Book picks similar to
Rise of an Oligarch: The Way it is by Carlito Sofer
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Crimes of the Levee
John Sturgeon - 2013
The most open part of town is the Levee District. It is an area of the city that's hard to tell the crooks from the cops. There are brothels, madams, opium dens, gambling joints and plenty of alcohol, but it all comes at a price in the Levee, and the two Ward Aldermen get their share of every vice's dollar. With the hanging of serial killer, Simon Kluge, police Detective Patrick Moses is suddenly without a case. Before Moses can relax he is approached by an aging retail mogul who asks him to investigate the mysterious shooting death of his son. Moses accepts the offer and at the same time is asked by the department to search for the niece of the Italian Ambassador who has gone missing in the Levee and is suspected of becoming a victim of Chicago's "white slave" traffic, forced into a life of enslaved prostitution. As Moses gets deeper into both cases, he realizes that in the Levee there are a lot people who don't want the two cases solved, including the police and the Ward Aldermen. Soon a number of sources and witnesses end up murdered. Someone wants Moses and his partner, Gunter Krause, dead. On top of that, trinkets from the Simon Kluge murders begin to appear on Moses' doorstep, leading him to believe they may have executed the wrong person.
Rope on Fire
Mark Parragh - 2016
He’s all dressed up with nowhere to spy. Josh Sulenski is an Internet prodigy with some serious James Bond fantasies and more money than 37 countries. Together, they’re out to save the world…in style. John Crane bursts onto the espionage scene in Rope on Fire. On only his second mission for the top secret Hurricane Group, the U.S. Government suddenly shuts Hurricane down, leaving Crane an agent without an agency. Adrift in Key West, he's approached by Internet billionaire Josh Sulenski, who asks him to find out why one of his charitable projects is under attack deep in Puerto Rico's rain forest. Crane finds himself battling corrupt police officers and drug smugglers with no authority and no backup. For the first time, he's on his own. Branislav Skala is an aging gangster whose ruthlessness and ambition helped him claw his way up from the gutters of communist Czechslovakia to rule a criminal empire. Skala thinks he’s reached the top of the heap and is ready to retire to his palatial country estate—until he discovers a whole new game of transnational power blocs, capital networks, and vicious battles among competing factions. Skala wants a seat at this new table, and he has a plan to get one. It’s a plan that puts him squarely in John Crane’s sights. When their destinies collide, Branislav Skala will learn that this new game doesn’t follow the same rules he’s used to. And John Crane will find a broken laptop with the power to change his life forever. So join John Crane for freewheeling adventure in a world of glamour, intrigue, and action. Because spy stories are supposed to be fun!
A Lesson in Crime
Wes Markin - 2019
Not for Michael Yorke.
When a student party ends in violent murder, Michael Yorke begins to realise he harbours a fascination with crime which goes way beyond the norm. Driven to discover the truth behind a series of murders which shocks the university community, Yorke turns his back on those closest to him: his girlfriend, Charlotte, and his best friend, Brandon.
With bloody and disastrous consequences.
A super-fast one-hour thrill ride, which will define the relentless and compassionate police officer who stars in One Last Prayer for the Rays
Her Final Words
Brianna Labuskes - 2020
The teenage girl confesses to murdering a young boy. Disturbingly composed, she reveals chilling details only the killer could know. Beyond that Eliza doesn’t say another word, leaving a vital question met with dead silence: Why did she do it?To find the answer, Lucy goes to the scene of the crime in the small Idaho town of Knox Hollow. But Lucy’s questions are only mounting. Especially when she’s drawn deeper into the life of the victim. Then a combing of the woods yields unsettling evidence that Eliza isn’t the only one in this close-knit rural community with secrets.Getting to the truth is becoming Lucy’s obsession. And it’s a dangerous one. Because for the good folks of Knox Hollow, hiding that truth will take more than silence.
