Book picks similar to
Scavenger Hunt by Charles Welch
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The Spires
Kate Moretti - 2021
Willa Blaine, her old roommate, needs her help: refuge from an abusive husband. “Two weeks tops,” she says―but it’s not the imposition that bothers Penelope; it’s the memories Willa brings with her.Twenty years earlier, Penelope, Willa, and three friends lived together in a converted church. Insular and closed off from the rest of the world, the five roommates formed their own dysfunctional family, celebrating the pinnacle of their lives; they called themselves “the Spires.” But nights of wild parties gave way to a darker undercurrent: jealousy, resentment, unrequited love, and obsession. Tensions boiled over during a night of debauchery that ended in a deadly fire, leaving the Spires scattered and forever changed.Now Willa is the perfect houseguest: accommodating, helpful, bringing a newfound sense of excitement to the Cox household. Yet Penelope can’t help but feel the cracks in her life widen as she begins to question Willa’s motives. Everyone has secrets, it seems―and the fire may have brought down the Spires, but not everything burned was forgotten.
Killing Me Softly
Bianca Sloane - 2012
Her body was discovered days later, her beautiful face bashed in with a rock. Police determine her brutal death to be a mugging gone wrong and drop the matter into their cold case files.Over a year later, Tracy’s sister, Sondra, still can’t come to grips with what happened. She throws herself into her work as a documentary filmmaker to try and forget the cruelty of her sister’s death. However, a chance encounter with a man from Tracy’s past rips the wound open and sends Sondra on a desperate search for answers about the secrets from her sister’s life that may have led to her death.As Sondra struggles to uncover what happened to Tracy, she’s launched into a tangled web of deceit and danger that put her on a collision course with life and death…
Cesspool
Phil M. Williams - 2016
He was the devoted husband that didn’t know what his wife was up to. His life was a tragedy waiting to happen.After the accident, he moved to a backwoods town, content to waste away while the world burned. He was awakened from his apathy by a small girl with a big problem. It was safer to look the other way. Getting involved would place James squarely in the crosshairs of the local police.He was afraid, but he did it anyway.Adult language and content.
The Paradiso Files: Exposing an Unknown Serial Killer
Timothy M. Burke - 2008
Burke makes his case against one Leonard Paradiso. Lenny “The Quahog” was convicted of assaulting one young woman and paroled after three years, but Burke believes that he was guilty of much more – that Paradiso was a serial killer who operated in the Boston area, and maybe farther afield, for nearly fifteen years, assaulting countless young women and responsible for the deaths of as many as seven. Burke takes the reader inside the minds of prosecutors, police investigators, and one very dangerous man who thought he had figured out how to rape and murder and get away with it. The Paradiso Files generated headlines when first published in February 2008. Nine days later, Paradiso died at the age of sixty-five without commenting on any of Burke’s accusations, including that he murdered Joan Webster, a Harvard graduate student who disappeared from Logan Airport in 1981. Boston-area prosecutors announced in September 2008 that Burke’s revelations had led them to reopen the unsolved murder cases of three young women – Melodie Stankiewicz, Holly Davidson, and Kathy Williams. There were “too many similarities between the individual cases to ignore,” a prosecutor involved in the new investigation said. Burke’s account leaves little doubt that Paradiso’s deeds should go down in infamy, alongside those of the Boston Strangler.
Wireman
Billie Sue Mosiman - 1984
He waited in the shadows, a dark and deadly presence. He was no novice at this terrible trade--he had struck before and he would strike again. And with each new killing he became less human...and more vicious. He stood patiently, a wire garrote in his strong hands, ready to claim yet another victim. Soon he would have one more to add to his growing list unless they could stop him. But how could they when they didn't know who he was? What he was? To a terrified city he was known only as the Wireman. Set in the 1970s, two brothers return from the Vietnam war with blood on their hands. Learning to kill the enemy wasn't something that would go away when they returned home to Houston, Texas. Could one of them be the serial killer, Wireman? Could the other stop him? Loosely based on true crimes which occurred in Houston, Texas in 1978-80. A suspense thriller by Edgar-Nominated author, Billie Sue Mosiman.
