Selected by Jeffrey Deaver and Raymond Benson, this is a collection of mystery/thriller short stories from some of today's top writers. Nuclear brinksmanship, psychological warfare, spies, double agents, femmes fatales, and dead drops... The Cold War-a terrifying time when nuclear war between the world's two superpowers was an ever-present threat, an all-too-real possibility that could be set off at the touch of a button-provides a chilling backdrop to this collection of all-new short stories from today's most celebrated mystery writers. Bestselling authors Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson-the only American writers to be commissioned to pen official James Bond novels-have joined forces to bring us twenty masterful tales of paranoia, espionage, and psychological drama. In Joseph Finder's Police Report, the seemingly cut-and-dried case of a lunatic murderer in rural Massachusetts may have roots in Soviet-controlled Armenia. In Miss Bianca by Sara Paretsky, a young girl befriends a mouse in a biological warfare laboratory and finds herself unwittingly caught in an espionage drama. And Deaver's own Comrade 35 offers a unique spin on the assassination of John F. Kennedy-with a signature twist.