Book picks similar to
Rule Zero by Laurence Timms


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Spares


Michael Marshall Smith - 1996
    An eye for an eye, but some people are doing all the taking.Spares - the story of Jack Randall: burnt-out, dropped out, and with a zero credit rating at the luck bank. After five years lying low on a Spares farm, looking after inmates that can't even spell luck, he is finally faced with a chance at redemption....if he, and the spares, can run fast enough.Spares - a breathless race through strange, disturbing territories in a world all too close to our own.Spares - it's fiction. But only just...

Clean


Alex Hughes - 2012
    Now I work for the cops, helping Homicide Detective Isabella Cherabino put killers behind bars. My ability to get inside the twisted minds of suspects makes me the best interrogator in the department. But the normals keep me on a short leash. When the Tech Wars ripped the world apart, the Guild stepped up to save it. But they had to get scary to do it—real scary. Now the cops don’t trust the telepaths, the Guild doesn’t trust me, a serial killer is stalking the city—and I’m aching for a fix. But I need to solve this case. Fast. I’ve just had a vision of the future: I’m the next to die.

Red Moon


Kim Stanley Robinson - 2018
    But hours after his arrival he witnesses a murder and is forced into hiding.It is also the first visit for celebrity travel reporter Ta Shu. He has contacts and influence, but he too will find that the moon can be a perilous place for any traveler.Finally, there is Chan Qi. She is the daughter of the Minister of Finance, and without doubt a person of interest to those in power. She is on the moon for reasons of her own, but when she attempts to return to China, in secret, the events that unfold will change everything - on the moon, and on Earth.

Moxyland


Lauren Beukes - 2008
    Kendra, an art-school dropout, brands herself for a nanotech marketing program; Lerato, an ambitious AIDS baby, plots to defect from her corporate employers; Tendeka, a hot-headed activist, is becoming increasingly rabid; and Toby, a roguish blogger, discovers that the video games he plays for cash are much more than they seem. On a collision course that will rewire their lives, this story crackles with bold and infectious ideas, connecting a ruthless corporate-apartheid government with video games, biotech attack dogs, slippery online identities, a township soccer school, shocking cell phones, addictive branding, and genetically modified art. Taking hedonistic trends in society to their ultimate conclusions, this tale paints anything but a forecasted utopia, satirically undermining the reified idea of progress as society's white knight.

Dead Things


Stephen Blackmoore - 2013
    He’s turned it into a lucrative career putting troublesome spirits to rest, sometimes taking on even more dangerous things. For a fee, of course.When he left L.A. fifteen years ago he thought he’d never go back. Too many bad memories. Too many people trying to kill him.But now his sister’s been brutally murdered and Carter wants to find out why.Was it the gangster looking to settle a score? The ghost of a mage he killed the night he left town? Maybe it’s the patron saint of violent death herself, Santa Muerte, who’s taken an unusually keen interest in him.Carter’s going to find out who did it and he’s going to make them pay.As long as they don’t kill him first.

Along Came A Demon


Linda Welch - 2009
    I wouldn't know about that. I see only the violently slain. They could be victims of hit-and-run, innocents caught in cross-fire, the murdered. I've come to terms with that. In fact, I've made a career out of it. They whisper to me and they never, ever, forget the face of their killer. They aren't the only supernatural things I see. No, they're not vampires, werewolves or fae - those things don't exist. We live side by side with what some call the Otherworldy. That's too much of a mouthful for me. I call them demons. If you saw them as I do you'd know why. Right now I'm trying to find a missing boy whose mother was murdered. Or was she murdered? To further complicate the case, Clarion PD gave me a partner I would rather shoot than work with. I can't tell them he's a demon. They'd think I'm crazy. I'm Tiff Banks. Welcome to my world. Whisperings. Parnormal mystery with a splash of humor and dash of romance.

