Book picks similar to
Stray Dogs by John Ridley
fiction
mystery
noir
crime-fiction
Fifteen Digits
Nick Santora - 2012
Five walks of life. Every day they come together at the white shoe law firm Olmstead & Taft. But they’re not lawyers. They’re “Printers”: blue-collar guys consigned to the dark basement of the firm charged with copying, collating and delivering the mountains of paperwork that document millions of dollars of sensitive legal secrets.Until the five are approached by an ambitious young attorney who teaches them what they have: insider information. Together they make a plan: take the classified documents that pass through their hands every day and use them to get rich. They create a joint account to deposit the spoils. An account with a safeguard-each one only knows one section of the access code.Which means that for all five conspirators, there’s no way out. But as too much money piles up to go unnoticed, the Printers will discover there’s one thing even worse than being an outsider: being in too deep.“FIFTEEN DIGITS is a taut, gripping thrill-ride that appeals to the white collar criminal in all of us. I couldn’t put it down.”–Terence Winter, Creator and Executive Producer of Boardwalk Empire, Executive Producer and Writer of The Sopranos“FIFTEEN DIGITS reads like John Grisham and Martin Scorsese’s nasty love child. Brimming with unique, indelible characters, it’s a cautionary tale of greed, jealousy and vice.”–Shawn Ryan, Creator and Executive Producer of The Shield
The Messenger of Athens
Anne Zouroudi - 2007
So when the battered body of a young woman is discovered at the foot of a cliff, the local police - governed more by archaic rules of honor than by the law - are quick to close the case, dismissing her death as an accident. Then a stranger arrives, uninvited, from Athens, announcing his intention to investigate further into the crime he believes has been committed. Refusing to accept the woman's death as an accident or suicide, Hermes Diaktoros sets out to uncover the truths that skulk beneath this small community's exterior. Hermes's methods of investigation are unorthodox, and his message to the islanders is plain - tell the truth or face the consequences. Before long, he's uncovering a tale of passion, corruption and murder that entangles many of the island's residents. But Hermes brings his own mystery into the web of dark secrets and lies - and as he travels the rugged island landscape to investigate, questions and suspicions arise amongst the locals. Who has sent him to Thiminos, and on whose authority is he acting? And how does he know of dramas played out decades ago? Rich in images of Greece's beautiful islands and evoking a life unknown to most outsiders, this wonderful novel leads the reader into a world where the myths of the past are not forgotten and forbidden passion still has dangerous consequences.
Afterwards
Rosamund Lupton - 2011
They are in there...Black smoke stains a summer blue sky. A school is on fire. And one mother, Grace, sees the smoke and rush. She knows her teenage daughter Jenny is inside. She runs into the burning building to rescue her.Afterwards Grace must find the identity of the arsonist and protect her children from the person who's still intent on destroying them. Afterwards, she must fight the limits of her physical strength and discover the limitlessness of love.
The Flanders Panel
Arturo Pérez-Reverte - 1990
Translation: Who killed the knight? Breaking the silence of five centuries, Julia's hunt for a Renaissance murderer leads her into a modern-day game of sin, betrayal, and death.
The Woman Before Me
Ruth Dugdall - 2010
Luke had been dead for just three days.Rose Wilks' life is shattered when her newborn baby Joel is admitted to intensive care. Emma Hatcher has all that Rose lacks. Beauty. A loving husband. A healthy son. Until tragedy strikes and Rose is the only suspect.Now, having spent nearly five years in prison in Ipswich, Rose is just weeks away from freedom. Her probation officer Cate must decide whether Rose is remorseful for her crime, or whether she remains a threat to society. As Cate is drawn in, she begins to doubt her own judgement.Where is the line between love and obsession, can justice be served and, if so... by what means?
Noir
Christopher MooreChristopher Moore - 2018
Summer, 1947. A dame walks into a saloon . . .It’s not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar. It’s love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an Air Force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. ’Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he’s got the connections on the street.Meanwhile, a suspicious flying object has been spotted up the Pacific coast in Washington State near Mount Rainer, followed by a mysterious plane crash in a distant patch of desert in New Mexico that goes by the name Roswell. But the real weirdness is happening on the streets of the City by the Bay.When one of Sammy’s schemes goes south and the Cheese mysteriously vanishes, Sammy is forced to contend with his own dark secrets—and more than a few strange goings on—if he wants to find his girl.