This Time You Lose
Chris Stralyn - 2011
Lisa Kaamp operates a small childcare business out of her home in Nogeksum, Michigan. Highly respected and known for going the extra mile for her daycare kids, she thinks she's handled every daycare emergency possible. But nothing prepares her for the horror she now faces. Lisa finds herself bound and gagged, four strange men in her home, and the daycare children held hostage in the next room. Terrorized by her captors as the authorities work to meet the ransom deadline, she tries negotiating with the men for the release of the children, but soon realizes they have no intention of letting anyone go. With the deadline approaching, Lisa must do the unimaginable to protect the children and get everyone out alive. In 2008 This Time You Lose was named a finalist in the TNBW Strongest Start Novel Competition. Four months later it earned the distinction of being a TNBW Readers Choice Top Ten Novel, and has remained on the Top Ten list ever since.
Necessary Evils
Bill Carson - 2012
The pain and anguish over his wife’s murder has been harnessed, molded and channeled into a hatred of the most abnormal ferocity, and an un-closable door had now been wrenched open in his mind, and he had crossed over into the darker realms of humanity where the merciless, cruel, vicious and uncompromising sides of human nature reside. His brain had been rewired and the switch had been flicked.Has all this been preordained? Are there sinister dark forces at work at here? Necessary Evils will have you on the edge of your seat with your heart in your mouth.
Convictions
Caro Land - 2020
Jack Goldman’s estranged son Julian has been arrested for attempted murder and he wants Natalie to find out why.With the help of fellow solicitor Gavin Savage, Natalie sets out to investigate, but with a series of red herrings ahead, will she ever discover the truth?
And can Natalie avoid her personal problems interfering with the case?
Convictions is the first book in a gripping new legal, crime suspense series written by bestselling author Caroline England, writing as Caro Land. It will appeal to fans of authors like Diane Jeffrey, Samantha Hayes and K.L. Slater. “A brilliantly crafted novel. I was totally engrossed in the characters and plot from start to finish. I couldn’t put it down.” - Amanda Robson, Sunday Times bestselling author of Obsession, Guilt and Envy
Shell Shock (Gus Conrad )
Steve Stahl - 2015
Gus Conrad is called to consult by the U.S. army for its growing epidemic of suicides and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) among soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, his problems begin.Accused of murdering one of his own patients, a soldier with PTSD, Conrad learns from the mother that the answer to who is the real killer resides in England, where her family holds a long-hidden secret.Now Conrad must find the real killer as he slips out of the country to uncover to his horror the practice over the past century of British and U.S. armies both secretly killing their own soldiers who claimed psychological problems following combat, deeming them cowards, making their deaths look like suicides.The current head of the American death squad has apparently killed Conrad’s patient, and is now targeting Conrad himself for death. Following the clues in England, Conrad is shocked at what he discovers.
Will Conrad and Warburton be able get back to the U.S. to expose the practice of armies killing their own soldiers they deem cowards?
Can they stop the rogue leader of the American death squad before they themselves are killed?
