Book picks similar to
Darkwater Cove by Dan Padavona


thriller
fiction
top-reads
thriller-suspense

Only Wrong Once


Jenifer Ruff - 2017
    Two mysterious deaths: one in LA, one in Boston, each with the same horrific symptoms. In Los Angeles, FBI counterterrorism agent Quinn Traynor receives an urgent call from CDC agent, Madeline Hamilton. She’s discovered the first victim of a lethal, unfamiliar virus. Their joint investigation uncovers an imminent bio-terror attack and their only hope is to identify the terrorists carrying the disease. With just two days remaining before it’s too late, the FBI and the CDC race to prevent a pandemic. The ensuing nightmare will hit closer to home than they ever anticipated and one of them will pay an unimaginable price for protecting the country. "Jenifer Ruff does an outstanding job of weaving personal stories in the lives of the characters amidst the action. This book will keep you glued to the pages from beginning to end, wondering what will happen next." – Susan Mills Wilson, author of Hunt for Redemption "The story is riveting, the characters are well-drawn, and the plot moves at break-neck speed. Be prepared to be mesmerized. You won't put the book down until you get to the end." - Reita Pendry, author of Discovering Grace. Scroll up and grab your copy today.

The Six


Anni Taylor - 2017
    She's stunned when she's offered a lifeline: A program that includes a six-day stay in a Greek monastery, six challenges and a chance at sixty thousand dollars. There is just one condition - she must keep it secret. Evie's husband Gray is gutted to find the note that Evie left behind. Why did she leave and where did she go? And is she ever coming back? But his anger turns to alarm as he begins to piece together the circumstances of his wife's disappearance. When Evie's car is found burned in woodland, the police suspect him of murdering Evie. Gray has got one chance to get out of the country and find Evie - before he's arrested for something he didn't do.Too late, Evie discovers the chilling truth about the program and the island itself. And the closer she gets to finding an escape, the closer the deadly danger lurking in the depths of the monastery gets to her.

River Bodies


Karen Katchur - 2018
    The crime is eerily similar to a twenty-year-old cold case: another victim, brutally murdered, found in the Delaware River. Lead detective Parker Reed is intent on connecting the two murders, but the locals are on lockdown, revealing nothing.The past meets the present when Becca Kingsley, who returns to Portland to be with her estranged but dying father, runs into Parker, her childhood love. As the daughter of the former police chief, Becca's quickly drawn into the case. Coming home has brought something ominous to the surface - memories long buried, secrets best kept hidden. Becca starts questioning all her past relationships, including one with a man who's watched over her for years. For the first time, she wonders if he's more predator than protector.In a small town where darkness hides in plain sight, the truth could change Becca's life - or end it.

Lost Girls: The Maine Murders


Jon Mills - 2018
     He soon learns he's being lured into a deadly game of cat and mouse where the only way to stop the murders is to confront his past and face his worst fear.

A Killer's Mind


Mike Omer - 2018
    Doubting the findings of the local PD’s profiler, The FBI calls on forensic psychologist Zoe Bentley to investigate.Zoe quickly gets off on the wrong foot with her new partner, Special Agent Tatum Gray. Zoe’s a hunter, intense and focused; Tatum’s a smug maverick with little respect for the rules. Together, they must descend into a serial killer’s psyche and untangle his twisted fantasies, or more women will die. But when the contents of three inconspicuous envelopes reveal a chilling connection to gruesome murders from Zoe’s childhood, suddenly the hunter becomes the hunted.

The Good Widow


Liz Fenton - 2017
    Or at least she thought it was…until two police officers showed up at her door with devastating news. Her husband of eight years, the one who should have been on a business trip to Kansas, had suffered a fatal car accident in Hawaii. And he wasn’t alone.For Jacks, laying her husband to rest was hard. But it was even harder to think that his final moments belonged to another woman—one who had left behind her own grieving and bewildered fiancé. Nick, just as blindsided by the affair, wants answers. So he suggests that he and Jacks search for the truth together, retracing the doomed lovers’ last days in paradise.Now, following the twisting path of that fateful road, Jacks is learning that nothing is ever as it seems. Not her marriage. Not her husband. And most certainly not his death…

The Pretty Dead Girls


Skylar Finn - 2020
    But when her older brother Mac becomes the main suspect, Savannah launches a secret investigation in order to clear her brother’s name. Savannah has inherited a gift, one that might reveal who the culprit is if she can stay one step ahead of the killer, who is closer than she thinks.

