Showing results by narrator "Dan Calley" in All Categories

Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler returns with a new anthology of exhilarating mysteries, assembling Victorian society's lords and ladies and most miserable miscreants. Behind the velvet curtains of horse-drawn carriages and amid the soft glow of the gaslights are the detectives and bobbies sniffing out the safecrackers and petty purloiners who plague everything from the soot-covered side streets of London to the opulent manors of the countryside. Brush off your dinner jackets and straighten out your ball gowns for these exciting, glitzy mysteries.

Dave Marwood is trapped in a soul-crushing dead-end job. He's in love with his work colleague Melanie and his only friend Gary is a conspiracy theory nut. His life is going nowhere until he has a Near Death Experience—though Death thinks of it as a Near Dave Experience. He discovers gifts he never knew he possessed and a world he never dreamed existed. A world where the Grim Reaper is a hard-drinking, grumpy Billy Joel fan and the undead are bored, lonely, and dangerous.

John Taylor is the name. I work the Nightside. Only in that dark heart of London where it's always three A.M., where human and inhuman can feed their darkest desires, do I feel at home. Probably because I was born there. What I do is find things - people, objects - and in this case, the truth about the origins of the Nightside. That's what Lady Luck has hired me to investigate. But the more I dig, the more I discover, not about the Nightside but about the great question in my life: exactly who - and what - was my long-vanished mother.

I only went out to the supermarket. Then I was abducted. By aliens. Freaking aliens! What the hell? So now I'm on another planet, at the mercy of one massive alien predator . . . And what an alien he is! Big muscles everywhere, handsome, winged, and with a burning desire to eat me. Whole. Jyr is the leader of a fearsome alien species known as the Gryn. Dark and dangerous, winged and clawed, these predators need females, and he believes he already owns me.

As the new manager of paranormal club, Midnight, Nick Parker has his hands full. What he doesn't have time for is an inconvenient attraction for the mysterious fae with violet eyes and the kind of magic that Nick yearns for. A fae guard with an affinity for seeking out the truth, Dathal has one purpose—to catch those responsible for smuggling a deadly plant out of the fae realm, and then return home. Falling for a witch isn't on the cards, but something about Nick calls to him in a way he's powerless to ignore.

Lady Iolanthe of Rockmourn Keep expects to be a spinster all her days. She is very tall. She is very poor. And she is thirty. What lord could possibly want her? But then her father returns with news that he has found a bridegroom for her—one that is impressively tall. One that is strong, and bold, and wealthy. And best of all? He wants Iolanthe. It seems too good to be true. And when Iolanthe gets her first look at her husband-to-be, she realizes why. No one mentioned the 'orc' part of things . . .

The name's John Taylor. I'm a PI, though what I really do is find things that are lost. I work the Nightside, the city within the city of London, where the sun never rises and where the human and inhuman go to get their kicks, provided they're willing to pay the price in whatever currency the seller demands. In the wake of the war that almost brought the Nightside to total ruin, there's a power vacuum—and some think I should take charge. I don't agree. Neither does the immortal known as the Griffin. Still, when his granddaughter is kidnapped, he calls on me to find her.

I'm John Taylor. I was born in the Nightside, that square mile in the hidden center of London where it is always the hour of the wolf, where gods and monsters walk side by side, and where every dark question ever asked can be answered—for a price. I left for a while, but I did come back, to make my living doing what I do better than anyone else: finding things—lost or stolen, real or imaginary. Recently, I found the most dangerous thing of all: the true identity of my long-gone mother. Turns out she's a being who's been around since before the dawn of history.

In the aftermath of Jack Harrison’s release from the psychiatric unit, Gray Raoul’s innate “born this bastard way” instinct is to brutally repay the one responsible for financing Jack and Jan’s torturous psychological reconditioning. But that person is a professional player in their own right, one who knows exactly how to manipulate everyone in Gray’s life. To help negotiate this delicate situation, Gray seeks to contract Trace and his ex-Diadem Dom, Gabriel Hunter.

Greetings, friend! Rest here for a while and listen—I have a quest for you. How would you like to study the mystical craft of artificery? You'll learn things that most people can only dream of. You'll make self-spicing cooking pots, backpacks with endless storage, and even farm plows that will do all the work for you. Who wouldn't want that? Even better, you'll get to live in the sunlit village of Sunhampton, a cozy little town of cobbled streets, friendly taverns, and stores that sell anything you could imagine.

