It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why-before the police do.

This is a collection of the best mystery short stories written in 2001, by some of the genre's greatest writers. Authors included in this edition are Ruth Rendell, Carolyn Wheat and Loren Estleman.

In this outing, Walker goes "Downriver," which is a Detroiter's term for any part of Michigan that does not include the city. Actually, he goes to the Upper Peninsula to give a released con a ride back to Detroit. When he and the con get run off the road and the con hires him to help find 200,000 dollars from a heist for which he was convicted but which he did not commit, Walker has his hands full.

Saturday brings Yom Kippur to Barnard's Crossing and Rabbi Small is preparing as usual. But his prayers and fasting are interrupted when a member of his congregation is found dead in his car. The police call it accidental. The insurance company calls it suicide. Only Rabbi Small's pregnant wife, Miriam, thinks it's murder. Now it's up to him to prove her right....

A Crime Club selection, this intrguing tale has been reviewed as "... the very best whodunnit in many a day... Not to be missed." It starts with plans to bury deceased Great-uncle Frederick in the family vault on Beacon Hill. When the vault is opened, there's someone already there that no one could ever expect-the skeleton of a burlesque queen who disappeared thirty years ago! It's up to young Sarah Kelling to hold the shocked family together, and try to find out what happened. What she unravels is a complex murder plot that not only stretches into the past, but also has Sarah marked as a victim! - The third in a series of definitive edition of mysteries by America's Agatha Christie! - Second title in ibooks' Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn reissue program. - Over 1,000,000 Charlotte MacLeod novels have been sold worldwide. - Charlotte MacLeod is the American Mystery and Nero Wolfe Award-winning of the Sarah Kelling & Max Bittersohn and Professor Peter Shandy series of mysteries.