Book picks similar to
The Rage of Plum Blossoms by Christine M. Whitehead
mystery
fiction
crime
historical-fiction
The Way of All Flesh
Ambrose Parry - 2018
City of Medicine, Money, Murder.Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson.Simpson's patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia. It is here that Raven meets housemaid Sarah Fisher, who recognises trouble when she sees it and takes an immediate dislike to him. She has all of his intelligence but none of his privileges, in particular his medical education.With each having their own motive to look deeper into these deaths, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh's underworld, where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to make it out alive.
The Black-Eyed Blonde
Benjamin Black - 2014
The telephone on my desk had the look of something that knows it's being watched. Traffic trickled by in the street below, and there were a few pedestrians, too, men in hats going nowhere."So begins The Black-Eyed Blonde, a new novel featuring Philip Marlowe--yes, that Philip Marlowe. Channeling Raymond Chandler, Benjamin Black has brought Marlowe back to life for a new adventure on the mean streets of Bay City, California. It is the early 1950s, Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and business is a little slow. Then a new client is shown in: young, beautiful, and expensively dressed, she wants Marlowe to find her former lover, a man named Nico Peterson. Marlowe sets off on his search, but almost immediately discovers that Peterson's disappearance is merely the first in a series of bewildering events. Soon he is tangling with one of Bay City's richest families and developing a singular appreciation for how far they will go to protect their fortune.Only Benjamin Black, a modern master of the genre, could write a new Philip Marlowe detective novel that has all the panache and charm of the originals while delivering a story that is as sharp and fresh as today's best crime fiction.
Cop Town
Karin Slaughter - 2014
For life is anything but easy in the male-dominated world of the Atlanta Police Department.Kate isn't the only woman on the force who is finding things tough. Maggie Lawson followed her uncle and brother into the ranks to prove her worth in their cynical eyes.When Maggie and Kate become partners, and are sidelined in the search for the city's cop killer, they decide to pursue their own line of investigation. But are they prepared to risk everything as they venture into the city's darkest heart?
An Expert in Murder
Nicola Upson - 2008
Revered mystery writer Josephine Tey is traveling from Scotland to London for the final week of her celebrated play "Richard of Bordeaux," But joy turns to horror when her arrival coincides with the murder of a young woman she had befriended on the train ride, and Tey quickly finds herself plunged into a mystery as puzzling as any of those in her own works.Detective Inspector Archie Penrose is convinced that the killing is connected to her play. "Richard of Bordeaux" has been the surprise hit of the season, with pacifist themes that strike a chord in a world still haunted by war. Now, however, it seems that Tey could become the victim of her own success, as her reputation--and even her life--is put at risk.A second murder confirms Penrose's suspicions that somewhere among this flamboyant theatre set is a ruthless and spiteful killer. Together, Penrose and Tey must confront their own ghosts in search of someone who will stop at nothing.An Expert in Murder is both a tribute to one of the most enduringly popular writers of crime and a richly atmospheric detective novel in its own right.
Beach Lawyer
Avery Duff - 2017
When a client confides in him that senior partner Jack Pierce sexually assaulted her, Robert breaks two of his mentor’s cardinal rules: Never let yourself get emotional about clients. And never make an enemy of Jack Pierce.Robert crosses Pierce and is fired on the spot, losing not only his job but also his reputation. Advised to go quietly, Robert vows revenge against the ruthless man who betrayed him. But his investigation uncovers a twisted shadow world of sex, infidelity, and deception, where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. Only one thing is clear: Pierce will go the limit to keep his secrets.This straight shooter will need to use every angle if he hopes to win. But could victory come at too high a price?
After Alice Fell
Kim Taylor Blakemore - 2021
Marion Abbott is summoned to Brawders House asylum to collect the body of her sister, Alice. She’d been found dead after falling four stories from a steep-pitched roof. Officially: an accident. Confidentially: suicide. But Marion believes a third option: murder.Returning to her family home to stay with her brother and his second wife, the recently widowed Marion is expected to quiet her feelings of guilt and grief—to let go of the dead and embrace the living. But that’s not easy in this house full of haunting memories.Just when the search for the truth seems hopeless, a stranger approaches Marion with chilling words: I saw her fall.Now Marion is more determined than ever to find out what happened that night at Brawders, and why. With no one she can trust, Marion may risk her own life to uncover the secrets buried with Alice in the family plot.
