Dead of Winter brings together eight established crime authors in a collection of intriguing, surprise-filled short stories full of buried secrets, back-stabbing and revenge— all set against the chilling backdrop of winter, the cruelest season of all.Author Sarah Shaber brings back historian Simon Shaw in the intriguing Flesh Upon the Mountains, while Kate Flora's Bone China offers up a deceptively innocent account of a loyal wife. Feathersmith’s Excellent Plan by L.A.-based crime writer Gary Phillips examines what happens when two seeming strangers cross paths and turn out to have shared a strange past indeed. In The Honey Trap, Rory Tate (a.k.a. Lise McClendon) gives us reporter Mimi Raynard in a Seattle snowstorm, a story of secrets and the stilettos that inspire the spilling of them. In Iced, Taffy Cannon writes about Aunt Betty, a beloved icon in a family beset by tragedy, raising the question of whether we ever truly know anyone. Acclaimed EQMM short story master Brynn Bonner offers up High Postage, the story of a naïve young woman fighting to free the convicted murderer she loves. But is everything as it seems? Southern noir thriller writer J.D. Rhoades weighs in with the unforgettable I’ll Be Home for Christmas, a holiday tale that will have you turning on all the lights before you enter your house and checking the bottom of your Christmas stocking for a concealed .38. Finally, in Library of Souls, Katy Munger (a.k.a. Chaz McGee) gives us another fascinating glimpse into the world of dead detective Kevin Fahey, who encounters another ghost at the funeral of a young girl and recognizes him as a career pedophile he busted long ago. Fahey soon discovers that, just like the living, the undead are not always what they seem. This anthology of all new, original stories is edited by Katy Munger and Lise McClendon.
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