Book picks similar to
The Pope's Suicide by Steve Richer


mystery
mystery-suspense
new-york
religious-fiction

The Casebook of Inspector Blackstone


Sally Spencer - 2017
    Yet to Inspector Sam Blackstone, the case is as puzzling as any he has ever come across. As his investigation proceeds, Blackstone finds himself entering the world of the aristocracy and tramping the dangerous streets of London's Little Russia, where English law and order are not welcome. So begins the illustrious career of the talented inspector, who earns the equal ire and respect of his superiors for his controversial tactics. Absorbing in their detailed depictions of the period, gripping in their ingenious plots, this trilogy of historical whodunnits is the perfect box set for any mystery-lover. Praise for Sally Spencer 'Spencer's finest hour: a tightly plotted puzzler with surprises at every turn' – Kirkus Reviews 'Spencer is an accomplished craftsman who serves up a good puzzle and deftly solves it with intelligence and insight' – Publishers Weekly Sally Spencer worked as a teacher both in England and Iran - where she witnessed the fall of the Shah. She now writes full time.

A Cape May Diamond


Larry Enright - 2012
    I’ll never forget that day. The Vietnam War had ended with the fall of Saigon that April, and the world was mired in one of its worst recessions ever. Unemployment in the United States was nearly nine percent, inflation even higher, and leadership lacking. The Watergate scandal had cast a smear across American politics, resulting in Richard Nixon’s resignation in August 1974 to avoid impeachment, and his successor’s immediately pardoning him to close the book on an unhappy chapter in U.S. history.It was not a good time for anyone and a particularly hard time for the old Victorian town of Cape May. The crown jewel of the New Jersey shore had fallen into neglect and disrepair and was dying a slow death. Once the elegant summer home to presidents and kings, it had become the last refuge of the deposed.That’s where I met Tom Ryan. Tom was a king, or so he would have you believe, but unlike Richard Nixon, when Tom was dethroned, he wasn’t sent home with a slap on the wrist. He was sent to prison. He was a convicted draft dodger, but one of the lucky ones released early by President Ford as part of his mass clemency after Nixon’s pardon. The problem was, Tom had nowhere to go when he got out, so he took the money his dad mailed to him and spent it on a bus ticket to get as far away as possible to a place where nobody cared who he was or what he had done, a place where nobody cared about anything. That place was Cape May.As hard a time as it was for everyone, it was harder for me because that was the day I met Tom Ryan. I should have turned and walked away. I knew it when he first looked at me, but I didn’t, not my first mistake, but one that would make Monday, May 19th, 1975 the hardest day of my life. This is the story of how Tom Ryan and I met and how things never quite work out the way you think. You might find a love story in here somewhere. You might not. You might find a message hidden in one of the nickel pop bottles collected by the beachcombers from some of the most beautiful white sand beaches in the world. You might even find a little mystery, but life is a mystery, isn’t it?

Run, Run, Run


Mark Capell - 2011
    But even that can't protect him and his wife, Sally. Somebody knows their new identity - somebody who shouldn't.Frank Tong is an artist who finds inspiration for his paintings from the violence of his criminal life. When his brother is put away for murder he wants revenge. And Frank has a mole in the Witness Protection Scheme.Dan and the pregnant Sally have no choice. They have to flee. They go on the run from both sides of the law.They must learn to lie, steal, shoot and fight to survive. They can't use their credit cards, cash machines, mobile phones - anything that will give away their location. They must constantly look over their shoulder. It's living life like a criminal - a difficult task for two law abiding people.What will it take to return to a normal life? How far are they prepared to go? What will they sacrifice for their freedom?'Run, Run, Run' is a crime thriller that will have your heart racing and your mind buzzing....Sometimes the best way to get justice is to run away from it...(2014 REVISED EDITION)

