Crime fiction’s biggest names have been rounded up for a truly impressive collection of 2008’s best short stories. Featuring authors like Michael Connelly, Charlaine Harris, and 2009 Edgar Award winner T. Jefferson Parker, this volume should be on the shelf of every mystery fan.

"The White Owl," by Edmund Snell, quivers with the literary hocus pocus that affords mental relief in a materialistic age. Two adventurers, searching for an Aztec temple containing a deity, which flourished before the Spanish conquistadores overran Mexico, find it, and on opening the covering of a shaft one of them is carried down into its fathomless depths by a huge white owl. There appears to the survivor a girl, Naia, who tells him that his friend will reappear after twenty moons. The White Owl having been released, the hatred of the Aztecs for their Spanish oppressors is renewed, and a series of murders of Spaniards in various places in Europe follows, the White Owl with hideous green eyes continually appearing when the mysterious influences are at work. The vanished explorer and the girl Naia are always the instruments.

Trade paperback. John Vance doesnÕt have a care in the world...except, perhaps, seeing his daughter Pamela married to the right man. Father and daughter live happily at Blacon Grange until one day the post brings a letter from an anonymous writer directing Vance to kill one Martin Stone - a man of dubious character with whom Vance had once been associated. Vance decides to ignore the ludicrous missive. But a phone Õcall received shortly afterwards from Martin Stone leads John Vance into dangerous waters... The ensuing case is investigated by Curtis Burke of Scotland Yard, and Inspector Burke and his men must use all of their deductive skill to unravel a conspiracy whose roots go back to Mexico. ÔRalph TrevorÕ was the pseudonym used by James Reginald Wilmot for his numerous mystery novels. He also wrote romances under the pseudonym ÔFrances StewartÕ.

Trade paperback. Dr. Pinsent is translating hieroglyphics in Egypt when he meets up with Sir Robert Ottley, who is searching for the tomb and mummy of the ancient Egyptian priest Ptahmes. Pinsent is intrigued by the excavation - but he is even more fascinated by OttleyÕs daughter, May, who is assisting her father. When the sarcophagus of Ptahmes is unearthed and opened, a bizarre series of events begins to unfold. Pinsent is drawn into the mysterious phenomena, which swiftly develop into something more sinister. Only when Pinsent and the Ottleys return to London do matters take a devilishly threatening turn. Ambrose Pratt (1874Ð1944) was a prolific Australian journalist and author of novels and non-fiction. Later in life Pratt was an outspoken opponent of the White-Australia Policy. His many activities included advocating the inclusion of Australian fauna at Melbourne Zoo; he later became vice-president of the Zoological Society of Victoria.

Inspector Head, having ascertained that Edward Carter has been shot down at his own door at four o'clock on a January morning, finds in the snow the murderer's footprints, leading to a gate, and stopping there! The tracks do not go on, nor do they reappear anywhere: the murderer, having walked as far as the gate, apparently vanished into thin air! This is the initial problem in a mystery into which is woven the love story of Hugh Denham and Marguerite West - but it is by no means the final or greatest problem of the book. Here is not only mystery, but a very human story. Charles Henry Cannell (1882-1947) was a prolific English author who wrote many mystery, adventure, western and fantasy novels under the pseudonyms E. Charles Vivian, Jack Mann and Barry Lynd.