The Optician's Wife


Betsy Reavley - 2014
    The trouble is Larry has a secret.Then a series of grisly murders cast a shadow over everything.As Deborah’s world starts to fall apart she begins to suspect the man she loves of a terrible betrayal. And to keep their marriage alive, sacrifices must be made.A compelling, psychological thriller that unpicks what goes on behind closed doors and reminds us that sometimes the worst crimes can take place closer to home than you think.The Optician's Wife is a powerful psychological thriller by the best-selling author of Carrion, The Quiet Ones and Beneath The Watery Moon. If you are a fan of authors like Angela Marsons, Kathryn Croft, Helen Durrant, Barbara Vine or Rachel Abbott you will be gripped by this brilliant and bracing psychological thriller.

The Price of Honor


Aleatha Romig - 2018
    An epic tale of devotion and sacrifice spanning thirty years, bidding the characters, as well as readers to ponder the questions...What price is too high?What prize too big?What sacrifices too many?On the day Oren Demetri approaches Carmine Costello, the don of one of the most powerful crime families in New York, to ask for his niece’s hand in marriage, Oren gives his word, his life, and his loyalty. But is the cost his soul?Follow this journey set within the dangerous life of New York’s dark and infamous Mafia world as fidelity is tested and the price of honor negotiated. Is true love enough when everything that is held dear is on the line?How much can be gained and how much lost when a man’s honor is at stake?Have you been Aleatha’d?Formally titled Respect, this is a stand-alone novel.

Burke's War


William F. Brown - 2015
    Whether or not anyone believes him, Bob Burke isn’t the kind of guy to let a thing like that rest. He knows what he saw, and it isn't going to end well for the men responsible.Mild-mannered and slight of build, this telecommunications company executive is easily dismissed as the "phone guy." But after four tours running ‘special operations’ missions in Iraq and the rugged mountains of Afghanistan as an Army Ranger and Delta Force commander, he's one of the most lethal killers the US government ever produced.Over the next three days, Bob Burke finds himself butting heads with the Chicago mob, crooked suburban cops, an overzealous US Attorney, a psychopathic doctor, and his own vindictive soon-to-be-ex-wife, who is trying to take his company away from him. But as his big, muscular, Delta Force sergeants will readily admit, whether he’s carrying a .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle, a tactical knife, or just his bare hands, he’s the one you don’t want to meet in a dark alley.His new combat zone might be a glittering high-rise office building, a suburban tract house, or a wooded Chicago Forest Preserve District park, but when the bodies start falling and a young woman needs help, The Ghost doesn’t hesitate.After all, they started it, and he intends to finish it. And if he does need a little backup, he knows just the guys to call down at Fort Bragg. After all, it wouldn't be fair to leave them out of the fun, would it?

Perfect Little Town


Blake Crouch - 2010
    When they stop for the afternoon in sleepy Lone Cone (Pop. 317), they’re charmed by the quaint tourist town which is filled with B&Bs, candy stores, and gift shops.But the folksy hospitality will vanish as the sun drops behind the mountains. A winter storm is approaching, and the Stahls couldn’t have picked a worse night of the year to get snowed into this perfect little town with a dark, dark secret.

