Featuring both original in-universe stories and rarely seen reprints, this collection of 19 masterful short stories brings together some of the genre’s greatest living authors. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan take on a delightfully twisted killer in Val McDermid’s “Happy Holidays.” In Fiona Cummin’s “Dead Weight,” an overbearing mother resorts to desperate measures to keep control of her teenage daughter. And in Dean Koontz’s “Kittens,” a young girl learns the truth about how her pets have been dying and devises a horrible revenge. Tense, twisted and disturbing, EXIT WOUNDS is a visceral and thrilling collection showcasing the very best modern crime fiction has to offer.

Twenty-five million dollars in cartel gold lies hidden beneath a mansion on the Miami Beach waterfront. Ruthless men have tracked it for years. Leading the pack is Hans-Peter Schneider. Driven by unspeakable appetites, he makes a living fleshing out the violent fantasies of other, richer men. Cari Mora, caretaker of the house, has escaped from the violence in her native country. She stays in Miami on a wobbly Temporary Protected Status, subject to the iron whim of ICE. She works at many jobs to survive. Beautiful and marked by war, Cari catches the eye of Hans-Peter as he closes in on the treasure. But Cari Mora has surprising skills, and her will to survive has been tested before.

Clayton Burroughs is a small-town Georgia sheriff, a new father and, improbably, the heir apparent of Bull Mountain’s most notorious criminal family. As he tries to juggle fatherhood, his job, and his recovery from being shot in the confrontation that killed his two criminally inclined brothers last year, he’s doing all he can just to survive. Yet after years of carefully toeing the line between his life in law enforcement and his family, he finally has to make a choice. When a rival organization makes a first foray into Burroughs' territory, leaving a trail of bodies and a whiff of fear in its wake, Clayton is pulled back into the life he so desperately wants to leave behind.

Corey Halpern, a local high schooler with a troubled home life, is desperate to leave the Hamptons and start anew somewhere else. His last summer before college, he settles for the escapism he finds in sneaking into neighboring mansions. One night, just before Memorial Day weekend, he breaks into the wrong home at the wrong time: the Sheffield estate, where he and his mother, Gina, work. Under the cover of darkness, Leo Sheffield --- a billionaire CEO, patriarch and the owner of the vast lakeside manor --- arrives unexpectedly with a companion. After a shocking poolside accident, everything depends on Leo burying the truth before his family and friends arrive for the holiday weekend.

A young woman has gone missing in Silicon Valley, and her father has hired Colter Shaw to find her. The son of a survivalist family, Shaw is an expert tracker. Now he makes a living as a "reward seeker," traveling the country to help police solve crimes and private citizens locate missing persons. But what seems a simple investigation quickly thrusts him into the dark heart of America's tech hub and the cutthroat billion-dollar video-gaming industry. When another victim is kidnapped, the clues point to one video game with a troubled past --- The Whispering Man. In that game, the player has to survive after being abandoned in an inhospitable setting with five random objects. Is a madman bringing the game to life?

When gold is discovered in the foothills just outside of Appaloosa, it sets off a fight between two shrewd local business operations as their hired gun hands square off over the claim. First a young miner disappears, then another. And then one of the businessmen himself is killed, right on his front doorstep. Meanwhile, as Cole and Hitch try to put a stop to the escalating violence, another killer is making his way toward town in pursuit of a long-lost dream, and a mission of vengeance. Cole and Hitch will have their work cut out for them to keep the peace, especially when all these ruffians converge at the huge Appaloosa Days festival, where hundreds of innocent souls might get caught in the crossfire.

Everyone says Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest. And they’re right; with newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. But she knows what she saw: that night, in her hospital room, a woman tried to take her babies and replace them with her own...creatures. Yet when the police arrived, they saw no one. A month passes. And one bright summer morning, the babies disappear from Lauren’s side in a park. But when they’re found, something is different about them. The infants look like Morgan and Riley --- to everyone else. But to Lauren, something is off. As everyone around her celebrates their return, Lauren begins to scream, These are not my babies.

For a trio of colleagues, an innocent night out after class ends in a deadly torture session. They vanish without a clue --- until a body turns up. As the chief of police and the press clamor for an arrest in the "school night" case, Detective Lindsay Boxer turns to her best friend, investigative journalist Cindy Thomas. Lindsay and Cindy take a new approach to the case, and unexpected facts about the victims leave them stunned. While Lindsay is engrossed in her investigation, her husband, Joe Molinari, meets an Eastern European woman who claims to have seen a notorious war criminal --- long presumed dead --- from her home country. Before Lindsay can verify the woman's statement, Joe's mystery informant joins the ranks of the missing women.

Throughout the annals of fiction, there have been many celebrated detective teams: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Nick and Nora Charles. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings. Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. That last pair is the creation of beloved mystery writer Anne Perry, who, as the editor of ODD PARTNERS and in conjunction with Mystery Writers of America, has enlisted some of today’s best mystery writers to craft all-new stories about unlikely duos who join forces --- sometimes unwillingly --- to solve beguiling whodunits.

Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don't much care about a low-level guy --- it's his boss they want --- but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation. Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese's rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves. Lucas Davenport is now on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and --- as Davenport will come to find --- full of surprises.