Book picks similar to
Dark Visions by James Byron Huggins
fiction
mystery
thriller
action
The Company of Demons
Michael Jordan - 2018
-- Cleveland Sun News"Jordan is a cross between John Grisham and Stephen King."-- Cleveland SceneThe brutal murder of a friend leaves lawyer John Coleman stunned and sends shockwaves through the city of Cleveland. The technique of the killing recalls memories of the Torso Murderer, who dismembered at least twelve people decades ago and then vanished—eluding even legendary crime fighter Eliot Ness. Jennifer, the victim’s beautiful daughter, hires John to handle her father’s estate, and romantic feelings for her soon complicate his already troubled marriage. When John finds himself entangled with a cold-blooded biker gang, an ex-cop with a fuzzy past, and the drug-addicted son of the dead man, he struggles to make sense of it all.But there is no escaping a growing sense of dread."A well-written and complexly plotted crime thriller." --Caroline McCullagh, Mensa Bulletin''The terror of the Torso Murderer returns in this gritty, Cleveland-centric tale. Jordan delights with crackling dialogue, true-to-life characters, an intensely paced plot, and an explosive finale. A must-read for fans of Lecter, Dexter, and the Ripper.'' --John Keyse-Walker, Author of Sun, Sand, Murder and Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed; winner of Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award''Michael Jordan brings characters and scenes to life in this emotionally gripping and compelling breakout novel. Brilliantly crafted.''--Rick Porrello, author of To Kill the Irishman (adapted into a major motion picture), Superthief!, and The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia Corn, Sugar, and BloodThe Company of Demons by Michael Jordan is a wonderful blend of crime and mystery, a riveting story with sophisticated characters. [...] Michael Jordan is a great storyteller and he has the ability to keep the narrative emotionally intense and psychologically disturbing. The Company of Demons is a real page-turner.-- Reader's Favorite
The Descent
Jeff Long - 1999
In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old. In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave. So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: that the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings. Some call them "devils" or "demons." But they are real. They are down there. And they are waiting for us to find them…
12.21
Dustin Thomason - 2012
. . Deep in the jungles of Central America, an indigenous man discovers a unique and priceless treasure - a beautifully painted codex that has survived for centuries within the ruins of an undiscovered ancient Maya city. Knowing that this rare artifact could be worth millions, the looter smuggles it into the US - but unbeknownst to him, he has brought something far more dangerous across the border . . . In the first week of December 2012, the codex finds its way into the hands of the Antiquities Curator of the Getty Museum, Chel Manu, the world authority on ancient Mayan inscriptions. She is torn between her duty to alert the authorities and this once in a lifetime chance to translate the codex herself.Meanwhile - in an LA hospital, an unidentified man is dying of Fatal Insomnia, a rare and highly infectious neurological disease. The patient speaks only in a garbled Mayan dialect - and Chel Manu is called in to interpret his dying words . . . just as countless others in the city begin to show signs of infection. Within days the world seems to be unravelling, hurtling towards the prophesied apocalypse . . . and deciphering the codex is the only hope for humanity . . .
The Butterfly Garden
Dot Hutchison - 2016
Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens.When the garden is discovered, a survivor is brought in for questioning. FBI agents Victor Hanoverian and Brandon Eddison are tasked with piecing together one of the most stomach-churning cases of their careers. But the girl, known only as Maya, proves to be a puzzle herself.As her story twists and turns, slowly shedding light on life in the Butterfly Garden, Maya reveals old grudges, new saviors, and horrific tales of a man who’d go to any length to hold beauty captive. But the more she shares, the more the agents have to wonder what she’s still hiding...
Hit
Delilah S. Dawson - 2015
The good news is that the USA is finally out of debt. The bad news is that we were bought out by Valor National Bank, and debtors are the new big game, thanks to a tricky little clause hidden deep in the fine print of a credit card application. Now, after a swift and silent takeover that leaves 9-1-1 calls going through to Valor voicemail, they’re unleashing a wave of anarchy across the country. Patsy didn’t have much of a choice. When the suits showed up at her house threatening to kill her mother then and there for outstanding debt unless Patsy agreed to be an indentured assassin, what was she supposed to do? Let her own mother die? Patsy is forced to take on a five-day mission to complete a hit list of ten names. Each name on Patsy's list has only three choices: pay the debt on the spot, agree to work as a bounty hunter, or die. And Patsy has to kill them personally, or else her mom takes a bullet of her own.Since yarn bombing is the only rebellion in Patsy's past, she’s horrified and overwhelmed, especially as she realizes that most of the ten people on her list aren't strangers. Things get even more complicated when a moment of mercy lands her with a sidekick: a hot rich kid named Wyatt whose brother is the last name on Patsy's list. The two share an intense chemistry even as every tick of the clock draws them closer to an impossible choice. Delilah S. Dawson offers an absorbing, frightening glimpse at a reality just steps away from ours—a taut, suspenseful thriller that absolutely mesmerizes from start to finish.
