New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver has long thrilled fans with tales of masterful villains and their nefarious ways, and the brilliant minds who bring them to justice. Now the author of the Lincoln Rhyme series has collected for the first time his award-winning, spine-tingling stories of suspense -- stories that will widen your eyes and stretch your imagination.

A beautiful woman goes to extremes to rid herself of her stalker a daughter begs her father not to go fishing in an area where there have been a series of brutal killings a contemporary of the playwright William Shakespeare vows to avenge his family's ruin and Jeffery Deaver's most beloved character, criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, is back to solve a chilling Christmastime disappearance.

Diverse, provocative, eerie and inspired, this collection of Jeffery Deaver's best stories exhibits the amazing range and signature plot twists that have earned him the title "master of ticking-bomb suspense" (People). With nods to O. Henry and Edgar Allan Poe, these beautifully crafted pieces, never before compiled in one volume, pulse with subtle intrigue and Deaver's incomparable imagination.