Do Not Disturb
Claire Douglas - 2018
There she sets up her new home with her husband and two young daughters, and goes into business with her difficult mother managing a guesthouse in the Brecon Beacons. But when the guesthouse is ready to be occupied, Kirsty encounters the last person she ever expected to see: her estranged cousin Selena. It has been seventeen years since they last talked—when Selena tore everything apart between them.Why has she chosen now to walk back into Kirsty's life? Is Selena running from something too? Or is there an even darker reason for her visit?As Kirsty becomes increasingly concerned for the safety of her daughters, her dream home begins to feel like her worst nightmare.Kirsty knows that once you invite trouble into your home, it can be murder getting rid of it . . .
Not So Dead
Charles Levin - 2017
What could go wrong? Clever and ruthless terrorists want it at any cost. A high-stakes cat and mouse game ensues with apocalyptic danger at every turn. Follow Sam Sunborn as he teams up with a real Einstein to give birth to an invention that could change the lives of everyone on the planet forever. Sam wants to help people through his invention, but lands up having to defend it and his family from the Leopard, a driven and demented terrorist, whose mission is to rein chaos and destruction on the Western World. Using the latest technology and a battle of wills and wits, Sunborn and the Leopard engage in an epic global clash. What disasters befall the innocent in the Leopard’s wake? Can Michelle Hadar, a lowly grad student, and Rich Little, a talented Homeland Agent, possibly come to the rescue? Mysteries and surprises abound in this fast-paced thriller. Charlie's 20 year background in tech, degree in philosophy and love of fast-paced thrillers are the brew that created NOT SO DEAD. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Amy, and has two sons, too far away in California.
Chasing the Monkey King
D.C. Alexander - 2016
government investigator vanishes while on assignment in China. Former detective Lars Severin is hired by the investigator's family—mysterious scions of an international trade dynasty—to find out what happened to her. Was her disappearance the result of a random act of violence or something more sinister? Did she uncover something that drove a hidden enemy to make her disappear? Could she still be alive? Severin's quest casts him into a labyrinth of double-dealing and conspiracy, taking him from the misty streets and alleys of Seattle's old Chinatown neighborhood, to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., to the dazzling city of Shanghai, to the ancient heart of rural China. The case grows more complicated with each step Severin takes, until all at once he realizes that his own life is in great danger.
True Crime Story
Joseph Knox - 2021
Through interviews with Zoe's closest friends and family, she begins piecing together what really happened in 2011. But where some versions of events overlap, aligning perfectly with one another, others stand in stark contrast, giving rise to troubling inconsistencies.Shaken by revelations of Zoe's secret life, and stalked by a figure from the shadows, Evelyn turns to crime writer Joseph Knox to help make sense of a case where everyone has something to hide.Zoe Nolan may be missing presumed dead, but her story is only just beginning
Girl Lost
Michelle Files - 2016
A big secret. 15 year old Madison, raised by her grandparents, sees her face as a missing child on TV and discovers she was kidnapped as a toddler, which is a surprise even to her grandparents. As she starts the search for the truth about her kidnapping, her world is turned upside down. She is ripped from the only family she has ever known and forced to live with the parents she has never met. Over the years, many family secrets are revealed and Madison is right in the middle of it all. This fast paced, mystery, suspense novel has twists at every turn. See if you can keep up. Get your copy and let the fun begin!
