In the Maya civilization, a peaceful tribe is brutally attacked by warriors seeking slaves and human beings for sacrifice for their gods. Jaguar Paw hides his pregnant wife and his son in a deep hole nearby their tribe and is captured while fighting with his people. An eclipse spares his life from the sacrifice and later he has to fight to survive and save his beloved family. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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Miss Marple is invited to London to see her old friend Ruth. Miss Marple was a sort of traveling companion to Ruth and her sister, Carrie Louise. Ruth is worried about Carrie Louise. She doesn’t know why, though. Ruth asks Miss Marple to come with her to her sister’s estate, Stonygates. Stonygates is a huge manor house, and some of the buildings and the grounds are used by Carrie Louises’ current husband, Lewis, as a reformatory for juvenile criminals. Miss Marple meets the people who live there - Carrie Louise’s grand-daughter Gina and her malcontent American husband Walter; Stephen and Alex Restarick, Carrie Louise’s stepsons by her first marriage; Edgar Lawson, Lewis’ mentally unstable secretary; and Carrie Louise’s daughter, Mildred, who is jealous of Gina. Soon, Carrie Louise’s stepson by her second marriage shows up. He is Christian Guldbrandsen, and he runs the trust which contributes a fraction of the funds used to run Stonygates. He and Lewis talk in private. Later that night, Edgar begins waving a gun around and ranting that Lewis is his father. Lewis takes him to his office where the argument becomes even more heated. After a few minutes, two shots are heard, and then hysterical crying. The door opens to reveal Lewis, unhurt. Edgar missed him. However, the body of Christian Guldbrandsen is discovered, shot. Miss Marple sets out to find the murderer before it is too late for her good friend Carrie Louise. Written by {hatchetts13@webtv.net}

Feeling poorly, Miss Marple’s nephew sends her to Barbados for a bit of a holiday. She finds the holiday a bit of a bore and nowhere near as interesting as life in St. Mary Mead. Things get a bit more interesting when one of the guests, the elderly Major Palgrave, is found dead. The death is put down to natural causes until one of the maids finds medication belonging to another guest in the late major’s room. When the maid is also found dead it is clear that the Major’s oft-repeated tale of knowing a murderer - he was in the colonial police after leaving the army - convinces Miss Marple that the murderer is someone at the hotel. Written by garykmcd

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A man living in rural Wisconsin takes care of his bed-ridden mother, who is very domineering and teaches him that all women are evil. After she dies he misses her, so a year later he digs her up and takes her home. He learns about taxidermy and begins robbing graves to get materials to patch her up, and inevitably begins looking for fresher sources of materials. Based closely on the true story of Ed Gein. Written by Ed Sutton {esutton@mindspring.com}

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born in the stench of eighteenth century Paris, develops a superior olfactory sense, which he uses to create the world’s finest perfumes. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he tries to preserve scents in the search for the ultimate perfume. Written by Nuno Cordeiro

Elspeth McGillicuddy, an old friend of Miss Marple’s, witnesses a strangulation murder in a passing train through the window of her coach compartment. When Police Inspector Slack can’t find a body along the tracks and doubts the validity of the story, Miss Marple and Elspeth locate the area where the body was probably thrown from the train, the isolated manor house of an aged, cantankerous millionaire, Luther Crackenthorpe. Miss Marple’s niece Lucy is recruited to apply for a job on the estate in hopes of locating the corpse. When she finds it in an ancient sarcophagus in an outbuilding housing Egyptian and Etruscan art treasures, the police and Miss Marple are brought in. Obviously someone in the large household is involved, but who? Written by Gabe Taverney (duke1029@aol.com)

Bridget Gregory has a lot going for her: she’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, she’s married to a doctor. But all of this isn’t enough, as her husband Clay finds out. After she persuaded him to sell medicinal cocaine to some drugdealers, she takes off with the money, almost a million dollars, and goes undercover in a mid-American smalltown. Because Clay has to pay off a loan shark who’ll otherwise damage him severely, he keeps sending detectives after her, trying to retrieve the money. When Bridget meets Mike Swale, a naive local who is blinded by her beauty and directness, she devises an elaborate, almost diabolical scheme to get rid of Clay once and for all. Written by Peter Zweers {peterz@pi.net}

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Lew is a small time loser with a troubled past and a very big secret. Overhearing a couple plan a kidnapping, Lew is tempted to come up with a scheme of his own. He decides to get to the victim first and then blackmail the real criminals. His plan soon spins out of control. Written by Anonymous

The Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) has developed SID version 6.7: a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity which is synthesized from the personalities of more than 150 serial killers. LETAC would like to train police officers by putting them in VR with SID, but they must prove the concept by using prisoners as test subjects. One such prisoner is ex-cop Parker Barnes. When SID manages to inject his personality into a nano-machine android, it appears that Barnes might be the only one who can stop him. Written by Murray Chapman {muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au}

Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in the Harlem district of Manhattan. He does so by buying heroin directly from the source in South East Asia and he comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States. As a result, his product is superior to what is currently available on the street and his prices are lower. His alliance with the New York Mafia ensures his position. It is also the story of a dedicated and honest policeman, Richie Roberts, who heads up a joint narcotics task force with the Federal government. Based on a true story. Written by garykmcd