Book picks similar to
Lie Like a Woman (A Bree and Richard Matthews Mystery) by Campbell Jones
mystery
mysteries
thriller
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The Woman from the Blue Lias (a murder mystery)
D.M. Mitchell - 2013
M. Mitchell has been compared to Ruth Rendell, Martina Cole, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, M. R. James, Linwood Barclay, Umberto Eco, Charles Dickens and many more. Now's the time to discover D. M. Mitchell for yourself... THE WOMAN FROM THE BLUE LIAS - a murder mystery and psychological thriller with a difference... Toby Turner didn’t expect to stumble upon the remains of a human skeleton, washed down from the cliff top by a recent landslip. He runs a small bookshop in the quiet seaside town of Lyme Regis in Dorset. His life’s not quite on track; his bookshop’s not doing too well, for one thing, and he’s not sure his relationship with his girlfriend-cum-fiancé Trisha is going anywhere either – at least, nowhere she would like it to go. Toby takes a walk along the Blue Lias cliffs on Monmouth Beach to think things through, and here he finds the body of a woman; a woman, it transpires, who was murdered in 1978. The gruesome discovery and the resulting media attention he receives would have been hard enough to cope with, but he soon suspects the woman who keeps coming into his shop is the woman from the Blue Lias, that he is being haunted by the very woman he found on the beach. What’s more, he finds himself falling for her, eventually feeling he is unable to live without her. Is she real, or is he imagining things? His strange obsession starts to have a negative effect on his life and his health, which begins to deteriorate. He decides to try and solve the mystery of her death and why she chose him, of all people, hoping by discovering what happened to her all those years ago they can both find peace. And so begins Toby Turner’s bizarre journey of discovery that will lead him into very dark and dangerous territory. His search leads him to a hotel that used to stand high on the cliff, lost to a landslide in the 1980s, and to an old musician called Steely Jacobs who appears to be linked to the dead woman. But events take an unexpectedly disturbing contemporary turn when Toby discovers his best friend Mark has been secretly amassing information on a number of missing young women going back a decade or more. He learns about Mark’s secret past and how he'd been implicated in the murder of his teenage girlfriend. Is this tragic death connected to the list of missing young women he's made? And what has their disappearance got to do with the body Toby discovered on the beach, a woman murdered thirty-five years ago? How is all this connected to the mysterious hotel called the Belle Vue, long ago collapsed into the sea, and the aged guitarist called Steely Jacobs? Not only has he uncovered a body, Toby Turner had inadvertently scuffed away the thin covering of dirt from dark, long-held secrets that will lead him into a corrupt world of vice and murder. His life will never be the same again. D. M. Mitchell pens yet another taut psychological thriller complete with supernatural chills, peopled with an array of larger-than-life characters, deliciously devious twists and turns, with every seemingly disparate thread coming neatly together in a trademark surprise ending that will leave you speechless…
Sink or Swim
Stacy Juba - 2010
Ambitious personal trainer Cassidy Novak has gained national fame for starring on Sink or Swim, nicknamed SOS, a hit reality game show set aboard a Tall Ship. She hopes the prize money will help to launch her dream of owning a chain of fitness centers. Not only does she lose the competition and have to walk the plank in the finale, after the game show ends, the terror begins. Upon returning to her small Massachusetts hometown, Cassidy discovers she has attracted a stalker masterminding his own twisted game. She struggles to focus on her health club job and celebrity endorsement opportunities, but her stalker has other plans. As her former competitors get knocked off one-by-one, Cassidy refuses to play by his bizarre rules.She's also being shadowed by hunky photographer Zach Gallagher, who has been assigned to capture her personal moments for a spread in the local newspaper. She wants to trust Zach, but fears he may not be the nice guy that he seems. With or without Zach's help, when the stalker forces a showdown by threatening her family, Cassidy must once again walk the plank - this time for her life.
Dying for a Change
Kathleen Delaney - 2002
Change can be exciting, invigorating, fun, but murder is more than Ellen McKenzie bargains for when she returns to her small hometown of Santa Louisa to start a new career and a new life.
Frosted Shadow
Nancy Warren - 2011
She’s also got a nose for trouble and a passion for solving mysteries. Imagine Columbo in a lavender suit. She never met a woman who wouldn’t look better with a little help from the Lady Bianca line of cosmetics. But don’t be fooled by appearances. Underneath the fake diamonds and the big hair is a sharp brain and a keen eye that sees the details as well as the funny side of life. When a Lady Bianca sales rep is murdered at the annual convention in Dallas, Toni is the one who notices things that some people, like sexy Detective Luke Marciano, might easily miss. Only someone who understands as much about how to make appearances deceiving could see into the mind of this killer -- a murderer who wants to give Toni a permanent makeover. Into a dead woman.