Vampire Chronicles


Angela M. Hudson - 2016
     Dark Secrets by AM Hudson What would you really give up to be a vampire? Ara and David fell in love under tragic circumstances, the emotions magnified by grief until one could no longer live without the other. But after David confesses that he’s a vampire, Ara’s recent brush with death leaves her wondering if she ever wants to see him again. In just two weeks she is expected to either leave her life behind for an eternity of murder in a cult-like society, or say goodbye to David. But when a decades-old feud between brothers erupts, Ara becomes the pawn in a sick, twisted game of life and death—one that forces her to face the reality of the choice she made. Will David learn what’s happened in time to save her, or did he plan this in the hopes that the brutalised girl would beg him to turn her? Token Huntress by Kia Carrington-Russell The sun’s light dimmed many centuries before; now in the year of 2,341 rampant vampires now stalk their victims in a half-lit world. Humanity has been overtaken by a new society: one comprised of vampires, the supernatural beings that hunt them, and the remaining humans they fight over. The laws and rules that once bound our world have long since been lost. Now, the Hunter Guild struggle to stay one step ahead of the Vampire Council. Esmore, Token Huntress, has exceeded all expectations at only 18 years of age. She is fearless leader to her team, and she is relentless in her pursuit of the enemy. There is only one problem: Esmore is struggling to repress the growing darkness that seduces her from within. Esmore takes another step into the darkness when she encounters a teasing, tantalizing -- utterly unignorable -- vampire. The lines between right and wrong are blurred further as Esmore gives into her temptation, and her reality becomes deliciously tainted both with evil and with lust. This Blood (The Grace Allen Series) by Alisha Basso When Grace Allen discovers a valuable ring in a gutter, she thinks it’s her lucky day, but, fate has other ideas. Now, Grace finds herself not only the keeper of tremendous power, but the only person in the world able to wield it. Seth McPhee is a monster on the hunt and his prey has never been more seductive. While Grace's powers will ensure his leadership in the underworld, her beauty will make her captivity a pleasure. Rushing to the rescue is Lucian, a man who is more than he seems. Will he prove to be the white knight that he claims, or is he just another beautiful monster? Battling fantastic creatures as well as her raging libido, Grace’s resolve is tested. Will she succumb to a life of lavish entrapment, or escape for an uncertain freedom? Laura's Locket by Tima Maria Lacoba What would you do if you met the man of your dreams, who came to you only at night and promised you love everlasting? Eighteen-year-old Laura Dantonville meets handsome and mysterious Philippe in while on holiday in Italy, completely unaware of her own destiny and the part Philippe will play in it.

Wolfhound Century


Peter Higgins - 2013
    A totalitarian state, worn down by an endless war, must be seen to crush home-grown insurgents with an iron fist. But Lom discovers Mirgorod to be more corrupted than he imagined: a murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, cabaret clubs and doomed artists. Lom has been chosen because he is an outsider, not involved in the struggle for power within the party. And because of the sliver of angel stone implanted in his head.

The Electric Church


Jeff Somers - 2007
    The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans. Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last.

Wayne of Gotham


Tracy Hickman - 2012
    No fan of the Dark Knight will want to miss this one-of-a-kind window into Gotham’s dark protector in this fast-paced thriller from New York Times bestselling fantasy writer Tracy Hickman. Readers of Kevin J. Anderson’s The Last Days of Krypton and Enemies & Allies will know that comic book characters pack a powerful punch when they enter the pages of a novel. Wayne of Gotham is no exception: as the DC Universe’s millionaire playboy journeys into the dark recesses of his own past, his a journey that could spell the end for everything he holds dear—and the end of the hero he has become: the Batman.

Fade to Black


Francis Knight - 2013
    A city that the Ministry rules from the sunlit summit, and where the forsaken lurk in the darkness of Under.Rojan Dizon doesn’t mind staying in the shadows, because he’s got things to hide. Things like being a pain-mage, with the forbidden power to draw magic from pain. But he can’t hide for ever.Because when Rojan stumbles upon the secrets lurking in the depths of the Pit, the fate of Mahala will depend on him using his magic. And unlucky for Rojan—this is going to hurt.

Halfhead


Stuart B. MacBride - 2009
    A new punishment has been devised for the perpetrators of serious crimes. The process is known as halfheading: the offender's lower jaw is removed & they are lobotomized. They are then put to work as cleaners in municipal areas like hospitals, where they serve as a warning to all that crime doesn't pay.

The Arwain Chronicles: Book II


Iceheart Phoenix - 2016
    Death is only just the beginning...

Graveminder


Melissa Marr - 2011
    While growing up, Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual at every funeral: three sips from a small silver flask followed by the words, "Sleep well, and stay where I put you."Now Maylene is gone and Bek must return to the hometown—and the man—she abandoned a decade ago, only to discover that Maylene's death was not natural . . . and there was good reason for her odd traditions. In Claysville, the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected—and beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land ruled by the enigmatic Charles, aka Mr. D. From this dark place the deceased will return if their graves are not properly minded. And only the Graveminder, a Barrow woman, and the current Undertaker, Byron, can set things to right once the dead begin to walk.

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack


Mark Hodder - 2010
    The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age, and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn't exist at all!