Home Sweet Home


Kristen Brown - 2011
    Anxious to start a new life, Samantha decides to open up a business of her own, and throws herself into making the dream a reality. But along the way, there are plenty of obstacles popping up to make life a little more challenging than she expected - nosy neighbors and cranky in-laws, attractive men and pretentious sisters, a gossipy mother, mysterious hate mail, and ghosts from the past that threaten to destroy everything she's worked to achieve. And just when Sam thinks things couldn't possibly get worse, there's a murder on her property that the local detective seems mighty determined to pin on the newest resident of Peabody. Suddenly Sam is overwhelmed with troubles she never imagined, and she knows the only way to get through any of it is by keeping her sense of humor and trusting that God really does know exactly what He is doing.

A Parcel of Rogues


Joyce Lionarons - 2019
    But Rownt has problems of his own: a gang of child-thieves is terrorizing the quiet neighborhood in which he lives, and his neighbors want protection. Then the Fox, head of London’s criminal underworld, becomes involved, and a deadly situation becomes deadlier when one of the Fox’s men stabs the wrong boy. In a world where violence and theft seem everyday occurrences, Rownt searches for justice among A Parcel of Rogues.

Outerborough Blues: A Brooklyn Mystery


Andrew Cotto - 2012
    In a moment of weakness, the bartender—a lone wolf named Caesar Stiles with a chip on his shoulder and a Sicilian family curse hanging over him—agrees. What follows is a stylish literary mystery set in Brooklyn on the dawn of gentrification.While Caesar is initially trying to earn an honest living at the neighborhood watering hole, his world quickly unravels. In addition to being haunted by his past, including a brother who is intent on settling an old family score, Caesar is being hunted down by a mysterious nemesis known as The Orange Man. Adding to this combustible mix, Caesar is a white man living in a deep-rooted African American community with decidedly mixed feelings about his presence. In the course of his search for the French girl's missing brother, Caesar tumbles headlong into the shadowy depths of his newly adopted neighborhood, where he ultimately uncovers some of its most sinister secrets.Taking place over the course of a single week, Outerborough Blues is a tightly paced and gritty urban noir saturated with the rough and tumble atmosphere of early 1990s Brooklyn.Andrew Cotto has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Men's Journal, Salon.com, Teachers & Writers magazine and The Good Men Project. He has an MFA in creative writing from The New School. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Brittle Shadows


Vicki Tyley - 2010
    Two months later, distraught and unable to cope, she drowns her sorrows in a lethal cocktail of alcohol and prescription drugs.On the other side of Australia, a grieving Jemma Dalton struggles to come to terms with the suicide of her only sibling. Despite there being no evidence to the contrary, Jemma refuses to accept Tanya had intended to kill herself. Not her sister. Then the coroner's report reveals that at the time of her death she had been six weeks pregnant. The will, too, raises more questions than it answers. How did a young woman on a personal assistant's wage amass shares worth in excess of $1,000,000?In a desperate bid to uncover the truth, Jemma puts her own life at risk and starts to probe the shadows of her sister's life. But shadows, like bones, grow brittle with age. The consequences can be deadly.

Spies, Lies and a Pair of Ties


Sheralyn Pratt - 2003
    At 24, she has only been a PI for three years, but in that time she has never found a case she couldn't solve, or a person who could trick her. So when she's asked to investigate an embezzlement case at a nearby factory, Rhea doesn't think twice. What Rhea doesn't know is that the events that will take place on this case will snowball into a life decision. And what starts out as a humdrum investigation, filled with seemingly chance encounters, will change her life forever.

The Final Proposition


Trevor Douglas - 2015
    Which would you choose? After being exonerated for a crime he didn’t commit, Adam Wells leaves prison as the only living person who knows the location of a hidden cash fortune. Desperate to help a young friend who will soon die without an expensive and risky operation, Adam must weigh up the risk as he learns the money belongs to a drug syndicate who will stop at nothing to get their money back.