Rising Tide: Dark Innocence
Claudette Melanson - 2014
She seems to drive her classmates away—except for the odd times they pay enough attention to torture her—but she doesn’t understand why. Maura considers herself to be a freak of nature, with her unusually pale skin and an aversion to the sun that renders her violently nauseous. Her belief is only worsened by the fact that almost everyone around her keeps their distance.Even her own father deserted her before she was born, leaving Maura alone with her emotionally distant mother, Caelyn. Even though Maura is desperate for answers about her unknown parent, Caelyn remains heartbroken and her daughter can’t bring herself to reopen her mother’s wounds. Or is there a more sinister reason Caelyn refuses to utter a word about her long-lost love?When a cruel prank nearly claims Maura’s life, one of her classmates, Ron, rushes to her rescue. Darkly handsome & mysteriously accepting, Ron doesn’t seem to want to stay away, but Maura is reluctant to get too close, since her mother has announced she’s moving the two of them to Vancouver…nearly 3,000 miles away from their hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania.If life wasn’t already challenging enough, Maura begins to experience bizarre, physical changes her mother seems hell bent on ignoring, compelling Maura to fear for her own life. Vicious nightmares, blood cravings, failing health and the heart-shattering loss of Ron—as well as the discovery of a tangled web of her own mother's lies—become obstacles in Maura's desperate quest for the unfathomable truth she was never prepared to uncover.
The Alchemist's Secret
Scott Mariani - 2007
But it soon becomes apparent that others are hunting this most precious of treasures – for far more evil ends. It seems that everyone – from the Nazis of the past to the shadowy modern organisation known as Gladius Domini – wants to uncover the secrets of immortality.Teaming up with attractive American scientist Dr Roberta Ryder, Ben is led on a wild and dangerous trail from Paris to the ancient Cathar strongholds of the Languedoc, where an astonishing secret has lain hidden for centuries…
Missing, Presumed
Susie Steiner - 2016
Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date – the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace.Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman – door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. Manon knows the first 72 hours are critical: you find her, or you look for a body. And as soon as she sees a picture of Edith Hind, a Cambridge post-graduate from a well-connected family, she knows this case will be big.Is Edith alive or dead? Was her ‘complex love life’ at the heart of her disappearance, as a senior officer tells the increasingly hungry press? And when a body is found, is it the end or only the beginning?
The Killing Season
Mason Cross - 2014
A man to whom Wardell is no stranger.Along with Elaine Banner, an ambitious special agent juggling life as a single mother with her increasingly high-flying career, Blake must track Wardell down as he cuts a swathe across America, apparently killing at random.But Blake and Banner soon find themselves sidelined from the case. And as they try desperately to second-guess a man who kills purely for the thrill of it, they uncover a hornets' nest of lies and corruption. Now Blake must break the rules and go head-to-head with the FBI if he is to stop Wardell and expose a deadly conspiracy that will rock the country.Slick, fast-paced and assured, The Killing Season is the first novel in the gripping new Carter Blake series.
The Devil of Nanking
Mo Hayder - 2004
The solitary Englishwoman Grey comes to Japan looking for a rare piece of footage that is said to document a particularly monstrous episode of the 1937 Nanking Massacre. Her quest will take her to a reclusive scholar and a wheelchair-bound gangster who clings to life with the aid of a mysterious elixir, and to a handsome American whose interest in Grey may be more sinister than romantic. The result is a work of spine-chilling suspense, masterful historical detail, and otherworldly beauty.
The Woman in the Dark
Vanessa Savage - 2019
But after her mother's death, Sarah spirals into depression and overdoses on sleeping pills. While Sarah claims it was an accident, her teenage children aren't so sure. Patrick decides they all need a fresh start and he knows just the place, since the idyllic family home where he was raised has recently come up for sale. There's only one catch: for the past fifteen years, it has become infamous as the "Murder House", standing empty after a family was stabbed to death within its walls.Patrick believes they can bring the house back to its former glory, so Sarah, uprooted from everything she knows, pours her energy into painting, gardening, and giving the rotting old structure the warmth of home. But with locals hinting that the house is haunted, the news that the murderer has been paroled, strange writing on the walls, and creepy "gifts" arriving on the doorstep at odd hours, Sarah can't shake the feeling that something just isn't right. Not with the house, not with the town, or even with her own, loving husband--whose stories about his perfect childhood suddenly aren't adding up. Can Sarah uncover the secrets of the Murder House before another family is destroyed?