I'm not the obvious choice to run Burlington's coolest wine bar - quiet, brooding, clueless about tannin content, and always one wrong turn away from another downward spiral. But no one seems to mind that I'm a wreck. Besides me. I just focus on getting through each shift until the night a beautiful stranger appears, looking as lost and damaged as I feel.

When your eyes land on a complete stranger on the train, and the world around you stops. When the stranger says hello, and your heart stops, too. When the universe answers your prayers and he's there, next day, on the train. A man so powerful—brooding with darkness and secrets. I knew there was going to be more. I wanted more. When the stranger is reading one of your favorite novels, and you're reading one of his. When you think the universe can't be any kinder, but it truly delivers the jackpot of all jackpots and two opposite worlds collide, as though it was meant to be.

The editor of the Unnatural Inquirer—the Nightside's most notorious rag—has offered me one million pounds to find a man who claims to have evidence of the Afterlife stored on a DVD. The Inquirer made the guy a sweet deal. Then he and the disc vanished. I don't know if the disc is on the level—but for a million pounds, I'm willing to believe. Trouble is, someone else—someone very powerful—is on the trail, too. And who—or what—ever it is, is deadly determined to find the disc first . . .

Eliza flees her parent's political machinations only to stumble into another world and the arms of a man named Finn, who declares her the next Alice. Finn, nicknamed the White Rabbit for the form he can shift into, was sent to find the new Alice and bring her to court, for only she can declare whether Red or White reigns. Not to mention he'll lose his head if he fails. For Eliza to get home and Finn to survive, they'll have to navigate two treacherous courts and their growing feelings for one another, while trying to unravel the curse that forces the Carroll women to journey to Wonderland.

DCI Tom Raven is enjoying the long summer days when an encounter with an old army pal spouting conspiracy theories reignites long-buried memories he would rather forget. A few days later, walkers crossing the North York Moors discover the burnt remains of a body beside a stone cross on a Bronze Age burial mound. When the investigation leads to a top-secret military base, Raven is drawn into a plot that threatens national security.

DCI Tom Raven’s hopes for a few quiet days with his daughter, Hannah, are shattered when a shocking murder plunges him into a macabre mystery in the nearby coastal town of Whitby. In the hallowed grounds of the ruined abbey, a man lies lifeless: drained of blood and marked by the symbol of a dragon.

Charlie Renfrew is too busy and too broke for a love life. There's no room in a schedule crammed with university, a full-time job, music, and his very committed relationship with overthinking. Hence the dating ban. Which is exactly when Ben Campbell shows up with his piercings, quirky knits, and indie rock fame. But maybe it's time for Charlie to trade caffeine for something hotter, blonder, and completely out of his comfort zone. Gorgeous, funny men don't happen to Charlie. Not like this. Even if it's ill-timed and too bloody complicated. But maybe a quick shag won't hurt . . .

I'm John Taylor. I work as a PI out of the Nightside, that secret center of London where clocks always read three AM, terrible things happen with predictable regularity, and the always-dark streets are full of people partying like Judgement Day will never come. Now it may have arrived. God's own enforcer, the righteous engine of destruction known as the Walking Man, has come to the Nightside. He's a being whose sole purpose is the elimination of the wicked—and given the nature of the Nightside, he'll just keep on until there's no one left. So the Authorities hired me to stop him.

I thought my day couldn't get any worse. After catching my best friend and girlfriend in bed together, the only thing going right in my life is the interview for my dream job. But fate is laughing at my expense. One mishap leads to another until I find myself trapped in a lift and missing my interview. And I'm not alone. I'm about to discover unexpected things about Luca Weston, lead singer of the world-famous rock band Caffeine Daydreams.

I destroyed organizations that controlled galaxies. I brought the World Government to its knees. I was the first man to outwit the greatest mind humanity has ever known. I fell in love with the fiercest female warrior who ever lived and came out alive with nothing but a smile. I escaped kidnap from the most ruthless crews in known space. I formed my own space crew who conquered a planet. I created a new race with nothing but a word and a kiss.