Eleven
Carolyn Arnold - 2011
Ten Bodies. One Empty Grave.In this international bestseller, rookie FBI Agent Brandon Fisher takes on his first case with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, but will he survive long enough to catch the killer? Eleven is a fast-paced, spine-tingling thriller that will have you gasping for breath at every twist... When Brandon Fisher joined the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, he knew he'd come up against psychopaths, sociopaths, pathological liars, and more. But when his first case takes him and the team to Salt Lick, Kentucky, to hunt down a ritualistic serial killer, he learns what nightmares are truly made of. Beneath a residential property, local law enforcement discovered an underground bunker with circular graves that house the remains of ten victims. But that's not all: there's an empty eleventh grave, just waiting for a corpse. The killing clearly hasn't come to an end yet, and with the property owner already behind bars, Brandon is certain there's an apprentice who roams free. As the FBI follows the evidence across the United States, Brandon starts to struggle with the deranged nature of his job description. And if the case itself isn't going to be enough to push Brandon over the edge, he's working in the shadow of Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper, who expects nothing short of perfection from his team. To make matters even worse, it seems Brandon has become the target of a psychotic serial killer who wants to make him--or his wife--victim number eleven.
There Was an Old Woman
Hallie Ephron - 2013
While she cleans and organizes, she makes puzzling discoveries: expensive liquor that's not her mother's brand, a new flat-screen TV on the wall. Where is the money coming from?Evie will find an unlikely ally in Mina Yetner, her mother's ninety-year-old neighbor, who has noticed mysterious changes to the neighborhood herself. As the two women dig deeper into the past few months of Evie's mother's life, a larger, more sinister picture begins to emerge.
Loose Ends
D.D. VanDyke - 2013
As a straightforward case takes unexpected twists, Cal must quell a growing fear that an anguished mother may never see her child again. With a shadowy crime lord lurking behind every unexpected clue, Cal struggles to tie up loose ends before evil claims its next victim.Loose Ends is book one in a new P. I. mystery series from D. D. VanDyke. Set against the rich backdrop of the San Francisco Bay Area, Cal Corwin novels brim with intrigue and fully fleshed characters from cops and criminals to hit men, oddball family and unexpected allies.
As The Crow Flies
Damien Boyd - 2013
Killed in a fall whilst practising a new route on High Rock, Cheddar Gorge. Convinced that Jake would not have made such a simple mistake, Nick Dixon starts digging and uncovers a web of intrigue and criminal activity that will rock the sleepy seaside town of Burnham-on-Sea to its core.As the body count rises, Dixon is forced to break every rule in the book and put his own life on the line to bring the killer out into the open.A fast paced crime thriller that will leave you gasping for breath, As The Crow Flies is a spine tingling introduction for DI Nick Dixon and a spectacular debut novel from crime fiction writer, Damien Boyd.
Before She Disappeared
Lisa Gardner - 2021
But she spends her life doing what no one else will--searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim's wary family tells Frankie she's on her own--and she soon learns she's asking questions someone doesn't want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.
The Last Sister
Kendra Elliot - 2020
Her younger sister, Madison, claims she was asleep in her room. Her older sister, Tara, claims she was out with friends. The tragedy drove their mother to suicide and Tara to leave town forever. The killer was caught. The case closed.Ever since, Emily and Madison have tried to forget what happened that night—until an eerily similar murder brings it all back. It also brings FBI special agent Zander Wells to the Oregon logging town. As eager as he is to solve the brutal double slaying, he is just as intrigued with the mystery of Emily’s and her sisters’ past.When more blood is shed, Zander suspects there’s a secret buried in this town no one wants unearthed. Is it something Emily and Madison don’t know? Or aren’t telling? And Tara? Maybe Emily can’t bear to find her. Because when Tara disappeared, she took a secret of her own with her.
Wanted
Nick Stephenson - 2013
Caught in the cross hairs of a ruthless assassin and on the run from the police for a murder he didn't commit, Blake and his team must fight to clear his name before it's too late.As enemies close in from all sides, Blake is about to learn who he can trust - and who is determined to destroy him - as The City of Light becomes a new hunting ground.Wanted is the first novel in the Leopold Blake series of thrillers, which can be read and enjoyed in any order.
Hide Away
Jason Pinter - 2020
After an unspeakable crime shatters her life, she changes her identity and moves to a small town in Illinois, hoping to spare her children from further trauma…or worse. But crime follows her everywhere.When the former mayor winds up dead, Rachel can’t help but get involved. Where local detectives see suicide, she sees murder. They resent her for butting in—especially since she’s always one step ahead. But her investigative genius may be her undoing: the deeper she digs, the harder it is to keep her own secrets buried.Her persistence makes her the target of both the cops and a killer. Meanwhile, the terrifying truth about her past threatens to come to light, and Rachel learns the hard way that she can’t trust anyone. Surrounded by danger, she must keep her steely resolve, protect her family, and stay one step ahead, or else she may become the next victim.
Gone the Next
Ben Rehder - 2012
He's working a routine case, complete with hours of tedious surveillance, when he sees something that shakes him to the core. There, with the subject, is a little blond girl wearing a pink top and denim shorts—the same outfit worn by Tracy Turner, a six-year-old abducted the day before. When the police are skeptical of Ballard's report—and with his history, who can blame them?—it's the beginning of the most important case of his life.