The Talented Mr. Ripley / Ripley Under Ground / Ripley's Game
Patricia Highsmith - 1985
In achieving for himself the opulent life that he was denied as a child, Ripley shows himself to be a master of illusion and manipulation and a disturbingly sympathetic combination of genius and psychopath. As Highsmith navigates the mesmerizing tangle of Ripley's deadly and sinister games, she turns the mystery genre inside out and takes us into the mind of a man utterly indifferent to evil.The Talented Mr. RipleyIn a chilling literary hall of mirrors, Patricia Highsmith introduces Tom Ripley. Like a hero in a latter-day Henry James novel, is sent to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf. He wants to be like him--exactly like him. Suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral, Ripley stops at nothing--certainly not only one murder--to accomplish his goal. Turning the mystery form inside out, Highsmith shows the terrifying abilities afforded to a man unhindered by the concept of evil.Ripley Under GroundIn this harrowing illumination of the psychotic mind, the enviable Tom Ripley has a lovely house in the French countryside, a beautiful and very rich wife, and an art collection worthy of a connoisseur. But such a gracious life has not come easily. One inopportune inquiry, one inconvenient friend, and Ripley's world will come tumbling down--unless he takes decisive steps. In a mesmerizing novel that coolly subverts all traditional notions of literary justice, Ripley enthralls us even as we watch him perform acts of pure and unspeakable evil.Ripley's GameConnoisseur of art, harpsichord aficionado, gardener extraordinaire, and genius of improvisational murder, the inimitable Tom Ripley finds his complacency shaken when he is scorned at a posh gala. While an ordinary psychopath might repay the insult with some mild act of retribution, what Ripley has in mind is far more subtle, and infinitely more sinister. A social slight doesn't warrant murder of course-- just a chain of events that may lead to it.
The Sixth Lamentation
William Brodrick - 1999
What, he is asked, should a man do when the world has turned against him? Anselm's response: claim sanctuary. But the answer sets off more trouble than he ever could have imagined when the man returns, demanding the protection of the Church. He is Eduard Schwermann, a suspected Nazi war criminal. Agnes Aubret has unburdened a secret to her granddaughter Lucy. Fifty years earlier, Agnes was in occupied Paris, risking her life to smuggle Jewish children to safety-until her group was exposed by an SS officer: Eduard Schwermann. Not only has the Church granted Schwermann sanctuary before; in 1944 it helped him escape from France to begin a new life in Britain. As Anselm attempts to find out why and as Lucy delves deeper into her grandmother's past, their investigations dovetail to form a remarkable story. William Brodrick makes a dazzling debut in this literary thriller where two seemingly unconnected lives gradually, shockingly converge. Brodrick, himself a former Augustinian friar, is a master of precision plotting, morally complex characterization, and crisp historical re-creation. In Father Anselm, Brodrick has crafted a unique and compelling hero. And The 6th Lamentation promises to be the literary thriller discovery of the season.
Not Her Daughter
Rea Frey - 2018
Five years old. Gray eyes, brown hair. Missing since June.Emma is lonely. Living with her cruel mother and clueless father, Emma retreats into her own world of quiet and solitude.Sarah Walker. Successful entrepreneur. Broken-hearted. Kidnapper.Sarah has never seen a girl so precious as the gray-eyed child in a crowded airport terminal. When a second-chance encounter with Emma presents itself, Sarah takes her—far away from home. But if it’s to rescue a little girl from her damaging mother, is kidnapping wrong?Amy Townsend. Unhappy wife. Unfit mother. Unsure whether she wants her daughter back.Amy’s life is a string of disappointments, but her biggest issue is her inability to connect with her daughter. And now Emma is gone without a trace.As Sarah and Emma avoid the nationwide hunt, they form an unshakeable bond. But what about Emma’s real mother, back at home?
