A Good Death


Christopher R. Cox - 2013
    Linda Watts is a beautiful, talented Lao immigrant with a promising career—or she was, until she turns up dead in a cheap Bangkok guest house. Her death seems like a straightforward overdose to the Thai authorities, but her insurance company isn’t buying it. They hire Sebastian to travel halfway around the world to investigate, and so he finds himself completely out of place chasing faint leads through the broken streets of Bangkok.An award-winning journalist with decades of experience traveling in and reporting on Southeast Asia, Christopher Cox takes readers on a vibrant journey through a corrupt and labyrinthine police bureaucracy, a network of steamy Bangkok nightclubs, and grimy hostels to a place where you can you feel the humid air and smell the frying street food. Along the way, he sprinkles in elements of romance as Sebastian finds himself falling for the beautiful and captivatingly mysterious Linda, and camaraderie with his father’s wise-cracking old Army buddy, a source who proves invaluable in navigating the back streets. For Sebastian, it’s the assignment of a lifetime, a journey that will change him forever in this richly imagined, compelling debut perfect for fans of John Burdett and Colin Cotterill.

The Kitty Committee: A Novel of Suspense


Kathryn Berla - 2018
    And every year, it reminds Grace that someone knows her deepest secret—the secret whose silence has tormented Grace over the years. That secret began with an innocent gang of teenage friends who called themselves The Kitty Committee. The Kitty Committee of Grace’s youth was ostensibly a group of friendship and support. But the friends fell victim to the ringleader’s manipulative personality and recklessness, which set the girls on a course of vigilante justice, culminating in an act that will forever change their lives, an act that becomes their shared secret.Grace’s silence and guilt has led to over twenty years of disappointing relationships, an inability to commit, and a crisis of morality. And no matter how much Grace has suffered and lost, still it comes every year. The reminder that someone out there wants The Kitty Committee to suffer--someone who won’t forget and won’t forgive.Kathryn Berla’s fifth book, The Kitty Committee is a thrilling story of guilt, relationships, sin and atonement for a decades-old secret shared between a circle of once-inseparable friends.

A Rising Man


Abir Mukherjee - 2016
    Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. But with barely a moment to acclimatise to his new life or to deal with the ghosts which still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that will take him into the dark underbelly of the British Raj.A senior British official has been murdered, and a note left in his mouth warns the British to quit India: or else. With rising political dissent and the stability of the Raj under threat, Wyndham and his two new colleagues–arrogant Inspector Digby, who can barely conceal his contempt for the natives and British-educated, but Indian-born Sargeant Banerjee, one of the few Indians to be recruited into the new CID–embark on an investigation that will take them from the luxurious parlours of wealthy British traders to the seedy opium dens of the city.The start of an atmospheric and enticing new historical crime series.

A Life Intercepted


Charles Martin - 2014
    Married to his high school sweetheart and one of the winningest quarterbacks in the history of college football, he was the number one NFL draft pick. But on the night of the draft, he plummeted from the pinnacle of esteem. Falsely accused of a heinous crime with irrefutable evidence, it seemed in an instant all was lost -- his reputation, his career, his freedom, and most devastatingly, the love of his life. Having served his sentence and never played a down of professional football, Matthew leaves prison with one goal -- to find his wife, Audrey, whom no one has seen since the trial. He returns to an unwelcoming reception from his Gardi, Georgia, hometown to learn that Audrey has taken shelter from the media with the nuns at a Catholic school. There she has discovered a young man with the talent to achieve the football career Matthew should have had. All he needs is the right coach. Although helping the boy means Matthew violates the conditions of his release and -- if discovered -- reincarceration for life, he'll take the chance with hope of winning back Audrey's love.

All the Old Knives


Olen Steinhauer - 2015
    The CIA's Vienna station was witness to this tragedy, gathering intel from its sources during those tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and from an agent on the inside. So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how?Two of the CIA's case officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, were lovers at the time, and on the night of the hostage crisis Celia decided she'd had enough. She left the agency, married and had children, and is now living an ordinary life in the idyllic town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Henry is still a case officer in Vienna, and has traveled to California to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all.But neither of them can forget that long-ago question: Had their agent been compromised? If so, how? Each also wonders what role tonight's dinner companion might have played in the way the tragedy unfolded six years ago.All the Old Knives is New York Times bestseller Olen Steinhauer's most intimate, most cerebral, and most shocking novel to date.

