The Perfect Murder

by Mark Sennen, Jacqui Rose, Luca Veste

Spine-chilling short stories for long summer nights…

Featuring short stories from e-book bestsellers Paul Finch, Jacqui Rose and Mark Sennen and highly anticipated stories from Luca Veste and Michael Russell, this FREE short story collection will have you up all night.

Each short story is followed up by exclusive extracts of each of the authors’ upcoming titles.

Before Noon by Jacqui Rose: A nail-biting story that focuses on the events prior to a safe deposit robbery.

Time’s Up by Luca Veste: Set in Liverpool a grisly tale of being lost and seeking redemption.

Him! by Paul Finch: The darkest things happen at night… A thriller sure to keep you on the edge of your seat from the #1 bestseller Paul Finch.

Wunderland by Mark Sennen: A chilling story based at a writer’s retreat in the middle of nowhere.

The Puzzle Behind The Istanbul Puzzle by Laurence O’Bryan: A feature that looks at Laurence’s fascination with conspiracy theories.

An Act Of Contrition by Michael Russell: when Donal Kerrigan is found dead and the man who shot him has admitted the murder, it seems likes a closed case. Yet, all is not as it first appears as Inspector David Gillespie soon discovers.

Genres: Thriller, Crime, Fiction, Short Stories, Collections

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 10, 2013

About the author

Mark Sennen was born in Surrey, but spent his formative years in rural Shropshire where he learnt to drive tractors and worm sheep. He has been a reluctant farmer, an average drummer, a failed Ph.D. student and a pretty good programmer. He lives, with his wife and two children beside a muddy creek in deepest South Devon where there hasn't been a murder in years. He is the author of the best selling DI Charlotte Savage series: Touch, Bad Blood, Cut Dead, Tell Tale, Two Evils, The Boneyard, and Puppet; the Holm and da Silva series: The Sanction, and Rogue Target; plus the standalone thrillers: Three and The Sum Of All Sins.

The DI Charlotte Savage series is published by HarperCollins.
The Holm and da Silva series is published by Canelo.

Reviews

[Rohit · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has four short stories, some good some just okay.

[Terri Stokes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having small parts of the authors books after each short story gets confusing as its in-between each one, something I feel like should've been at the end of the book instead.
Other than that, I enjoyed a couple of the short stories while some of the other ones seemed hastily thrown together with some parts not making too much sense.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Small but interesting

I would not normally go for a collection of short stories about murder mystery thrillers, personally I prefer the longer format but this was my favourite price of all on amazon for the Kindle – free!

I found the six stories gripping and interesting and an excellent way of introducing these writers to readers to give a flavour of their writing. At the end of each short story has the opening chapters of their next book so you can see their writing and in short buy them.

I enjoyed this little collection and would recommend it for an interesting evening of murder mystery.

[Gary Mcgibbon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just ok. Something to read, that's all. Now to find something far more engrossing!!

[Fran · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why call them short stories when they're taster chapters of upcoming books. Annoying.

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glad I got this finished, it’s weirdly been a bit of a slog despite there only actually being four short stories.

The stories themselves were generally quite good/entertaining but the poor punctuation and spelling in places really bugged me.

The book is clearly just a marketing tool for the authors (and a poor one at that - I certainly won’t be reading any of their work if this is indicative of the standard of writing/editing) as the bulk of the book is excerpts from their novels!

Really annoyed me having to find the next story in among the excerpts which I had no interest in reading as wouldn’t read the novels.

Two stars only because the stories were entertaining. Probably only really worth one tbh 😂

[Liane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories were better than others, I personally don't like the samples of other books but the short stories were good and any nice quick read.

[Tom Walton · Rating 2 out of 5]

4 short stories, 4 book extracts. 4 nights wasted.