Shadow Falls


Wendy Dranfield - 2021
    You were wrong…The little girl drags her eyes open, realizing she’s starting to fade. She tries calling out—“Daddy?”—using all her remaining strength. But she’s too late and her voice just isn’t loud enough…When Detective Madison Harper arrives at a remote summer camp in Shadow Falls, northern California, her heart breaks for Jenny, the sweet little girl last seen splashing in the lake with her friends before she vanished. Peering into the silent cabins filled with rows of neatly made beds, Madison knows this idyllic place is hiding a terrible secret.The girl’s parents are distraught, and the local police have no leads—they desperately need Madison’s help. She’ll do whatever it takes to crack this case, because it’s the only way back to the son she lost to the care system years ago when she was framed for a crime she didn’t commit.But with the camp staff keeping tight-lipped and her new partner on the edge of a breakdown, Madison can’t find any truth to her instinct that there is more to Jenny’s perfect parents than meets the eye. Until she discovers a disturbing family portrait Jenny drew at the local library. Was this angelic girl more troubled than anybody knew? Was she in danger from those she trusted most?One thing is certain, if Madison doesn't find the answers soon, the lives of more innocent children will be at risk…An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller that will keep you up all night! Perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Robert Dugoni and Melinda Leigh. Previously titled Find My Child.

Little Girl Lost


Addison Moore - 2018
    Allison and James Price move to the navy-blue forests of Concordia Idaho hoping to leave behind the chaos of Los Angeles and the painful memories of his indiscretions. Once settled in the picturesque town, where time seems to have stalled and life moves at a slower pace, their six-year-old daughter, Reagan, befriends a mysterious young girl who seems too idyllic to be true with her pressed pinafores, her perfectly curled pigtails. One late autumn evening, as their playdate winds down, both girls vanish into thin air. The little girl said she lived at the end of the street but the only thing Allison and James find at the end of the cul-de-sac is the gaping mouth of the forest. Their little girl, the mysterious playmate—they’re both gone. Everyone is looking for Reagan. Nobody has come forward to claim the mysterious little girl. Both Allison and James look guilty as hell. Maybe they are. Excerpt We were good people, my husband and I. We had everything you could ask for—successful careers, a stunning home with the requisite, yet clichéd, white picket fence, a precious daughter to call our own. We had secrets, my husband and I. Not many, so few, all of them lethal. I watch as James clasps his hands around the girl’s bird-like neck, squeezing hard until her flesh goes white—so hard you can see his bones bulge severely, stretching thin the skin at his knuckles. We were good people, James and I. It was true until it wasn’t.

The Dirty Secrets Club


Meg Gardiner - 2008
    A superstar 49er jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge. And most shocking of all, a U.S. attorney launches her BMW off a highway overpass, killing herself and three others.Enter forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett, hired by the SFPD to cut open not the victim’s body, but the victim’s life. Jo’s job is to complete the psychological autopsy, shedding light on the circumstances of any equivocal death. Soon she makes a shocking discovery: All the suicides belonged to something called the Dirty Secrets Club, a group of A-listers with nothing but money and plenty to hide. As the deaths continue, Jo delves into the disturbing motives behind this shadowy group—until she receives a letter that contains a dark secret Jo thought she’d left deep in her past, a secret that ends with the most chilling words of all: “Welcome to the Dirty Secrets Club.”Praise for Meg Gardiner:“If you read Sue Grafton, Lee Child, Janet Evanovich, Michael Connelly, or Nelson DeMille, you’re going to think Meg Gardiner is a gift from heaven.” —Stephen King“A winner in every way. The Dirty Secrets Club is nuanced and layered—and a harrowing thriller.… Meg Gardiner makes every one of her characters leap alive off the page.” —Jeffery Deaver“Meg Gardiner is an astonishing writer, and The Dirty Secrets Club is a humdinger of a thriller, with shocks and twists galore. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.” —Tess Gerritsen

Side Effects


Jeff Menapace - 2016
    WARNING: Side effects may include the ability to catch a killer...FBI Agent Maggie Allen had a gift for catching serial killers.Now, following the death of her husband and son, she can barely get out of bed.Desperate, Maggie agrees to take part in a drug trial--a last-ditch effort to find something that might help her cope.The drug helps.However, it also carries several unpleasant side effects, not the least of them being an exceptional heightening of all her senses...just the kind of thing her old partner could use to help the FBI track down a prolific serial killer who is proving impossible to catch.