Book picks similar to
Senseless by Stona Fitch


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The Descent


Jeff Long - 1999
    In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old. In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave. So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: that the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings. Some call them "devils" or "demons." But they are real. They are down there. And they are waiting for us to find them…

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Richard Stephenson - 2012
    With the American people deep in The Second Great Depression and two of the most powerful hurricanes on record to contend with, the United States is in no condition to deal with hidden terrorists on its soil, maniacal politicians, and the most formidable military threat the world has seen since the Third Reich. This is the story of three men from three very different walks of life: Howard Beck, the world's richest man, also diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome; Richard Dupree, ex-Navy SEAL turned escaped convict; and Maxwell Harris, a crippled, burned-out chief of police of a small Texas town. At first, they must overcome their own struggles and fight for their survival against impossible odds. In the end, the unlikely trio must band together to save their beloved country from COLLAPSE. Empires topple. Nations crumble. Civilization is fragile. In 2027, America will fall.

Invasion


Robin Cook - 1997
    Now, in his most provocative thriller to date, he explores a sudden outbreak of strange new symptoms that defy diagnosis. The cause is unknown—and unknowable—because it is unlike anything humankind has ever seen....

Driftwood


Shauna Bickley - 2010
    She has changed her name and worked hard to ensure he wouldn't find her, but now he is back in her life again. Is it chance, or something more sinister?Juliet has secrets she needs to keep hidden, but Luke wants to renew their relationship. After meeting him incidents occur that make her fear the unthinkable. Her life may be in danger.She leaves Auckland for Sydney on a business trip, but Luke appears there. Can she trust him, or are his secrets more dangerous than the ones she hides.Driftwood is a romantic suspense novella. Included in the Kindle version are the opening chapters of the new novel, Lies of the Dead, and the opening chapters of Lives Interrupted.

What the Lady Wants


Renée Rosen - 2014
     The night of the Great Fire, as seventeen-year-old Delia watches the flames rise and consume what was the pioneer town of Chicago, she can't imagine how much her life, her city, and her whole world are about to change. Nor can she guess that the agent of that change will not simply be the fire, but more so the man she meets that night...Leading the way in rebuilding after the fire, Marshall Field reopens his well-known dry goods store and transforms it into something the world has never seen before: a glamorous palace of a department store. He and his powerhouse coterie--including Potter Palmer and George Pullman--usher in the age of robber barons, the American royalty of their generation.But behind the opulence, their private lives are riddled with scandal and heartbreak. Delia and Marshall first turn to each other out of loneliness, but as their love deepens, they will stand together despite disgrace and ostracism, through an age of devastation and opportunity, when an adolescent Chicago is transformed into the gleaming White City of the Chicago's World's Fair of 1893.

Daddy's Girl


Anton Palmer - 2016
    The basement where she had been beaten and left chained in the frigid darkness to repent her sins on numerous occasions. Now, with her father dead, Victoria is an attractive young woman. Psychologically damaged, she struggles to make her way in the world. All she wants out of life is a husband to give her a baby – a child who will love her unconditionally and to whom she can be the mother she never knew. But her deep emotional scars prevent her from having the family life she so desires. When she discovers that her husband is cheating on her, her fragile sanity finally snaps and the cobwebbed walls of the secret basement will echo with screams like it has never known before. Inspired by WH Auden’s poem, ‘Victor’ – Daddy’s Girl contains scenes that some readers may find disturbing.

The Hangman's Daughter


Oliver Pötzsch - 2008
    And her father’s wisdom and empathy are as unusual as his despised profession. It is 1659, the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and there hasn’t been a witchcraft mania in decades. But now, a drowning and gruesomely injured boy, tattooed with the mark of a witch, is pulled from a river and the villagers suspect the local midwife, Martha Stechlin.Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy.Page Numbers Source ISBN: 054774501X

Harvest Home


Thomas Tryon - 1973
    The quiet, peaceful place was straight out of a bygone era, with well-cared-for Colonial houses, a white-steepled church fronting a broad Common. Ned and Beth Constantine chanced upon the hamlet and immediately fell in love with it. This was exactly the haven they dream of. Or so they thought.For Ned and his family, Cornwall Coombe was to become a place of ultimate horror.

