Thriller: An Anthology of New Mystery Short Stories
Music and Murder Mystery • Book 2
by Don Bruns, Heather Graham, Jeffery Deaver, William Kent Krueger, Dahlia Rose, David R. Slayton
Why You'll Love This
Six crime writers took Michael Jackson's Thriller album track by track — and turned pop nostalgia into genuinely unsettling fiction.
- Great if you want: mystery short fiction with a clever, unifying musical concept
- The experience: brisk and varied — each story resets the tone and stakes
- The writing: styles shift sharply between authors — Deaver's precision versus Graham's gothic atmosphere
- Skip if: uneven anthology quality frustrates you more than occasional standout stories satisfy
About This Book
Six mystery writers walk into Michael Jackson's Thriller album and walk out with nine original short stories that turn some of the most recognizable songs in pop history into something far darker. Each track—from "Billie Jean" to "Beat It"—becomes a doorway into murder, deception, and the particular dread that hides in ordinary moments. The premise sounds playful, but the stories themselves carry genuine weight: lives in jeopardy, secrets with consequences, and the persistent human talent for going wrong in fascinating ways.
What distinguishes this collection is how differently each author interprets the same source material. Jeffery Deaver and William Kent Krueger bring the psychological precision their fans expect, while Heather Graham and Dahlia Rose push the atmosphere in directions that feel distinctly their own. The short story form suits this kind of anthology well—each piece arrives, makes its impact, and leaves cleanly, without overstaying its welcome. Reading them together creates an interesting cumulative effect, like watching skilled musicians cover the same album: the original is recognizable, but what these writers do with it is entirely theirs.