The Other Widow


Susan H. Crawford - 2016
    This time it could be theirs . . .It isn’t safe. That’s what Joe tells her when he ends their affair—moments before their car skids off an icy road in a blinding snowstorm and hits a tree. Desperate to keep her life intact—her job, her husband, and her precious daughter, Lily—Dorrie will do everything she can to protect herself, even if it means walking away from the wreckage. Dorrie has always been a good actress, pretending to be someone else: the dutiful daughter, the satisfied wife, the woman who can handle anything. Now she’s going to put on the most challenging performance of her life. But details about the accident leave her feeling uneasy and afraid. Why didn’t Joe’s airbag work? Why was his car door open before the EMTs arrived? And now suddenly someone is calling her from her dead lover’s burner phone. . . .Joe’s death has left his wife in free fall as well. Karen knew Joe was cheating—she found some suspicious e-mails. Trying to cope with grief is devastating enough without the constant fear that has overtaken her—this feeling she can’t shake that someone is watching her. And with Joe gone and the kids grown, she’s vulnerable . . . and on her own.Insurance investigator Maggie Devlin is suspicious of the latest claim that’s landed on her desk—a man dying on an icy road shortly after buying a lucrative life insurance policy. Maggie doesn’t believe in coincidences. The former cop knows that things—and people—are never what they seem to be.As the fates of these three women become more tightly entwined, layers of lies and deception begin to peel away, pushing them dangerously to the edge . . . closer to each other . . . to a terrifying truth . . . to a shocking end.

In the Lake of the Woods


Tim O'Brien - 1994
    When long-hidden secrets about the atrocities he committed in Vietnam come to light, a candidate for the U.S. Senate retreats with his wife to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota. Within days of their arrival, his wife mysteriously vanishes into the watery wilderness.

Exit


Belinda Bauer - 2021
    for life to go horribly wrong.When Felix lets himself in to Number 3 Black Lane, he’s there to perform an act of kindness and charity: to keep a dying man company as he takes his final breath ... But just fifteen minutes later Felix is on the run from the police – after making the biggest mistake of his life.Now his routine world is turned upside down as he tries to discover what went wrong, while staying one step ahead of the law.

Girls I Know


Douglas Trevor - 2013
    In the aftermath, Walt forms two new relationships: one with Ginger Newton, a privileged, reckless, Harvard undergraduate who is interviewing women about their lives for a book called Girls I Know, and the other with 11-year-old Mercedes Bittles, whose parents were killed in the restaurant. Wounded but resilient, all three must deal with loss and grief and the consequences that come when their lives change in unexpected ways.

Two If by Sea


Jacquelyn Mitchard - 2016
    In that moment, Frank’s own life is transformed. Not quite knowing why, Frank sidesteps the law, when, instead of turning Ian over to the Red Cross, he takes the boy home to the Midwestern farm where he grew up. Not long into their journey, Frank begins to believe that Ian has an extraordinary, impossible telepathic gift; but his only wish is to protect the deeply frightened child. As Frank struggles to start over, training horses as his father and grandfather did before him, he meets Claudia, a champion equestrian and someone with whom he can share his life—and his fears for Ian. Both of them know that it will be impossible to keep Ian’s gift a secret forever. Already, ominous coincidences have put Frank’s police instincts on high alert, as strangers trespass the quiet life at the family farm. The fight to keep Ian safe from a sinister group who want him back takes readers from the ravaged shores of Brisbane to the middle of America to a quaint English village. Even as Frank and Claudia dare to hope for new love, it becomes clear that they can never let Ian go, no matter what the cost. A suspenseful novel on a grand scale, Two If by Sea is about the best and worst in people, and the possibility of heroism and even magic in ordinary life.