999: Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense


Al SarrantonioRamsey Campbell - 1999
    From dark fantasy and pure suspense to classic horror tales of vampires and zombies, 999 showcases the extraordinary scope of fantastical fright fiction. The stories in this anthology are a relentless tour de force of fear, which will haunt you, terrify you, and keep the adrenaline rushing all through the night.Amerikanski dead at the Moscow morgue / Kim Newman --The ruins of contracoeur / Joyce Carol Oates --The owl and the pussycat / Thomas M. Disch --The road virus heads north / Stephen King --Keepsakes and treasures: a love story / Neil Gaiman --Growing things / T.E.D. Klein --Good Friday / F. Paul Wilson --Excerpts from the records of the New Zodiac and the diaries of Henry Watson Fairfax / Chet Williamson --An exaltation of termagants / Eric Von Lustbader --Itinerary / Tim Powers --Catfish gal blues / Nancy A. Collins --The entertainment / Ramsey Campell --ICU / Edward Lee --The shadow, the darkness / Thomas Ligotti --Rio Grande Gothic / David Morrell --Des Saucisses, Sans doute / Peter Schneider --Angie / Ed Gorman --The ropy thing / Al Sarrantonio --The tree is my hat / Gene Wolfe --Styx and bones / Edward Bryant --Hemophage / Steven Spurill --The book of irrational numbers / Michael Marshall Smith --Mad dog summer / Joe R. Lansdale --The Theater / Bentley Little --Rehearsals / Thomas F. Monteleone --Darkness / Dennis L. McKiernan --Elsewhere / William Peter Blatty

Conduit


Angie Martin - 2014
    A savvy private investigator, she discreetly uses her psychic prowess to solve cases. When the police ask her to assist on a new case, she learns the killer they seek is not only psychic, but is targeting her. The killer wants more than to invade her mind; he wants her. Believing they are destined for each other, he uses his victims as conduits to communicate with her, and she hears their screams while they are tortured. She opens her minds to help the victims, but it gives him a portal that he uses to lure her to him. With the killer taking over her mind, she must somehow stop him before she becomes his next victim.

House of Blood


Bryan Smith - 2004
    They were tired and tense, two guys and three girls arguing over a vacation gone bad. But things were about to get worse for the five young friends. Much, much worse. In fact, most of them would never see the highway again. — The woods were dark and forbidding, filled with unseen dangers and inhuman sounds. The light in the distance promised sanctuary from the grasping terrors. Instead, the light lured the travelers to the very heart of evil, a house at the entrance of Hell, a house that held only torture, depravity and--for the lucky ones--death.When the front door closes, the screaming begins!

Taken!