Yellow Medicine
Anthony Neil Smith - 2008
But his rule-bending and bribe-taking have gotten him kicked off the force in Gulfport, Mississippi, and he's been given a second chance...in the desolate, Siberian wastelands of rural Minnesota. Now Billy's only got the local girls and local booze to keep him company. Until one of the local girls--cute little Drew, bassist for a psychobilly band--asks Billy for help with her boyfriend. Something about the drugs Ian's been selling, some product he may have lost, and the men who are threatening him because of it. Billy agrees to look into it, and before long he's speeding down a snowy road, tracking a cell of terrorists, with a severed head in his truck's cab. And that's only the start.
The Last Kind Words
Tom Piccirilli - 2012
Upon the razor-thin edge between love and violence lives a pair of brothers, their bonds frayed by betrayals and guilt, their loyalty to each other their last salvation.Raised to pick a pocket before he could walk, Terry Rand cut free from his family after his older brother, Collie, went on a senseless killing spree that left eight dead. Five years later, only days before his scheduled execution, Collie contacts Terry and asks him to return home. Collie claims he wasn’t responsible for one of the murders—and insists that the real killer is still on the loose.Dogged by his own demons, Terry is swept back into the schemes and scams of his family: His father, Pinsch, a retired cat burglar, brokenhearted because of his two sons. His card-sharp uncles, Mal and Grey, who’ve incurred the anger of the local mob. His grandfather, Shep, whose mind is failing but whose fingers can still slip out a wallet from across the room. His teenage sister, Dale, who’s flirting dangerously with the lure of the family business. And Kimmie, the woman Terry abandoned, who’s now raising a child with Terry’s former best friend. Terry pieces together the day his brother turned rabid, delving into a blood history that reveals the Rand family tree is rotten to the roots, and the secrets his ancestors buried are now coming furious and vengeful to the surface.A meditation on how love can confine a person just as easily as it can free him, juxtaposing shocking violence and sly humor, The Last Kind Words is the brilliantly inventive family saga that only a singular talent like Tom Piccirilli could conjure.
Sinner Man
Lawrence Block - 1968
But can he find safety in the skin of another man...a worse man...a sinner man...?Long before he became the award-winning creator of Matthew Scudder (A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES) and an MWA Grand Master, Lawrence Block penned this tough, unforgettable crime novel, his very first. But as he describes in a new afterword, the book wound up published only eight years later, under a different title and a fake name—and was then lost for half a century. Now appearing for the first time under Block’s real name, with revisions by the author, SINNER MAN is revealed as a powerful work by a young novelist destined to become one of the giants of the mystery genre. First publication in almost 50 years—and first ever under author’s real name! Lawrence Block is one of the most acclaimed living crime writers, having won every major award in the genre (including 5 Edgar Awards) and been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America Block’s novel A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES became the movie starring Liam Neeson
The Monsoon Murders
Karan Parmanandka - 2016
The twist in the tale comes with themurder of a well-known man in the Mumbai finance circle. Roy is hired bythe self made tycoon Jayesh Kumar to probe the case. While Roy isexcited at the chance at redemption, he fails to understand why hebecame the chosen one.What looks at first an open and shut case, quite rapidly evolves into a taleof deceit and revenge. Roy must take care not to fall for the suspect, andnot to see things as they appear. As his personal life gets tied to thesuccess of the case, the question becomes, not whether he can havefaith in strangers, but whether he can trust his friends.Inspired from real life cases, The Monsoon Murders is afast-paced detective novel, taking the Indian crime fiction genre tomysterious depths.
Last Days
Brian Evenson - 2009
The story follows Kline, a brutally dismembered detective forcibly recruited to solve a murder inside the cult. As Kline becomes more deeply involved with the group, he begins to realize the stakes are higher than he previously thought. Attempting to find his way through a maze of lies, threats, and misinformation, Kline discovers that his survival depends on an act of sheer will. Last Days was first published in 2003 as a limited edition novella titled The Brotherhood of Mutilation. Its success led Evenson to expand the story into a full-length novel. In doing so, he has created a work that’s disturbing, deeply satisfying, and completely original.