The stories for this annual collection of the Mystery Writers of America were selected for their strange and exotic locales. Breathtaking suspense, cold-blooded crime, and challenging twists - set in the four corners of the world - make this recording a chilling audio experience. We suggest you listen with the lights on!

• "Deadhead Coming Down" by Margaret Maron: There's nothing exotic about driving an 18-wheeler, but 20 minutes off the interstate breaks the monotony.
• "A Little Piece of Room" by Barbara Owens: In the Arizona desert, a suspicious, crippled hermit forges an unlikely bond with a mysterious young visitor.
• "The Matchstick Hut" by Jean Darling: Malloy has 10 hours of leave in Monrovia, Liberia. He can't find much as far as entertainment until he runs into an old friend living in strange circumstances.
• "Night Crawlers" by Joyce Harrington: Mirabelle MacMaster's life has been cramped and inhibited, restricted by her paralyzed, tyrannical father in their eerie, remote home. Then she finds an escape....
• "The Smoke People" by Walter Satterthwait: A sudden death amidst the squalor of a Nigerian slum looks like cardiac arrest, but a persistent policeman from the same tribe as the dead man suspects otherwise.
• "The Treasure of Pachacamac" by James Holding: Felipe de la Vega, professor of archaeology at Lima's San Marcos University, knows that his only living relative, under the influence of an unsavory friend, means to use the professor's years of painstaking research to find a priceless treasure.
• "The Vultures of Malabar" by Edward D. Hoch: In Bombay, bodies are sometimes left in sacred "towers of silence" to be devoured by vultures, but someone has been entered the towers for some unauthorized purpose.
• "The Woman in the Shadows" by Stephanie Kay Bendel: Dr. Harwell's patients claim that a few weeks at his Puerto Rico convalescent hotel works wonders, but then he encounters its disturbing mystery.