Book picks similar to
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Lie With Me
Sabine Durrant - 2016
The kind we've all told - to a former acquaintance we can't quite place but still, for some reason, feel the need to impress. The story of our life, embellished for the benefit of the happily married lawyer with the kids and the lovely home.And the next thing you know, you're having dinner at their house, and accepting an invitation to join them on holiday - swept up in their perfect life, the kind you always dreamed of...Which turns out to be less than perfect. But by the time you're trapped and sweating in the relentless Greek sun, burning to escape the tension all around you - by the time you start to realise that, however painful the truth might be, it's the lies that cause the real damage...... well, by then, it could just be too late.
Longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year
Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year
Interference
Brad Parks - 2020
That, it turns out, is not quite true: Matt has been prodding the mysteries of the quantum universe, with terrible repercussions for his health. And perhaps even for humanity as a whole.Then, in the midst of another seizure, Matt disappears. When foul play is feared, there is no shortage of suspects. Matt’s research had gained the attention of Chinese competitors, an unscrupulous billionaire, and the Department of Defense, among others.With Matt’s life in clear danger, Brigid sets out to find him. Will Matt be killed before she reaches him, or could the physics that endangered him actually be used to save his life?
The Pale Blue Eye
Louis Bayard - 2006
Timothy comes an ingenious tale of murder and revenge, featuring a retired New York City detective and a young cadet named Edgar Allan Poe.At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet's body swinging from a rope just off the parade grounds. An apparent suicide is not unheard of in a harsh regimen like West Point's, but the next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has stolen into the room where the body lay and removed the heart.At a loss for answers and desperate to avoid any negative publicity, the Academy calls on the services of a local civilian, Augustus Landor, a former police detective who acquired some renown during his years in New York City before retiring to the Hudson Highlands for his health. Now a widower, and restless in his seclusion, Landor agrees to take on the case. As he questions the dead man's acquaintances, he finds an eager assistant in a moody, intriguing young cadet with a penchant for drink, two volumes of poetry to his name, and a murky past that changes from telling to telling. The cadet's name? Edgar Allan Poe.Impressed with Poe's astute powers of observation, Landor is convinced that the poet may prove useful—if he can stay sober long enough to put his keen reasoning skills to the task. Working in close contact, the two men—separated by years but alike in intelligence—develop a surprisingly deep rapport as their investigation takes them into a hidden world of secret societies, ritual sacrifices, and more bodies. Soon, however, the macabre murders and Landor's own buried secrets threaten to tear the two men and their newly formed friendship apart.A rich tapestry of fine prose and intricately detailed characters, The Pale Blue Eye transports readers into a labyrinth of the unknown that will leave them guessing until the very end.
Famished
Meghan O'Flynn - 2016
At least, it feels that way until a serial killer starts dicing up women from the shelter where she volunteers. Despite the ever-present tingling at the nape of her neck, Hannah manages to convince herself that the killings have nothing to do with her brutal past—until her boyfriend is murdered in the same ruthless manner as the others. It doesn’t help that the police think she might have done it. But the cops are right about one thing: Hannah is responsible. Because she knows who the killer is. Now she must face the fact that she brought a monster with her to Ash Park—and his appetite for blood is insatiable. Everyone's hungry for something. Some are more famished than others.
Or Else
Joe Hart
For Rachel, struggling to maintain the facade of a picture-perfect life, it’s an escape from an emotionally abusive marriage. Then Andy receives an anonymous note warning him to end the affair. Or else.Whoever’s been watching is going to make Andy pay. Weeks later, Rachel’s husband, David, is shot to death. Rachel and her two young sons vanish without a trace. One misstep, one careless reveal, and Andy could look as guilty as sin. Clue by clue, as his investigation into the mystery unfolds, Andy discovers that he and Rachel weren’t the only ones keeping secrets.Nothing in this quiet neighborhood is as it seems. No one peeking from behind the curtains of their homes can be trusted. And the worst is yet to come. Because David isn’t the only one who will die.
The Paperboy
Pete Dexter - 1995
A local redneck was tried, sentenced, and set to fry.Then Ward James, hotshot investigative reporter for the Miami Times, returns to his rural hometown with a death row femme fatale who promises him the story of the decade. She's armed with explosive evidence, aiming to free--and meet--her convicted "fiancÚ."With Ward's disillusioned younger brother Jack as their driver, they barrel down Florida's back roads and seamy places in search of The Story, racing flat out into a shocking head-on collision between character and fate as truth takes a back seat to headline news...
Moving Day
Jonathan Stone - 2014
A life he could have easily lost long ago.When a con man steals his houseful of possessions in a sophisticated moving-day scam, Peke wanders helplessly through his empty New England home, inevitably reminded of another helpless time: decades in Peke’s past, a cold and threadbare Stanislaw Shmuel Pecoskowitz eked out a desperate existence in the war-torn Polish countryside, subsisting on scraps and dodging Nazi soldiers. Now, the seventy-two-year-old Peke—who survived, came to America, and succeeded—must summon his original grit and determination to track down the thieves, retrieve his things, and restore the life he made for himself.Peke and his wife, Rose, trace the path of the thieves’ truck across America, to the wilds of Montana, and to an ultimate, chilling confrontation with not only the thieves but also with Peke’s brutal, unresolved past.
