The streets of the Motor City have never been so mean as P.I. Ben Perkins tracks a missing boy for a dying father. But soon he finds himself tangled in a nest of Skinheads dedicated to racial hatred and offing Ben as soon as possible.

"Ben Perkins is back! It feels so good to say that. Twenty-three years ago, when Rob Kantner introduced his Detroit PI in the short story "C Is for Cookie," he probably had no idea he was heralding in a new era of mystery fiction. Before Rob, the private eye genre was glutted with down-in-their-luck losers who wore trench coats and talked like Bogart. Stereotypes ruled the paperback racks, and a revamp was sorely needed. Rob's genius was to give his hero something more than cliched one-liners and a drinking problem. Namely, a life." J. A. Konrath, from his introduction This collection includes 18 stories featuring Ben Perkins, from the earliest part of his career to the latest chapter. The final story, "Sex and Violins" has never before been published."

Short-story writer and novelist Baer goes for the gory in this follow-up to "Kiss Me, Judas" and "Penny Dreadful." Phineas Poe stumbles his way to San Francisco in search of ex-lover Jude who is under the spell of a wealthy sociopath, who's helping her play out a revenge fantasy.

Bounty hunter Lou Prophet takes on a corrupt town in this western from Peter Brandvold. While on the run from Rurales in Mexico, Lou Prophet stops at the familiar desert town of Chisos Springs. Except now it’s called Moon’s Well. And it appears that more than the name has changed. It’s being controlled by the scoundrel Mordecai Moon, who even charges people for water. Lou Prophet won’t stand for such shady business, but he’s never made an enemy like Mordecai... When Mordecai has Lou beaten and sends him into the blazing desert tied over his horse, matters go from bad to personal. Rescued by an old friend and business partner, Lou is ready to end Mordecai’s reign of terror. And with the outlaw’s own girlfriend straddling sides, Lou will make sure he goes out with a bang.

When everything she knows and loves is taken away. Then she is forced to start over, leaving all who understand. Having to make new friends and blending them with her old ones. But then when she starts to lose it all again. Then what?

Ernest DeWalt has every right to feel reclusive. He can’t drink, he can’t make love, he has lost all faith in a world gone mad with violence and greed. Now that all his old coping mechanisms are denied him, DeWalt, a private investigator turned novelist, attempts to flee the corruption of both professions by accepting a sinecure at a small rural college in Pennsylvania. He wants only to live a quiet, unencumbered life from now on, and to be left alone to tend to his wounds. But the rhythms of DeWalt’s past continue to throb.