Run
Patti Larsen - 2011
His sister Lucy pulls herself together and cuts him free from a year of foster care. She promises to take care of him, that her new boss and her new life are what they both needed to start again. Until Reid is taken in the middle of the night, dumped in a wild stretch of forest far from home with no idea why he is there. Lost and afraid, he learns to run from the hunters who prowl the darkness, their only pleasure chasing down kids like him. And killing them.
The Hollow Ones
Guillermo del Toro - 2020
A rookie FBI agent in dangerous, uncharted territory. An extraordinary hero for the ages.Odessa Hardwicke's life is derailed when she's forced to turn her gun on her partner, Walt Leppo, a decorated FBI agent who turns suddenly, inexplicably violent while apprehending a rampaging murderer. The shooting, justified by self-defense, shakes the young FBI agent to her core. Devastated, Odessa is placed on desk leave pending a full investigation. But what most troubles Odessa isn't the tragedy itself-it's the shadowy presence she thought she saw fleeing the deceased agent's body after his death. Questioning her future with the FBI and her sanity, Hardwicke accepts a low-level assignment to clear out the belongings of a retired agent in the New York office. What she finds there will put her on the trail of a mysterious figure named John Silence, a man of enormous means who claims to have been alive for centuries, and who is either an unhinged lunatic, or humanity's best and only defense against unspeakable evil.
Someone Like Me
M.R. Carey - 2018
She sounds like me. Now she's trying to take my place.Liz Kendall wouldn't hurt a fly. She's a gentle woman devoted to bringing up her kids in the right way, no matter how hard times get.But there's another side to Liz - one which is dark and malicious. A version of her who will do anything to get her way, no matter how extreme or violent.And when this other side of her takes control, the consequences are devastating.The only way Liz can save herself and her family is if she can find out where this new alter-ego has come from, and how she can stop it.
House of Echoes
Brendan Duffy - 2015
Ben has hit a dead end with his new novel, Caroline has lost her banking job, and eight-year-old Charlie is being bullied at his Manhattan school.When Ben inherits land in the village of Swannhaven, in a remote corner of upstate New York, the Tierneys believe it’s just the break they need, and they leave behind all they know to restore a sprawling estate. But as Ben uncovers Swannhaven’s chilling secrets and Charlie ventures deeper into the surrounding forest, strange things begin to happen. The Tierneys realize that their new home isn’t the fresh start they needed . . . and that the village’s haunting saga is far from over.House of Echoes is a novel that shows how sometimes the ties that bind us are the only things that can keep us whole.
Storm Front
Richard Castle - 2013
senator. In a heated race against time, Storm chases Volkov's shadow from Paris, to the lair of a computer genius in Iowa, to the streets of Manhattan, then through a bullet-riddled car chase on the New Jersey Turnpike. In the process, Storm uncovers a plot that could destroy the global economy--unleashing untold chaos--which only he can stop.
In the Woods
Tana French - 2007
But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children. He is gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a 12-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox (his partner and closest friend) find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense.
Dracula vs. Hitler
Patrick Sheane Duncan - 2016
To fight these monstrous forces, Van Helsing raises a legendary monster from centuries of slumber... Prince Dracula himself.Once he was the ruler of Transylvania. Prince Vlad Dracul, is, above all else, a patriot. He proves more than willing to once again drive out his country’s invaders. Upshot: No one minds if he drinks all the German blood he desires.In Berlin, when Hitler hears about the many defeats his forces are suffering at the hands of an apparent true vampire, he is seduced by the possibility of becoming immortal. Thus two forces are set upon a collision course, the ultimate confrontation: Superpower against superpower.
Kiss Me First
Lottie Moggach - 2007
When Leila discovers the Web site Red Pill, she feels she has finally found people who understand her. A sheltered young woman raised by her mother, Leila has often struggled to connect with the girls at school; but on Red Pill, a chat forum for ethical debate, Leila comes into her own, impressing the Web site's founder, a brilliant and elusive man named Adrian. Leila is thrilled when Adrian asks to meet her, flattered when he invites her to be part of "Project Tess." Tess is a woman Leila might never have met in real life. She is beautiful, urbane, witty, and damaged. As they e-mail, chat, and Skype, Leila becomes enveloped in the world of Tess, learning every single thing she can about this other woman—because soon, Leila will have to become her. An ingeniously plotted novel of stolen identity, Kiss Me First is brilliantly frightening about the lies we tell—to ourselves, to others, for good, and for ill.
One Kick
Chelsea Cain - 2014
Abducted at age six in broad daylight, the police, the public, perhaps even her family assumed the worst had occurred. And then Kathleen Lannigan was found, alive, six years later. In the early months following her freedom, as Kick struggled with PTSD, her parents put her through a litany of therapies, but nothing helped until the detective who rescued her suggested Kick learn to fight. Before she was thirteen, Kick learned marksmanship, martial arts, boxing, archery, and knife throwing. She excelled at every one, vowing she would never be victimized again. But when two children in the Portland area go missing in the same month, Kick goes into a tailspin. Then an enigmatic man Bishop approaches her with a proposition: he is convinced Kick's experiences and expertise can be used to help rescue the abductees. Little does Kick know the case will lead directly into her terrifying past…