First Thrills: Volume 1: Short Stories, Volume 1

LEE CHILD is the number-one internationally bestselling author of more than a dozen Reacher thrillers, including the New York Times bestsellers The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, and the number-one bestselling novels Bad Luck and Trouble and Nothing to Lose. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry Awards for Best First Mystery, and The Enemy won both the Barry and the Nero Awards for Best Novel. Child, a native of England and a former television director, lives in New York City.

DANIEL JAMES PALMER holds a master's degree in communications from Boston University, and is a musician, songwriter, and software professional. His debut thriller novel, Delirious, was published in early 2011. He lives with his wife and two children in one of those sleepy New England towns.

MICHAEL PALMER (1942-2013) wrote internationally bestselling novels of medical suspense, including The First Patient, The Second Opinion, The Last Surgeon, A Heartbeat Away, Oath of Office and Political Suicide. His book Extreme Measures was adapted into a movie starring Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman. His books have been translated into thirty-five languages.

KAREN DIONNE is the internationally bestselling author of the psychological suspense novel The Marsh King's Daughter, which won the Crimson Scribe Award from Suspense Magazine. Dionne co-founded the online writers community Backspace, and organized the Backspace Writers Conferences in New York City and the Salt Cay Writers Retreat.

J.T. ELLISON (The Cold Room) is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Taylor Jackson series. She was recently named Best Mystery/Thriller Writer of 2008 by the Nashville Scene. She lives in Nashville with her husband and a poorly trained cat.

As an actor, RYAN BROWN has held contract roles on The Young and the Restless and Guiding Light. He has also appeared on Law & Order: SVU, and starred in two feature films for Lifetime Television. His first novel, Play Dead, a comic supernatural thriller, was published in May 2010, and his short story "Jeepers Peepers" appeared in ITW's 2010 Young Adult Anthology Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror.

RIP GERBER'S first thriller, Pharma, was a bestseller in Germany in 2007. Rip received his biochemical degree from the University of Virginia and his master's from Harvard Business School. Rip lives in San Francisco, California.

SEAN MICHAEL BAILEY is the pen name for the New York Times bestselling author of crime nonfiction who went from the dark side to the darker side to write the thriller 1787.