The Dante Club
Matthew Pearl - 2003
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fields—are finishing America's first translation of The Divine Comedy and preparing to unveil Dante's remarkable visions to the New World. The powerful Boston Brahmins at Harvard College are fighting to keep Dante in obscurity, believing that the infiltration of foreign superstitions into American minds will prove as corrupting as the immigrants arriving at Boston Harbor.The members of the Dante Club fight to keep a sacred literary cause alive, but their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on the descriptions of Hell's punishments from Dante's Inferno. With the lives of the Boston elite and Dante's literary future in America at stake, the Dante Club members must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and an outcast police officer named Nicholas Rey, the first black member of the Boston police department, must place their careers on the line to end the terror. Together, they discover that the source of the murders lies closer to home than they ever could have imagined.The Dante Club is a magnificent blend of fact and fiction, a brilliantly realized paean to Dante's continued grip on our imagination, and a captivating thriller that will surprise readers from beginning to end.
Treacherous
Barbara Taylor Bradford - 2014
Hayley Martin and Fiona Chambers have been best friends since they were ten. From the moment that beautiful Fiona stood up to the school bullies for Hayley, the misfit, the two have been inseparable. Twenty years on, they still share everything, and even run their own business together. Until a dark secret threatens to test their loyalty to breaking point… What would you do if you discovered that your best friend could be your worst enemy? Cover design by Kristen Radtke.
Influence
Daniel Hurst - 2020
But shortly after Ivy’s untimely death she is contacted by a secretive businessman who offers her the chance at the fame and fortune she so desperately craves.While Emily initially gets to experience the things she has always wanted, it soon becomes clear that her new employer had sinister motives for approaching her and it isn’t long before she discovers that the life of her dreams comes with the kind of conditions that are the stuff of nightmares.
Social media isn’t life or death. It’s more important than that.
Two Nights
Kathy Reichs - 2017
Sunnie has spent years running from her past, burying secrets and building a life in which she needs no one and feels nothing. But a girl has gone missing, lost in the chaos of a bomb explosion, and the family needs Sunnie's help. Is the girl dead? Did someone take her? If she is out there, why doesn't she want to be found? It's time for Sunnie to face her own demons because they just might lead her to the truth about what really happened all those years ago.
Terry Brooks Landover CD Collection
Terry Brooks - 2009
But after he purchased it, Ben Holiday learned that there were a few details the ad had failed to mention. The kingdom was in ruin. The task of proving his right to be King seemed hopeless. But Ben Holiday was stubborn...The Black Unicorn:A year had passed since Ben Holiday bought the Magic Kingdom from the wizard Meeks, who had set a series of pitfalls against him. But Ben had been troubled by dreams of disaster to his former partner, Miles Bennett. Unknown to Ben, the dreams had been a trap by Meeks.Wizard at Large:It all began when the half-able wizard Questor Thews announced that finally he could restore the Court Scribe Abernathy to human form. All went well - until the wizard breathed the magic dust of his spell and suddenly sneezed. Then, where Abernathy had stood, there was only a bottle containing a particularly evil imp.The Tangle Box:Horris Kew, conjurer, confidence-man, and trickster, had returned to Landover from Ben's own world. Alas, he had been sent by the Gorse, a sorcerer of great evil, whom Horris had unwittingly freed from the magic Tangle Box. Now it had returned to enslave those who had once dared to condemn it.Witches’ Brew:The Magic Kingdom of Landover was finally at peace, and Ben and his wife, the sylph Willow, could watch their daughter Mistaya grow. But his idyll was interrupted when Rydall, a king of lands beyond the fairy mist, assembled armies on Landover's border and threatened to invade.Read by Dick Hill.28 audio discs (approximately 31 hr.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
The Outsider
Arlene Hunt - 2013
Shy and reclusive, her world revolved around animals, so much so that by the time she was 15, Emma was a much sought after horse trainer. So who would try to harm this gifted young woman? Who was shooting in Crilly Woods on that fateful August day?Emma’s twin brother, Anthony, is determined to get to the bottom of what happened to his sister, and in the course of his investigations makes a terrible mistake, one that will change all their lives forever.The Outsider: sometimes those who love us most hardly know us at all.
The Rule of Four
Ian Caldwell - 2004
Seniors are scrambling to finish their theses. And two students, Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris, are a hair's breadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili--a renowned text attributed to an Italian nobleman, a work that has baffled scholars since its publication in 1499. For Tom, their research has been a link to his family's past -- and an obstacle to the woman he loves. For Paul, it has become an obsession, the very reason for living. But as their deadline looms, research has stalled -- until a long-lost diary surfaces with a vital clue. And when a fellow researcher is murdered just hours later, Tom and Paul realize that they are not the first to glimpse the Hypnerotomachia 's secrets.Suddenly the stakes are raised, and as the two friends sift through the codes and riddles at the heart of the text, they are beginnning to see the manuscript in a new light--not simply as a story of faith, eroticism and pedantry, but as a bizarre, coded mathematical maze. And as they come closer and closer to deciphering the final puzzle of a book that has shattered careers, friendships and families, they know that their own lives are in mortal danger. Because at least one person has been killed for knowing too much. And they know even more.From the streets of fifteenth-century Rome to the rarified realm of Princeton, from a shocking 500 year-old murder scene to the drama of a young man's coming of age, The Rule of Four takes us on an entertaining, illuminating tour of history--as it builds to a pinnacle of nearly unbearable suspense.