after her car broke down on a California highway. She was presumed to be one of serial killer Ronny Lee Jessup’s victims whose remains were never found. Writer David Thorne still hasn’t recovered from losing the love of his life, or from the guilt of not being there to save her. Then David meets Maddison Sutton, beguiling, playful, and keenly aware of all David has lost. But what really takes his breath away is that everything about Maddison, down to her kisses, is just like Emily.