Kristine Kathryn Rusch Books in Order

Five winter holiday stories explore crime, grief, and attempted change. A Black Friday incident, an icebound neighborhood bar, an assassin’s resolution, year-end legal troubles, and a vigil for lost lives reveal darker tensions beneath familiar seasonal rituals.

Detective Spade takes charge of SierraCon expecting a manageable convention. When a snowstorm traps its attendees and unexplained misfortunes begin striking them, he and Paladin must identify what is happening before someone close to them becomes the next victim.

Boss and Coop return to Lost Souls headquarters with discoveries from separate missions and pursuers close behind. Threats interrupt their search for answers, while the involvement of Coop's old adversary leaves Boss uncertain whom she can trust.

When the justice system fails, victims seek another way to answer a familiar crime. Their effort depends on patient observation and a small but crucial detail, testing how far persistence can carry people denied an official remedy.

Still recovering from a dangerous dive, Boss continues salvaging Fleet wrecks until a new discovery renews her enthusiasm. Reassembling her old team, she worries someone knows their plans and that the Boneyard itself may be watching.

Spade reluctantly answers Paladin’s call to a new science fiction convention and finds a dead writer, missing money, and feuding organizers. He must unravel the trouble before it destroys the convention and damages the community he loves.

Twenty light and cozy mysteries by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith emphasize solving puzzles. Settings range from a science fiction convention to Las Vegas, where retired homicide detectives revisit a cold case with unanswered questions.

Twenty mysteries by Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith explore history and alternate timelines. From an attempt to change events in the Old West to crimes surrounding election night in 1984, the collection examines how the past conceals trouble.

Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith contribute twenty mysteries that cross into other genres and unfamiliar worlds. A woman seeking answers across a lifetime and an unusually long-lived assassin bookend stories where crime meets literary fiction and fantasy.

Twenty stories by Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith feature nonhuman detectives and unusual crimes. A superhero moving through the world of cats and a magical search for a missing pet introduce investigations that reach beyond ordinary police work.

Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith each contribute ten dark mysteries to this collection. Stories include Cowboy Grace and a Doc Hill murder case, bringing together noir fiction and crimes that probe the more troubling sides of human behavior.

Lieutenant Balázs Jicha discovers that the supposedly impenetrable bridge of the Izlovchi has been exposed to space. Struggling to remember the disaster, he must trust his instincts to understand what happened and save his ship.

Professor Kyra Row Kirilli feels summoned by a mysterious reflection on a mountain beyond the Forbidden Valley. Even her husband's magical knowledge cannot explain it, leaving her to attempt a journey from which no traveler has returned.

Rusch identifies recurring ways that writers undermine their careers and explores how to recover from them. Drawing on practical examples, she offers solutions to predictable obstacles that can keep writers from continuing their work and finding success.

The surviving Renegat crew faces a mutiny court-martial a century in their future. While lawyers worry about securing a verdict, the defendants fear that revealing the complete truth of their ordeal could bring consequences beyond the courtroom.

A brutal murder investigation points toward frightening suspects and threatens Augusta Kirilli's family secrets. To protect herself and those close to her, she must uncover the meaning of a buried history in a world combining magic and machinery.

Gussie Kirilli hires Lucinda Barkson to deliver fourteen warnings to family members scattered across the Qavnerian Protectorate. Armed with letters, weapons, and an unreliable map, Barkson must reach them while confronting warriors from the formidable Fey army.

When Ira Hartmann’s treasured slide collection disappears at Eschercon, private detective Spade investigates the theft. His search uncovers painful memories someone wants erased, forcing him to decide how much of the past he should expose.

A brutal ambush at Serebro Academy triggers a race to uncover secrets that could determine its survival. Magical maps, hidden Fey agents, and treachery complicate the search as an invasion threatens the academy and the Qavnerian Protectorate.

The Kirilli family’s struggle spreads from Serebro Academy into the streets of the steampunk city and across Qavner. As the Fey infiltrate the population, Benedeto and his people face enemies intent on conquering or destroying their homeland.

Magical dramaturg Portia answers a friend’s request to help frightened students settle into a new theater. Traveling through winter weather, she must identify what unnerves them and balance the needs of performers and ghosts before their production can recover.

A photograph captures six very different high school students on a Minnesota lakeside dock just before a race. The tragedy that follows binds their lives together, exposing how fleeting decisions, heartbreak, and the passage of time reshape their futures.

Twenty detective stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith explore investigations shaped by procedural methods. Short stories, novelettes and novellas introduce distinctive investigators confronting crimes, gathering evidence and navigating the practical complications of bringing a case to resolution.

Twenty historical detective stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith place investigators in past worlds, both real and imagined. Crime, science fiction, romance and fantasy intersect as their characters unravel mysteries shaped by different eras and circumstances.

Private investigators pursue mysteries across twenty stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. Hardboiled detectives and intellectual sleuths share the collection with dragons, time travelers and magical investigators, bringing very different abilities and perspectives to the search for answers.

Twenty mystery stories introduce detectives whose unusual abilities, circumstances, and worlds take investigations beyond conventional police work. Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith bring their different approaches together in cases that cross genre boundaries and challenge familiar expectations about sleuths.

Ten crime stories explore murder, legal disputes, and the consequences of ordinary decisions. Recent tales and four new pieces move from courtrooms to funerals and a glitter-filled crime spree, uncovering the tensions beneath seemingly familiar lives.

Ten stories follow small creatures through ordinary and extraordinary settings, from cats and mice to combative pixies and sporting aliens. Encounters at funerals, schools, bars, and poker tables turn seemingly minor presences into sources of disruption and unexpected emotion.

Fourteen science fiction stories bring unfamiliar beings into strange environments and precarious encounters. Aliens search for Louisa May Alcott, teenagers cling to rockets, and travelers endure harsh planetary conditions, testing connection and survival across varied speculative worlds.

Grace has rehearsed for months for her academy’s winter concert, and her sister Imperia hopes she finally gets her moment. With their future stepmother expecting disaster, Grace must earn a success of her own without relying on magic.