Some Choose Darkness


Charlie Donlea - 2019
    . .   The truth is easy to miss, even when it’s right in front of us. As a forensic reconstructionist, Rory Moore sheds light on cold-case homicides by piecing together crime scene details others fail to see. Cleaning out her late father’s law office a week after his burial, she receives a call that plunges her into a decades-old case come to life once more. In the summer of 1979, five Chicago women went missing. The predator, nicknamed The Thief, left no bodies and no clues behind—until police received a package from a mysterious woman named Angela Mitchell, whose unorthodox investigation skills appear to have led to his identity. But before police could question her, Angela disappeared. Forty years later, The Thief is about to be paroled for Angela’s murder—the only crime the DA could pin on him. As a former client of her father’s, Rory becomes reluctantly involved with the killer—though he continues to insist he didn’t murder Angela. Now he wants Rory to do what her father once promised: prove that Angela is, in fact, still alive. As Rory begins reconstructing Angela’s last days, another killer emerges from the shadows, replicating those long-ago murders. With every startling discovery she makes, Rory becomes more deeply entangled in the enigma of Angela Mitchell—and in The Thief’s tormented mind. Drawing connections between past and present is the only way to stop the nightmare, but even Rory can’t be prepared for the full, terrifying truth that is emerging . . .

Little Face


Sophie Hannah - 2006
    When she returns only two hours later, she swears the baby in the crib is not her child. Despite her distress, David is adamant that she is wrong.The police are called to the scene. Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse is sympathetic, but he doubts Alice's story. His superior, Sergeant Charlie Zailer, thinks that Alice must be suffering from some sort of delusion brought on by postpartum depressions.With an increasingly hostile and menacing David swearing she must either be mad or lying, how can Alice make the police believe her before it's too late?

The Hangman's Daughter - chapters 1-3


Oliver Pötzsch - 2010
    Exclusive to Kindle: a free sample of The Hangman's Daughter

Crab Bait


Carrie Enge - 2015
    No matter how you look at it, fishing in Alaska is a deadly way to make a living.

Elvis And The Sports Card Cheat


Renee Pawlish - 2012
    Who is the culprit? This tale will keep you guessing!

The Widows


Jess Montgomery - 2019
    Marvena Whitcomb, a coal miner’s widow, is unaware that Daniel has died, and begs to speak with him about her missing daughter.From miles away but worlds apart, Lily and Marvena’s lives collide as they realize that Daniel was not the man that either of them believed him to be—and that his murder is far more complex than either of them could have imagined.Inspired by the true story of Ohio’s first female sheriff, this is a powerful debut about two women’s search for justice as they take on the corruption at the heart of their community.

Thin Ice


Paige Shelton - 2019
    Known to the world as thriller author Elizabeth Fairchild, she had become the subject of a fanatic's obsession. After being held in a van for three days by her kidnapper, Levi Brooks, Beth managed to escape, and until he is captured, she's got to get away. Cold and remote, Alaska seems tailor-made for her to hideout.Beth's new home in Alaska is sparsely populated with people who all seem to be running or hiding from something, and though she accidentally booked a room at a halfway house, she feels safer than she's felt since Levi took her. That is, until she's told about a local death that's a suspected murder. Could the death of Linda Rafferty have anything to do with her horror at the hands of Levi Brooks?As Beth navigates her way through the wilds of her new home, her memories of her time in the van are coming back, replaying the terror and the fear--and threatening to keep her from healing, from reclaiming her old life again. Can she get back to normal, will she ever truly feel safe, and can she help solve the local mystery, if only so she doesn't have to think about her own?

Murderers and Nerdy Girls Work Late (Nerdy Girls Murder Mysteries)


Lisa Boero - 2013
    Louis law firm. But Liz soon discovers that she has a few small problems: the body in the stairwell; the embezzlement at her firm; and the fact that the man she wants is engaged to someone else. And just how is she supposed to chase a murder suspect in heels? Minor details. Liz’s real problem is much bigger. Neurological defects don’t tend to make you popular, and she has a doozy. She can’t recognize faces. Not even her own. Fortunately, this is exactly the thing to turn Liz into the likeliest of unlikely detectives. She pays attention to all of the other details that normal people miss. Need someone to guess an occupation by the movement of the hands? Need someone to recognize a person by smell? Need someone to figure out that those shoes were bought on clearance at Macy’s last summer? Liz is your detective. Now she just has to harness her unusual skills to solve the case, expose the embezzlement, bring the murderer to justice and get the guy. Nothing a nerdy girl can’t handle.

Three Trumps: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus


Rex Stout - 1955
    The Black Mountain/ If Death Ever Slept/ Before Midnight

The Lincoln Lawyer


Michael Connelly - 2005
    But what he should have been on the watch for was evil.Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers — they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence — it’s about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it’s even about justice.A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney’s dream, what they call a franchise case. And as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career.Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal — this time to save his own life.