To Catch a Bad Guy
Marie Astor - 2012
When she lands a job at one of New York’s premier boutique investment firms, Janet begins to hope that her luck is finally turning for the better. Not only is she happy with her new paycheck, but things also seem to be looking up on the personal front, as the company’s handsome attorney expresses keen interest in Janet. However, her euphoria is short-lived, as Janet soon discovers alarming facts about her new employer’s business tactics. When her boss dismisses her suspicions as groundless, Janet finds herself confiding to a cute IT engineer, Dean Snider. The closer she gets to Dean, the more Janet is tempted to break her rule of not dating co-workers, but what she doesn’t realize is that everything she knows about Dean, including his occupation and even his name, is a lie.Dennis Walker is a top-notch white collar crime investigator who will stop at nothing to put culprits away. When an opportunity for an undercover assignment at one of New York’s premier boutique broker dealers comes up, Dennis jumps at the chance, adopting a persona of geeky IT engineer, Dean Snider. While he may be an ace at his job, years of experience fail him when Dennis meets Janet Maple and finds himself torn between his professional obligations and his personal desires. Will he have to choose between his feelings and duty, or will he find a way to satisfy both?
Sin
J.M. LeDuc - 2004
The bureau’s only chance is a rogue agent who flies by her own wings and will stop at nothing to make sure justice is achieved.It is said, “Fight fire with fire.” The bureau knows, “Fight sin with SIN.”Her name says it all: Tempting―Dangerous―Deadly.
Rosetta
R.J. Johnson - 2012
it's all in a day's work for Jim Meade: Martian P.I.In a slow orbit around the sun, just beyond Mars, a mining colony known as Rosetta houses thousands of Consortium citizens who mine the valuable ore Humanity uses for space travel. Over the last three years, Rosetta has grown exponentially, from a tiny mining colony, into an economic behemoth that threatens the delicate balance of power between The Consortium and Coalition - two nations who are still healing from a devastating nuclear war that turned Earth into a hellscape of hopelessness and despair.After a prominent scientist for The Consortium dies in an apparent accident, Jim Meade is hired by the victim's family to find out what really happened to their father Dr. Sanjay Sinjakama. There, Meade finds himself caught up in a power struggle between the diabolical CEO of Nebula Mining Dimitri Koschei, and Lazarus Rincon, the charismatic leader of a vicious cult.With the assistance of his friend and confidant (the beautiful Emeline Hunan), Meade races against the clock to find Sinjakama's murderer and prevent a catastrophic disaster that might mean the end of all life on Earth.
Informed Consent
Raphael Hirsch - 2010
But just when success is within reach, his cherished career is threatened. It becomes clear that someone else has been bending the rules-on him. As he searches frantically for an explanation, he discovers a terrible secret. He and his family have been unwitting subjects in a fifty year-old genetic experiment. And unless he can unravel the mystery, none of them-least of all Dr. David Myers-are safe.
Stark Warning
James Raven - 2012
But one deranged viewer is out to destroy her career. He demands that her programme be scrapped and tells her to stop appearing on TV. To prove he means business he claims his first victim – a young woman who is found dead with her throat cut.Jessica and her bosses face an agonizing dilemma: take the show off the air or risk more murders. They decide to defy the killer, for fear of setting a dangerous precedent. But there are dire consequences.
Freezer Burn
Gayle Carline - 2009
What she does like are clean houses, and dirty martinis. She recently traded in her housecleaning business for a P.I. license. Her timing seems perfect, when she cleans a former client's freezer and finds a severed hand inside, wearing an expensive ring. The client, Benny Needles, is a Dean Martin fanatic who swears he's innocent. But where there's a hand, there's a body, waiting to be found.It's a brand new world for Peri, and she has a lot to learn. Her boyfriend, Skip, a detective in the Placentia Police Department warns Peri that this case could be dangerous, but she can't stop sticking her nose into the middle of things. Her first lesson is that investigating murder can have bad consequences. In the middle of trying to solve the case, Peri takes on a surveillance job. The philandering husband is unhappy with her, and she discovers that even surveillance isn't always low risk. As the two cases collide, will Peri learn the truth behind both of them? And more important, will she ever get that dirty martini?
Disappear
Iain Edward Henn - 2012
None seem to have aged.On the trail of a vicious killer, Jennifer and homicide detective Neil Lachlan are drawn into a human minefield of deception and terror; into the depths of a mystery that baffles the police and defies logic. Investigating at the forefront of scientific and medical technologies, they confront a threat that is closer than either of them could ever have imagined.