[Natalie Mackay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing

Would have been a good collection of short stories had it not been for ‘extracts’ from upcoming novels for each author

[Marmalade · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of short stories, initially bought it just for the Luca Veste 1 but enjoyed the others as well.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

😊

A good collection of varied short stories and extracts from each author about another book they have written with links to buy the full book if you're interested.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5☆ I'm not usually too keen on short stories but these were gripping! Pretty gruesome, but virtually all of them left me wanting more.

[janet elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

An good easy read

Holds your interest from start to finish .able to pick up put down as time allows without without loosing the thread .very enjoyable.

[Gemma Stockham · Rating 4 out of 5]

🏦Perfect Murder is a collection of 5 short stories, which has opened my eyes to 5 new authors that after I have chipped away at a few more of my books, I'm adding to my wishlist.
Before Noon was a bank job gone wrong and was edgy and packed with suspense.
🔫Times Up was a gritty game of Simon Says involving an unknown person demanding crimes be committed so that a couple can get their son back.
🚓Him! Was a chilling game of cat and mouse across the countryside for a woman and 2 police officers.
🏖Wunderland followed a novelist, finding a dead body on the beach that spurred on her writers block.
🇮🇪And finally, the Act of Contrition was an Irish story that I felt fell short of the mark as I couldn't remember the story.

🏦4 out of 5 stories isn't bad for a collection of novellas, and that coincidentally is the star rating I gave.

🏦🔫🚓🏖/5

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd heard good things about the writing of Luca Veste so thought that this free kindle book would be a good way to introduce myself to his writing as his short story, 'Time'ss Up' is included. This was one of the stories I enjoyed the most and have since downloaded two of his books on the strength of the short story. The story I enjoyed the most was 'Him!' By Paul Finch - unputdownable and had me on the edge of my seat. The story I enjoyed the least was 'Before Noon' by Jacqui Rose. It started as a formulaic gangland/crime thriller (which, admittedly, isn't my favourite fiction genre) but by the end it had a touch of the macabre about it and had ventured into horror. It wasn't what I was expecting.

[Liberty Duester · Rating 1 out of 5]

Took my over a month to "finish" this book. Felt really misleading cause out of the 16 chapters in the book only 6 of the chapters were actually short stories and the other 10 chapters were either notes from the authors or and exclusive look at their newest book which is all good and fine but it made it a bit confusing on that was what. In the end I skipped a lot of the authors notes and exclusive looks at their new books if I wasn't intreged but the 1st few pages or if I wasn't in the mood which made it hard to finish. Which is a shame cause some of the short stories were really good. Maybe in a few months time when I've run out of things on my TBR I'll come back to this book to look at the extracts and see if there's any I wanna continue reading.

[Selina Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, the first story, Before Noon was probably my least favourite, I think Him! was probably the one I enjoyed the most, though Act of Contrition was also a really nice piece. Wunderland I enjoyed though I would question its inclusion in the collection.

Terrific for free!

[Kathryn Parry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before noon: four stars.
Times up: five stars
Him!: oh a good one. Five stars
Wunderland: give again.
The Manhattan puzzle: I did not read this one as it was an extract.
The last one was also a four star.

[Fiona Watkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

The short stories themselves rated a higher three stars, however we didn't just get the shirt stories, instead well over half the book was taken up with taster chapters, or two, of full length novels by the short story authors...not many thing irritate me more than that!

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good mix of short stories from several authors. There was an introduction from each author before the short story and there was also the chance to read an excerpt from their upcoming novel too

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was ok it was a nice book that showed in you insights of different stories there was some i would read the full book.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

All good stories to various degrees

[Kerrian Adebanjo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite enjoyable.

I gave 4 star because the stories are told well and I was drawn into what I was reading from start to finish.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

First couple of stories were quite good but after that it went downhill

[Helen Lancaster Lancaster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good

Good selection of short stories from famous Authors. I enjoyed it especially Paul Finch whose writing I love. Well done all Authors..

[Pol · Rating 4 out of 5]

was a good book