Strange Suspense Stories #27

Song writer Neal Valentine finds himself drawn into a deepening mystery when pianist Boppy Gates suddenly abandons his trio and a woman who cares for him, appearing traumatized after a brutal attack. As Neal investigates the strange circumstances—discovering a cryptic connection between Boppy and his own uncle, crooked publisher Harry Jefferson—he uncovers a tangled web of threats and secrets that pulls him toward a dangerous confrontation at the Risdon Street Bridge. With each revelation more troubling than the last, Neal must unravel the twisted motivations behind Boppy's transformation before the stakes grow even darker.

A cocky TV advice guru gets abducted by aliens who mistake him for Earth's wisest man—and now he's got to convince an alien war council not to destroy his planet, armed with nothing but the smooth talk that made him famous. When the council leader builds an ironclad case for Earth's annihilation based on humanity's greed and violence, Mr. Bleeding Heart discovers that glib reassurances won't cut it anymore. The fate of the world hangs on whether he can find something genuinely convincing to say.

When a crucial eyewitness vanishes just before taking the stand against racketeer Sid Hilton, the case collapses and the criminal walks free—but the witness's body soon turns up in the river. Lieutenant Mac McCoy of Homicide Special Investigations decides his only play is to use deception: he spreads word through the underworld that he's found a new witness, setting a trap to smoke out Hilton's gang. As the criminals take the bait and move to eliminate this supposed threat, McCoy's real plan begins to unfold at a quiet house on the edge of town.

Harp Winters has gambled his family's security on a uranium hunt in the mountains, and when he hears a cougar cub's cry, he can't resist helping—only to trigger a chain of disasters that leaves him stranded on a narrow ledge as nightfall approaches. With his wife Jean and their child waiting at the foot of the mountains and the car keys in his pocket, Harp faces an impossible choice: attempt a ten-foot jump to another cliff face, or try to fight past the angry mother cougar blocking his only other escape route. "What Would You Do?" traps a desperate man between two deadly options with no guarantee of survival.