Book picks similar to
Blood Will Have Blood by Linda Barnes
mystery
fiction
must-buy
mysteries
Death in Brittany
Jean-Luc Bannalec - 2012
Commissaire Georges Dupin and his team take on the investigation and narrow the list of suspects down to five people, including a rising political star, a longtime friend of the victim and a wealthy art historian. Further incidents – first a break-in, then another mysterious death – muddy the waters yet more. As Commissaire Dupin delves further and further into the lives of the victim and the suspects, he uncovers a web of secrecy and silence that belies the village’s idyllic image. A summer hit in its original German, Death in Pont-Aven introduces readers to the enigmatic Commissaire Dupin, an idiosyncratic penguin lover and Parisian-born caffeine junkie whose unique methods of detection raise more than a few eyebrows. It is a book so atmospheric readers will immediately want to wander through the village’s narrow alleyways, breathe in the Atlantic air and savour Brittany’s seaside specialty dishes. Death in Pont-Aven is a spellbinding, subtle and smart crime novel, peppered with cryptic humour and surprising twists.
Snowblind
Ragnar Jónasson - 2010
Ari Thór Arason: a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik – with a past that he’s unable to leave behind. When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed, elderly writer falls to his death in the local theatre, Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one, and secrets and lies are a way of life. An avalanche and unremitting snowstorms close the mountain pass, and the 24-hour darkness threatens to push Ari over the edge, as curtains begin to twitch, and his investigation becomes increasingly complex, chilling and personal. Past plays tag with the present and the claustrophobic tension mounts, while Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness – blinded by snow, and with a killer on the loose.
Kill the Messenger
Tami Hoag - 2004
From the gritty streets of Los Angeles to its most protected enclaves of prestige and power to the ruthless glamour of Hollywood, a killer stalks his prey. A killer so merciless no one in his way is safe—not even the innocent.At the end of a long day battling street traffic, bike messenger Jace Damon has one last drop to make. But en route to delivering a package for one of L.A.'s sleaziest defense attorneys, he's nearly run down by a car, chased through back alleys, and shot at. Only the instincts acquired while growing up on the streets of L.A. allow him to escape with his life—and with the package someone wants badly enough to kill for. Jace returns to Lenny Lowell's office only to find the cops there, the lawyer dead, and Jace himself considered the prime suspect in the savage murder. Suddenly he's on the run from both the cops and a killer, and the key to saving himself and his ten-year-old brother is the envelope he still has—which holds a message no one wants delivered: the truth.In a city fueled by money, celebrity, and sensationalism, the murder of a bottom-feeding mouthpiece like Lenny Lowell won't make the headlines. So when detectives from the LAPD's elite robbery/homicide division show up, homicide detective Kev Parker wants to know why. Parker is on the downhill slide of a once-promising career, and he doesn't want to be reminded that he used to be one of the hotshots, working cases that made instant celebrities of everyone involved. Like the case of fading retty-boy actor Rob Cole, accused of the brutal murder of his wife, Tricia Crowne-Cole, daughter of one of the most powerful men in the city, L.A.'s latest "crime of the century."Robbery/Homicide has no reason to be looking at a dead small-time scumbag lawyer or chasing a bike messenger...unless there's something in it for them. Maybe Lenny Lowell had a connection to something big enough to be killed for. Parker begins a search for answers that will lead him to a killer—or the end of his career. Because if there's one lesson he's learned over the years, it's that in a town built on fantasy and fame, delivering the truth can be deadly.
Think of a Number
John Verdon - 2010
Yet, even as he matches wits with his seemingly clairvoyant opponent, Gurney’s tragedy-marred past rises up to haunt him, his marriage approaches a dangerous precipice, and finally, a dark, cold fear builds that he’s met an adversary who can’t be stopped.In the end, fighting to keep his bearings amid a whirlwind of menace and destruction, Gurney sees the truth of what he’s become – what we all become when guilty memories fester – and how his wife Madeleine’s clear-eyed advice may be the only answer that makes sense.A work that defies easy labels -- at once a propulsive masterpiece of suspense and an absorbing immersion in the lives of characters so real we seem to hear their heartbeats – Think of a Number is a novel you’ll not soon forget.
The Eighth Detective
Alex Pavesi - 2020
There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective. The rest is just shuffling the sequence. Expanding the permutations. Grant McAllister, a professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out – calculating the different orders and possibilities of a mystery into seven perfect detective stories he quietly published. But that was thirty years ago. Now Grant lives in seclusion on a remote Mediterranean island, counting the rest of his days.Until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor knocks on his door. Julia wishes to republish his book, and together they must revisit those old stories: an author hiding from his past, and an editor, keen to understand it.But there are things in the stories that don’t add up. Inconsistencies left by Grant that a sharp-eyed editor begins to suspect are more than mistakes. They may be clues, and Julia finds herself with a mystery of her own to solve.
True Evil
Greg Iles - 2006
Chris Shepard, a busy young doctor in Natchez, Mississippi, has never seen his new patient Alex Morse before. But the attractive young woman with the scarred face has come to Dr. Shepards office on a mission to catch a killer. This New York Times bestseller is available in a tall Premium Edition.
The Ice Maiden
B.D. Smith - 2017
Seeming to select his victims at random, he acts out the rituals of the Spanish Inquisition before committing their bodies to the sacred waters of nearby Sebec Lake. Anne Quinn, an investigator for the Piscataquis County sheriff’s office, and Detective Douglas Bateman with the Major Crimes Unit of the Maine State Police join forces in tracking him down. Hiding in plain sight, the killer is clearly from the local community and plays a deadly “catch me if you can” game with Quinn and Bateman. He seems determined to humiliate them and demonstrate his superior intellect, leading them to suspect that perhaps there is a deeper motive and purpose behind his string of murders.
Bury Me Deep
Megan Abbott - 2009
What he found inside ignited one of the most scandalous tabloid sensations of the decade.Inspired by this notorious true crime, Edgar-winning author Megan Abbott's novel Bury Me Deep is the story of Marion Seeley, a young woman abandoned in Phoenix by her doctor husband. At the medical clinic where she finds a job, Marion becomes fast friends with Louise, a vivacious nurse, and her roommate, Ginny, a tubercular blonde. Before long, the demure Marion is swept up in the exuberant life of the girls, who supplement their scant income by entertaining the town's most powerful men with wild parties. At one of these events, Marion meets, and falls hard for, the charming Joe Lanigan, a local rogue and politician on the rise, whose ties to all three women bring events to a dangerous collision.A story born of Jazz Age decadence and Depression-era desperation, Bury Me Deep, with its hothouse of jealousy, illicit sex and shifting loyalties, is a timeless portrait of the dark side of desire and the glimmer of redemption.
All Eyes on Me
Linsey Lanier - 2014
If she can't solve this case, not only will she fail her destiny, another psycho killer might get away with murder.Meanwhile, Parker harbors secret reservations about their new venture together.Especially when he suspects there might be more to this murder than meets the...eye.You’ll love this intriguing mystery full of twists and turns, because it’s the start of many more adventures.Get it now.