Saving Noah


Lucinda Berry - 2017
    Not since Lionel Shriver brought us We Need to Talk About Kevin has a writer delved into the complexities of a disturbed mother/son relationship. Until now. Meet Noah—an A-honor roll student, award-winning swimmer, and small-town star destined for greatness. There weren’t any signs that something was wrong until the day he confesses to molesting little girls during swim team practice. He’s sentenced to eighteen months in a juvenile sexual rehabilitation center.His mother, Adrianne, refuses to turn her back on him despite his horrific crimes, but her husband won’t allow Noah back into their home. In a series of shocking and shattering revelations, Adrianne is forced to make the hardest decision of her life. Just how far will she go to protect her son?Saving Noah challenges everything you think you know about teenage sexual offenders. It will keep you up at night long after you've read the last page, questioning beliefs you once thought were true.

Without Her Consent


McGarvey Black - 2020
    The child’s arrival triggers an investigation into serious sexual assault and the international media descends upon the small beach town of Oceanside, Florida.Detectives McQuillan and Blalock are handed the case, while the internal hospital team collects data to help with the investigation. When Dr. Angela Crawford, who delivered the baby, learns the child will be put in foster care, she and her husband agree to take the little boy in. Meanwhile, a young nurse, Jenny O’Hearn, helps compile data on the hospital rapist and discovers several strange things. When Jenny is attacked, it forces the detectives to look at the case from a different perspective. Could a staff doctor, male nurse or the chaplain be the rapist?Sometimes the truth isn’t always obvious.

George Pearly Is A Miserable Old Sod


Steven Primrose-Smith - 2015
     Amazon UK reviews for Steven's first book, No Place Like Home, Thank God: "A superb book I devoured in two days." "This book made me laugh out loud." "Great read. Laugh out loud funny." "I really enjoyed this book!" "Steven's style of writing made me laugh out loud." "I couldn't put it down." "One of the best books I've read in a long time." "Found his one liners very funny." "A highly entertaining read." "So well written with brilliant humour." Seventy year-old British ex-pat miserymonger George Pearly lives on the Costa del Sol, all alone except for his ancient, three-legged dog, Ambrose. George hates his life and everybody in it. These feelings are mutual. Everyone hates George too. From this unhappy equilibrium the situation quickly deteriorates. First, George discovers he is dying of a mystery illness. Then his 35 year-old ape-child nephew, Kevin, moves into George's tiny and once tranquil home with a passion for Vimto, Coco Pops and slobbing around in his greying underpants. Worst of all, George's neighbours start to disappear and all accusing fingers point towards George. Pull up a sun lounger, grab yourself a piña colada and enjoy a murder-mystery romp on Spain's sunny southern coast.

Twisted: The Collected Short Stories


Jeffery Deaver - 2003
    Now the author of the Lincoln Rhyme series has collected for the first time his award-winning, spine-tingling stories of suspense -- stories that will widen your eyes and stretch your imagination. A beautiful woman goes to extremes to rid herself of her stalker; a daughter begs her father not to go fishing in an area where there have been a series of brutal killings; a contemporary of the playwright William Shakespeare vows to avenge his family's ruin; and Jeffery Deaver's most beloved character, criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, is back to solve a chilling Christmastime disappearance. Diverse, provocative, eerie and inspired, this collection of Jeffery Deaver's best stories exhibits the amazing range and signature plot twists that have earned him the title "master of ticking-bomb suspense" (People). With nods to O. Henry and Edgar Allan Poe, these beautifully crafted pieces, never before compiled in one volume, pulse with subtle intrigue and Deaver's incomparable imagination.

The Fox


Frederick Forsyth - 2018
    Most weapons you can control.But what if the most dangerous weapon in the world isn’t a smart missile or a stealth submarine or even an AI computer programme? What if it’s an 18-year-old boy with a blisteringly brilliant mind, who can run rings around the most sophisticated security services across the globe, who can manipulate that weaponry and turn it against the superpowers themselves? How valuable would he be? And what wouldn’t you do to get hold of him?The Fox is a race-against-time thriller across continents to find and capture, or protect and save, an asset with the means to change the balance of world power. Whatever happens he must not fall into the wrong hands. Because what follows after that is unthinkable…'Forsyth deserves his place among the thriller greats.' The Times'The master of the modern espionage novel returns . . . this is Forsyth at his spellbinding best.' Daily Mail