Wearing the Spider
Susan Schaab - 2007
She embarks on a clandestine investigation while dodging the FBI, risking her life as well as her career.***It starts with a simple unwanted kiss…and evolves into a labyrinthine trail of forgery and illusion…a hijacked identity, a corruption scandal involving a U.S. Senator accused of channeling illegal benefits to a shady South American firm…even kidnapping and murder. Wearing the Spider, the award-winning debut novel by Susan Schaab, may be the only novel to combine elements of sexual harassment, identity theft, and political scandal into one sophisticated plot set in the hard-driving corporate culture. Evie Sullivan, a rising legal star on the fast track to partnership at her respected New York law firm, is being set up for a fall…a BIG fall. Besieged initially with seemingly innocuous recordkeeping errors, she overhears portions of a shocking telephone conversation. Then, she is blindsided by discoveries that are much more troubling: impersonation of her email username and unmistakable sabotage of one of her client projects causing a groundswell of doubt within the firm about her competence. Once her name is linked to a deal containing a questionable, and possibly illegal, arrangement, she has no choice but to conduct her own clandestine investigation to clear her name. An FBI agent confronts her with tough questions about murder and fraud for which she has no answers. As she searches for the truth, the electronic evidence shifts and transforms behind a dynamic veil of security””and certain pieces of the puzzle simply disappear. How will she gather tangible evidence to prove her innocence among the elusive clues and carefully woven traps? At stake: not only her professional reputation and her future with the firm, not only a commission worth $25 million””but several lives. In this intricately plotted and memorable thriller, attorney and former computer consultant Susan Schaab draws on her expertise in intellectual property and technology law as well as computer systems design to create a fast-paced and thoroughly believable journey through corruption and intrigue…an exhilarating joyride that explores the complex relationships in a big-city law firm, where sexual harassment and manipulation may be more common than any statistics suggest. “The Devil Wears Prada in legal technicolor. A smart, thoroughly enjoyable tale.”� ”“Liz Smith, New York Post“Wow…a high-tech thriller that cracks open the inner workings of a large law firm and leaves one wondering just how often sexual harassment and hostile work environments are tolerated in the corporate world…I highly recommend Wearing the Spider.”� ”¨”“Heather Froeschl, Book Review Journal “Imaginative, suspenseful and well thought out, Wearing the Spider is a mystery thriller that readers will find hard to put down.”� ”“Shirley Roe, Allbooks Review “…confronts us with some of the horrifying truths of our computer age world.”�”¨”“Ross Malde, TCM Reviews “...The characters are memorable and the vicarious technological insights are very interesting…Thrilling read…”�”“Jill Stovall, Armchair Interviews “It is one of those novels that one finds impossible to put down…If I could have given it a higher score than five stars, I would have…It will keep you on edge until you find
Entangled
Barbara Ellen Brink - 2010
One summer of her childhood is a mystery she intends to solve. But digging up her past also lays bare the skeletons of others, including her mother’s. Entangled between what she once believed and a new reality, will she be able to live with the consequences of full disclosure?
The Ragtime Kid
Larry Karp - 2006
It’s destiny calling. Asking for ragtime lessons, he’s told, “No, Ragtime is colored music.” So Brun runs away from the family farm to Sedalia, Missouri, to persuade Joplin to take him on as a pupil. What Brun doesn’t expect is to trip over the body of a young woman. He thoughtlessly picks up a couple of items before he rushes away from the murder scene.When Edward Fitzgerald, a man who befriended Brun his first night in town, is arrested for the woman’s murder, Brun is certain he’s innocent. But if the boy shows anyone the things he pocketed at the scene—things he now knows belonged to Scott Joplin—he’ll point the finger at the composer...and himself. Brun decides to get Fitzgerald, Joplin, and himself off the hook by finding the real killer, but for that he eventually needs some help from Dr. Overstreet, the alcoholic town mayor; and John Stark, a man pushing sixty, who’s been employing Brun at his music store.Sedalia is rife with suspects, some of them opportunists bent on stealing Joplin’s music. And then there are the girls and women—mysteries to Brun—like a teenager seized with religious fever, a couple of mischievous prostitutes, and an attractive, ambitious young woman with a hint of scarlet in her past, who further complicate his pursuit of the killer.
A View to Die For
Richard Houston - 2012
The sleuth is not a detective, private eye, or lawyer. He's an ordinary guy with an extraordinary dog.Jacob Martin is trying to make the best of a divorce and mid-life crisis when he gets a call at two o’clock Sunday morning from his mother. His sister has been arrested for the murder of her fourth husband, and his father is near death. Thus begins an adventure that takes Jake and his golden retriever from their Colorado retreat to a backwater town in the Missouri Ozarks where they search for cold-blooded killers, a cache of gold coins buried by Jesse James, and the love of a beautiful nurse.