Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Featured stories
Activity feed

Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of crime short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

4760+ Crime Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Feed your fascination with the latest crime short stories. From thrilling accounts of lovable burglars to chilling tales of stone-cold murderers, these bite-sized pieces are so addictive, they should be illegal.

Crime Short Stories – Page 2 of 318

The Rat the Cat the Fox the Dog

Submitted to Contest #297

“Everybody on the fuckin’ ground”, yelled Rat, while spraying a volley of bullets into the ceiling. Fox and Cat vaulted over the desk to police the tellers. Human checked all the corners just to make sure there weren’t any hidden problems lurking about. A man on his knees reached into his coat and Rat hit him with the butt of his gun. “A fuckin hero, huh”, said Rat as he reached into the mans jacket himself and retrieved a hidden pistol.“1 minute”, yelled Human, who was the only one not wearing an animal mask. Fox and Cat shoveled money into...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Saints and Their Sins

Submitted to Contest #296

There was only one thing Sister Vera disagreed with within the catholic church. Priests were the only ones worthy of hearing the sins of the people, petitioning God for their souls. In her mind, absolution may be the rite of priests, but retribution was her holy mission.Sister Vera sat quietly in the chapel’s vent, straining to hear the voices below her. All the other Sisters were in bed, peacefully slumbering until morning prayers began in a few hours. The only sounds were the voices of the two men in the confession box below her hiding pla...

3 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Shot in the Night

Submitted to Contest #296

"You always get the double bacon," the woman said with a soft smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. The neon sign buzzed overhead, casting a flickering pink hue over the chipped counter and cracked linoleum floor. Inside the burger joint, the air smelled like grease and late-night stories—quiet now except for the soft drone of a country song leaking from a dusty jukebox. "Habit," the man replied, his fingers wrapped around a plastic cup filled with flat cola. "Some things stick." She leaned forward, chin resting on her hand. "Habit...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Time's Up

Submitted to Contest #296

“I’m gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket. I’m, I’m, I’m huntin’, lookin’ for a come up-” The ringtone of Macklemore’s 2013 hit song “Thrift Shop” abruptly ends when a hand searching for the source of the sound finds its target. “H-hello?” the sleepy voice of a woman asked. “May I speak to Jason?” The voice on the phone asked back. The woman shot upright from her sleep daze and grabbed the arm of the person lying next to her. “I think you have the-” “Ma’am, I’m not the one you must worry about. If you want to live p...

3 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Cherry Ave.

Submitted to Contest #296

The Samoan was a huge guy, he could be an entire island. No doubt he got the name from where he was born. A lot bigger when in front of you in real life. He was all mass and indigenous fire. He deserved the name. He had the appetite to go with it.I watched him unwrap his burger from a joint on Pacific, The Teri-Yaki, a well-known Hawaiian burger shack. He held it in his giant hands, a $13 quarter pound double that was nowhere near small. I watched him take a bite and it came out with an extra bit of pineapple and egg yolk. The thing looked l...

4 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Tiger's End

M B

Submitted to Contest #296

Captain Sphinx had found himself in dangerous environments before: both in the skies above and down on the ground. Once he’d had a dogfight in the middle of a thunderstorm and landed with part of a wing gone, and the cockpit full of water up to his waist. And like many of his least favorite situations, he now found himself outnumbered... and very likely outgunned. He gripped his pistol tightly as he sprinted back to the building on the docks. Mai, the elusive ‘Tiger’ the smuggler queen of Shanghai had to still be there. His cover was blown:...