Unknown Remains: A Novel


Peter Leonard - 2016
    Outside his office window, Jack hears a booming sound, and then the worst thing imaginable. He works in the World Trade Center, and it is September 11, 2001.His wife in Connecticut, Diane, is visited the next day by a grief counselor, and then the mob, where she learns her husband owes them $750,000. Their personal bank accounts have been emptied. She’s totally and utterly broke. Lost in grief and now shock, Diane soon learns her husband was not the loving spouse he appeared to be. But neither is she, owing to that Beretta she keeps tucked into her handbag.The perfect summer read, Unknown Remains boasts an exciting crime story, inventive plot twists, and a cast of rogues, who just might be using a national tragedy to cover up their own deep transgressions and greed.

A Hillcrest Witch Mystery Collection


Amorette Anderson - 2019
    Her love life is a mess and business is slow. Then one day she inherits a magical book and everything changes… Along with the ladies in her knitting circle, Penny starts to study witchcraft. Just in time, too! Werewolves, vampires, and tennis-playing spirits make their way to Hillcrest, and trouble abounds. Can Penny protect her town? This boxset includes five Hillcrest Witch Mysteries: The Case of the Power Spell The Case of the Banishing Spell The Case of the Desire Spell The Case of the Trust Spell The Case of the Vision Spell

A Magic Touch


Ward Parker - 2021
    I know this because I’m a telepath.After my second husband bails without a word, I’m moving back to my hometown, San Marcos, Florida, one of the nation’s oldest cities. I’m here to open a nearly 300-year-old inn, and, hopefully, begin a new life. It turns out the inn comes with ghosts and other supernatural features. And the paranormal in my genes is going haywire.My telepathy has always been hit or miss. But now, along with the arrival of my first hot flashes, I gain a new ability: psychometry. By touching an object, I can read the thoughts and emotions of other people who have touched it.Good thoughts as well as creepy thoughts. Sweet emotions as well as memories of murder.Yep, I help a detective investigate a murder. And not a bad-looking detective, I should add.Living in an ancient city and running an old inn, I’m constantly touching things filled with memories.And some of them could kill me.

Miranda


Jane Holland - 2015
    Under the spell of the island, Lawrence hopes to rebuild the magic he and Juliet once felt for each other. But everything changes when the child Miranda goes missing. Who is to blame for the girl's mysterious disappearance? And why? - A gripping and evocative novel set on the Isle of Man by Jane Holland, author of multiple novels under numerous pseudonyms, including LOCK THE DOOR and Kindle #1 Bestseller GIRL NUMBER ONE. She is also an award-winning poet.

Breaking Bones


Robert White - 2018
    A ruthless criminal gang. A law unto themselves. Detective Jim Hacker has watched The Dogs grow from thuggish youths to psychotic criminals and seems to be the only cop in town with the determination to see justice done. Meanwhile Jamie Strange, a young Royal Marine, finds himself embroiled in the lives of the gang when his girlfriend, Laurie Holland, cuts off their engagement... to be with the most dangerous of The Dogs: Frankie Verdi. Strange knows right from wrong, but when Verdi begins to target Jamie's family, he makes an enemy of a man, more dangerous than even he could imagine. Crisp, slick and often terrifyingly violent, this 1980's crime thriller will appeal to the readers of Ian Rankin, Martina Cole and Stephen Leather.

Moth to a Flame (Narrowdale Mystery Book 2)


Michael Omer - 2015
    Since then, the recurring nightmares, creepy hallucinations and overpowering fear are gone. That's good, right? I mean, no one in their right minds wants to feel like that. I am starting to wonder if I'm in my right mind anymore...When a lady in my neighborhood died, I couldn't help but stick my nose in, to see what happened. I should just get on with things–I've got some new friends, and a cool boy named Chris has taken an interest in me. Everyone is telling me to just leave this weird murder alone.But I can't stop myself. The more I find out about her death, the more twisted everything is.I think there’s a predator in Narrowdale. And now it’s hunting me…What have I gotten myself into?