Abyss


Sabarna Roy - 2011
    It is essentially a racy crime thriller full of gritty suspense. Act one builds up slowly to result in a crescendo of conflicts between personalities and ideas finally to end with an unnatural death before the interval. Is it a suicide or a murder? Act two evolves through a series of incisive interrogations to unravel the truth, which is deeply disturbing and affecting. As the play unfolds into a very well crafted situational thriller, underneath is the debate about using land for agriculture or for industry, the ethics of a working author and the nexus of a modern state all wonderfully enmeshed into its storyline and the personal lives of its subtly etched out characters. The highpoints of the play are its central conflict between a mother and her daughter and its female sleuth – Renuka.

Before He Kills


Blake Pierce - 2016
    It doesn’t take long for the police to realize a serial killer is on the loose—and that his spree has just begun.Detective Mackenzie White, young, tough, smarter than the aging, chauvinistic men on her local force, finds herself called in grudgingly to help solve it. As much as the other officers hate to admit it, they need her young, brilliant mind, which has already helped crack cold cases that had left them stumped. Yet even for Mackenzie this new case proves an impossible riddle, something the likes of which she—and the local force—have ever seen.With the FBI called in, together, an intense manhunt ensues. Mackenzie, reeling from her own dark past, her failed relationships, and her undeniable attraction to the new FBI agent, finds herself battling her own demons as her hunt for the killer takes her to the darkest places of her mind. As she delves into the killer’s mind, obsessing over his twisted psychology, she finds that evil truly does exist. She only hopes it will not be too late to extricate herself from it, as her entire life collapses around her.As more bodies turn up dead and a frantic race against time ensues, there is no way out but to find him before he kills again.A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, Before He Kills marks the debut of a riveting new series—and a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night.

Going Underground


Michael Leese - 2017
    But Jonathan Roper has never let that sort of thing get in the way, and once he’s got the bit between his teeth there’s no stopping him - even when his own safety comes under threat. It makes him a wonderful detective and an impossible colleague.Roper is autistic and finds it really hard to make friends, but he can pull together the oddest clues to make sense of the most complicated crimes. If one man can be said to understand him it’s Detective Chief Inspector, Brian Hooley, a veteran of Scotland Yard. Years on the job have given him a near bullet-proof armour-plating, and he’s going to need it. Working with Roper means he will have to withstand a barrage of bracingly direct personal comments. Despite this, the DCI is his biggest supporter because he knows Roper is the man you turn to when everyone else gives up."Going Underground is a page turning thriller that will keep you awake at night with its twists and turns that make it impossible to put down, and the richly observed characters will stay with you long after you finish." "Their remarkable relationship is highlighted by compelling dialogue and laugh out loud moments, making this more than just another cop story."

Desert Places


Blake Crouch - 2004
    Novelist Andrew Thomas finds his peaceful life transformed into a nightmare by a mysterious killer who has framed him for the murder of a young woman whose body is buried on his property, covered in Andrew's blood, and who threatens to turn Andrew over to the police unless he does what his unknown adversary wants.

Dear Daughter


Elizabeth Little - 2014
    A change of clothes. A wig. An inconspicuous sedan. We doubled back once, twice, then drove south when we were really headed east. In San Francisco we had a girl who looked like me board a plane to Hawaii.Oh, I thought I was so clever.But you probably already know that I'm not.LA IT girl Janie Jenkins has it all. The looks, the brains, the connections. The criminal record.Ten years ago, in a trial that transfixed America, Janie was convicted of murdering her mother. Now she's been released on a technicality she's determined to unravel the mystery of her mother's last words, words that send her to a tiny town in the very back of beyond. But with the whole of America's media on her tail, convinced she's literally got away with murder, she has to do everything she can to throw her pursuers off the scent.She knows she really didn't like her mother. Could she have killed her?