Donald Wells - 2012
    All twenty-three women shared the same look as Karen Ryan and now Karen Ryan is being stalked, hunted like prey by a man who will stop at nothing to possess her. Will Karen become victim number twenty-four? Or does the prey hide a secret that will bring her predator down?***************SPOILER ALERT*****SPOILER ALERT************Reading the descriptions of TAKEN! 2-6 may spoil the twist ending of TAKEN!TAKEN! 2 – Young BloodThere’s a killer at large in the Colorado community of Eagle’s Bluff, and the death toll is frightening. Three families have been brutally murdered, but what really sets the town on edge is the fact that the killer is one of their own. Gregory Michael Rouse, a seventeen-year-old loner, was on the outside looking in among the affluent residents. Gregory just never seemed to fit and was often the butt of cruel jokes. Now, no one’s laughing after Gregory surfaces as the prime suspect in the slayings. Criminal Profiler, Dr. Jessica White is called in to help capture Gregory, but she didn’t come alone. Her husband has also traveled to the town of Eagle’s Bluff to track down the killer. Dr. White knows that Gregory’s days of freedom are numbered, because the only thing more dangerous than the man they hunt, is her husband.TAKEN! 3 – RegretAfter Sandra Jenkins’ six-year-old daughter was taken, the young mother trusted the authorities to get her little girl back. But when the man who holds the only possible lead to her daughter’s whereabouts is set free, Sandra goes after him. Hours later, the man is dead and Sandra is following a trail that she hopes will lead to her daughter, Chrissie. As the young mother’s quest makes the news, it catches the attention of Dr. White and her husband. As the path to her daughter grows more dangerous, Sandra gains new allies and closes in on the men who have Chrissie. The odds against her are high, and when Sandra walks into a trap, her only hope of rescue is Dr. White and her husband. What comes next is a violent climax that forces husband and wife to break all the rules and, in the end, will leave them changed forever.TAKEN! 4 – Mirror ImageWhen Jeffrey Mitchell abducted eighteen-year-old Hanna Jones, he had every intention of killing her. But now, years later, as husband and wife they play games that have only losers. Dr. White and her husband share a similar past, but when these two couples collide, only one pair can come out on top.TAKEN! 5 – Young LoveCouples meet in many ways, but when beautiful, young, Jessica White awakened to find herself naked and tied to a bed, the last thing on her mind was romance. However, terror soon morphed into an intense fascination with her captor and her innate understanding of human nature allowed her to see past his actions and into his heart Meanwhile, Jessica’s father was being threatened by a serial killer with a personal grudge. But Dr. White is in luck, because his daughter’s made a new friend, and he may be the only thing deadlier than the man that stalks him.TAKEN! 6 – Red, White and BlueWhen Dr. Jessica White is taken captive by fugitive, Sebastian Rojo, her husband will stop at nothing to get her back. Aided by a sexy female bounty hunter named Blue Steele, and the ever-efficient Carly Zhang, he races against time as a winter storm threatens, and corrupt government officials plot his wife’s death.With time running out, and a dozen armed men against them, he’ll do anything to ensure his wife’s safe return, and in the end, Sebastian Rojo will learn the folly of abducting the wife of a man, who is quite possibly, the deadliest man alive.

The Einstein Prophecy


Robert Masello - 2015
    Shipped to Princeton University for study, the box contains mysteries that only Lucas, aided by brilliant archaeologist Simone Rashid, can unlock.These mysteries may, in fact, defy—or fulfill—the dire prophecies of Albert Einstein himself.Struggling to decipher the sarcophagus’s strange contents, Lucas and Simone unwittingly release forces for both good and unmitigated evil. The fate of the world hangs not only on Professor Einstein’s secret research but also on Lucas’s ability to defeat an unholy adversary more powerful than anything he ever imagined.From the mind of bestselling author and award-winning journalist Robert Masello comes a thrilling, page-turning adventure where modern science and primordial supernatural powers collide.

Set Free


Anthony Bidulka - 2016
    Can lies do the same? Within minutes of arriving in the exotic, enigmatic, sweltering city of Marrakech, renowned author Jaspar Wills is kidnapped, blindfolded, bound, and beaten. As Wills struggles to survive the ordeal, he recounts his rise to fame and the tragic events that led him to Morocco. With the kidnapper’s demands left unmet, Wills faces death with fear, grief…and guilt. Is what happened in the past tied to his abduction? Is someone he loves responsible? Or is this payback for his sins? Living with a loss far greater than his own death, Jaspar yearns to be set free. But do some kinds of freedom come at too high a cost? Six months later, struggling reporter Katie Edwards travels to Morocco to stake her claim on the story with everything—international intrigue, mystery, celebrity, violence, sex, heartbreak, betrayal. Once there, she discovers a shocking truth. As the young journalist’s career soars, Jaspar Wills’ is destroyed…until an act of revenge leads to a stunning revelation that will change everything.

Falling Angel


William Hjortsberg - 1978
    For Harry Angel, a routine missing-persons case soon turns into a fiendish nightmare of voodoo and black magic, of dizzying peril and violent death. Many people feel that Falling Angel is the greatest American supernatural horror novel of the 20th century.With a new foreword by Ridley Scott, an introduction by the late James Crumley, and a new afterword by the author and a bonus short story, plus a letter from Stephen King, the first time that the letter has ever been published in its complete form.The hardcover edition is limited to just 300 copies and is signed by William Hjortsberg. Bound in cloth with a dustjacket with the original Stanislaw Zagorski wraparound dustjacket printed against a black background with spot varnish.