The Alex Troutt Thriller Series: Books 1-3
John W. Mefford - 2016
AT Bay (Book 1) Alexandra Giordano never knew she had it so good. Until it was all gone in an instant. As she begins her daunting quest to uncover the black spots on her memory, what she finds isn’t sweet or charming or even pleasant. And that’s when she begins to question everything, including herself. Her work as a Special Agent for the FBI is only a distraction, serving as a mental metronome…anything to crank the gears of her feeble mind. And then it happens—a bizarre, ritualistic murder. She loses herself in her work, fully immersed in the investigation. Unable to recall even her own kids, she’s somehow able to formulate coherent theories on what type of person could pull off such a sickening act. As her mind slowly plugs a few memory gaps, her emotions are scrambled by the reality of her worlds colliding. And the resulting explosion tears her in two. Can she pick up all the incendiary fragments to solve the twisted crime while she clings to some semblance of sanity? One woman can only keep so much…AT Bay. AT Large (Book 2) The pursuit of the truth. The hunt for a life. For the first time in months, FBI Special Agent Alex Troutt feels almost normal, hanging out at a local bar with friends after work. Not long into the evening she stumbles over one of the most disturbing images she has ever seen. And that’s only the beginning. A body is found in Lowell, the human damage, once again, inconceivable. Hours later, another strike. Pushing heartache aside, Alex immerses herself in the investigation. But with every new clue comes a new twist. With the killing spree drawing the attention of every intelligence and law enforcement agency in a five-state radius, Alex is forced to partner with an egomaniac from the CIA. Yet, even with limitless resources, every step forward proves to be a step too late, the kill list seemingly endless. Once the killer makes it personal, Alex is left with no other option—she must confront the person who destroyed her life to try to cease the vicious murders. And when she finally learns the killer’s end game, every second counts if she has any hope of stopping the brutal killings. The hunt will end. Will Alex? AT Once (Book 3) “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” FBI Agent Alex Troutt has no intentions of falling for anything. Apparently, neither do the bad guys, as the Boston area is once again targeted by extremists. Boston Strong of just a few years ago is now Boston on Edge. And this time, the targets are men of the cloth—priests. At least that’s how it looks at first. As investigators struggle to make sense of the bombings, Alex is thrown for a loop when the FBI assistant director asks her to investigate one of their own—a colleague and friend who is suspected of having ties to a known terrorist. Torn between her values of friendship and the oath she gave when she accepted her FBI credentials, Alex must now lead two investigations simultaneously.
Daughters of the Lake
Wendy Webb - 2018
Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…One hundred years ago, a love story ended in tragedy, its mysteries left unsolved. It’s time for the lake to give up its secrets. As each mystery unravels, it pulls Kate deeper into the eddy of a haunting folktale that has been handed down in whispers over generations. Now, it’s Kate’s turn to listen.As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.
Falling Suns
J.A. Corrigan - 2016
Then his body is discovered. Her cousin Michael is found guilty of his murder and incarcerated in a secure psychiatric unit.Four years later, now divorced and back in the police force, Rachel discovers that Michael is being released to a less secure step-down unit, with his freedom a likely eventuality. Unable to cope with this, she decides upon revenge, assuming a new identity to hunt him down and kill him. However, as she closes in on her target, her friend Jonathan, a journalist, uncovers some unnerving information about her mother and others in her family and begins to suspect that Rachel’s perception of the truth might not be as accurate as she thinks – that she might be about to murder the wrong man…
GORGE
Katherine Carlson - 2010
But her fantasies about heroic outdoor survival flop as hard as her marriage. Dejected beyond measure, she takes a bus to Montana to visit an old high school suitor–someone she once suspected too sinister to pursue. Turns out her initial suspicions about him were spot-on. She soon finds herself in the exact predicament she'd so long imagined. Only now she must outwit a vast wilderness ... and sheer evil.Marty Clawson's got a big problem: 264 pounds’ worth. Doc warns of dire consequences if something doesn't change, but Marty's already tried every diet on the market plus an endless list of her own concoctions. Still, she devises a NEW PLAN–and unlike the others–this one is terrifying: a rendezvous with the state park, a place she considers the very heart of darkness (and snack-free) where she won't emerge again until she is thin. Hubby Raymond believes the method too dangerous–abandoning his super-sized wife like a broken dresser–and refuses to help with her scheme; his crap attitude, along with everything else, changes when she catches him in bed with an aging porn star. Surviving the backwoods alone is challenging for a seasoned outdoorsman but unthinkable for a woman nearing red-alert obesity; yet, she believes it's her last chance to avoid eating herself to death. Despite Ray's newfound assistance, Marty fails at her plan. Desperate and depressed, she contacts Logan Myers, a peculiar boy from her past. Her hopelessness prompts her to accept his offer of bus fare north into the unforgiving Montana bush where he hunts and traps wild animals.Logan soon reveals himself to be far worse than she remembered. So bad that he tosses her to the elements as punishment for rejecting him. In a wicked and ironic twist, her once farfetched idea morphs into an epic web of repetitious terrain and pure malevolence. Now she needs to make it back to the Greyhound station before nightfall, without getting mauled by a random grizzly or discovered by a roaming psychopath determined to hunt her down.THE CHASE IS ON.