8 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

I found out who I am

Submitted to Contest #296

I found out who I am.I was born into a working class family. My father worked as a machine tool operator in an industrial town in the North of England. My mother had married below her station in the town’s social world as she was a teacher. In marrying my father she stepped down to his level of a working class member. All this at birth and for several years after meant nothing to me. It was in my early teams that I started to understand the complex undercurrents of living in a structured and closed community. Father was a good looking man. H...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

5 minutes

Submitted to Contest #297

TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL AND VIOLENT CONTENT. It was another dreary morning in Seattle Washington. Elena awoke to the deafening sound of her alarm clock going off for the second time 5 minutes after she hit snooze. "Damn it", she grumbled. As she pulled back her floral bedding that looked like it hadn't been washed in weeks, because of her busy and chaotic life. "I should get that done today", she thought aloud. She slipped on her knock off Gucci slippers and slid out of bed. She walked groggily to her small apartment kitchen and poure...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

His name was Death

Submitted to Contest #296

In a society built on the ideals of man, who can truly say what is morally good, and what makes you a villain?In our own minds, we are never truly evil; only operating in a way that seems correct to us, with what few standards are set for humanity.In a world of storybook heroes and villains, who truly is to blame? The man aligned to his own sense of morality, or those who align themselves with the moralities of those in power?Those pawns of power seem to detest people like me; rebellious people love me.But what does that make me? A villain? ...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Beast of Lone Oak

Submitted to Contest #296

*Instances of physical violence and death. Kate’s ringtone cut through the silence of her bedroom. She groped her nightstand for the phone, swiped right and put it against her ear. “What?” she grumbled. Patricia Merriweather’s voice came from the other side. “Kate, I think you need to come to the office.” Kate sat up in her bed. Pulling her phone from her ear, she checked the time. It was nearly 9am. Even on her days off, she never slept in this late. “What happened Pat?” Kate asked. She put the phone on speaker and laid it on...

7 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Prison Break

Submitted to Contest #296

Jailhouse Johnson was feeling overwhelmed. No one told him life outside of prison was so difficult. In San Quentin he was told when to get up, what to wear, what to eat and when to leave his cell. He didn’t have to pretend he was happy and smile. Now, people expected him to make eye contact when they were talking to him but that was way too risky. He wanted to hide out from the world. He had to push himself to go out for groceries or even walk up the hall to the bathroom. His friends, Big Jackson and Jimmy Breeze had come to his room a coupl...

6 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

To hunt a monster

Submitted to Contest #296

Overhead, a bird squawked. Beneath, the cold, snowy ground pressed against the still form of a man. Lying motionless between the two, a sniper lay as still as a statue, his hands wrapped around a long rifle. The air was peaceful and quiet — almost too quiet. For two days, he had lain there, barely moving, waiting. Waiting for his moment. And then, at last, the reason for his vigil stepped into view. His target looked to be in his mid-twenties. It was strange — almost surreal — how many lives this one man had shattered. The sniper adjusted ...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

I killed my neighbours cat

Submitted to Contest #296

If you had told me 10 years ago that this was my life - I would have never been able to believe you. Now my life is an amalgamation of this whirlwind of emotion, situation irony and divine torment. Heavenly Father tell me what I have done, tell me why in my life I deserved this- I call out to you a sinner why is this the lot I received. Two weeks have passed since the death of my late husband.Two weeks have passed since I lost my livelihood, my home, my family, and everything I have ever loved. Jonathan’s death ruined me in every way a perso...

6 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

The Final Game

Submitted to Contest #296

"He who dwells only on what’s gone blinds himself to what still shines." O.B. Kiev, autumn 1929. Rain tapped against the window of Ostap Bender's rented room, a melancholy rhythm that matched his mood. Two months since his miraculous escape from Lubyanka's cells—a tale involving a sympathetic guard, three gold watches, and a forged transfer order that even he could scarcely believe had worked. Two months of looking over his shoulder, sleeping with a knife under his pillow, and knowing that sooner or later, his luck would thin like winter ic...

27 likes 16 comments 16
Read story

Blind Jury

Submitted to Contest #296

Nationwide, the news media had run with the story of Martha Atkinson’s crime. It was a story they could print forever, taking new angles and new attacks up to, and even after, the day she was sentenced to life in prison. “Did you, or did you not,” the District Attorney had said “own several firearms, many of which were posted about publicly on social media?” The DA at that time was a lanky worm of a man called Jake J Douglas, and when the Martha Atkinson case came across his desk he was over the moon to be put at the head of the team that wo...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. All for free.