Book picks similar to
Fractured Steel by T.J. Loveless


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Hostile Witness


Rebecca Forster - 2004
    Josie, once a hot-shot criminal defense attorney, left the fast track behind for a small practice in Hermosa Beach, California. But Hannah Sheraton intrigues her and, when the girl is charged as an adult, Josie cannot turn her back. But the deeper she digs the more Josie realizes that politics, the law and family relationships have created a combustible and dangerous situation. When the horrible truth of the murder is uncovered it could save Hannah Sheraton or destroy them both.

The Gingerbread Man


Maggie Shayne - 2001
    When the FBI takes over the case, Vince agrees to take time off. Traveling to a small upstate New York town, he meets Holly Newman--a fragile woman whose sister was abducted and killed years ago. Convinced that Holly's sister's death is linked to the recent murders, he attempts to unearth clues hidden deep in Holly's mind.

The Good Daughter


Karin Slaughter - 2017
    One runs for her life. One is left behind.Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father—Pikeville's notorious defense attorney—devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.Twenty-eight years later, Charlotte has followed in her father's footsteps to become a lawyer herself—the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again, and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized, Charlotte is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it's a case that unleashes the terrible memories she's spent so long trying to suppress--because the shocking truth about the crime that destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won't stay buried forever. Packed with twists and turns, brimming with emotion and heart, The Good Daughter is fiction at its most thrilling.

The Child Next Door


Shalini Boland - 2018
    Readers of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl will love Shalini Boland.’ Red Adept ‘Don’t take my baby.’ Kirstie Rawlings is jolted awake by a child crying. Racing upstairs to check on her new-born, she is plunged into every parents’ worst nightmare. She hears an unknown voice in the baby monitor, saying: ‘Let’s take the child – and go.’ Is someone trying to steal her little girl? In the bedroom, her daughter is safe asleep in her cot. Is the voice coming from a nearby house? But there aren’t any other babies living on her quiet country road… The police don't believe her. And neither does her husband. Kirstie knows something isn’t right. She thought she could trust her neighbours, now she isn’t sure. As she unravels the secrets of the people living on her street, Kirstie’s perfect life begins to fall apart. Because someone is hiding a terrible lie. And they will do anything to stop Kirstie uncovering the truth. But is the danger closer to home than she thinks?

Date Night


Samantha Hayes - 2019
    Inside, the TV is on and a half-eaten meal waits on the table. My heart stops when I find our little girl is alone in the house and our babysitter, Sasha, is missing…Days later, when I’m arrested for Sasha’s murder and torn away from my perfect little family, I’ll wish I had told someone about the threatening note I received that morning.I’ll hate myself for not finding out who the gift hidden inside my husband’s wardrobe was for.I’ll scream from the rooftops that I’m innocent – but no one will listen.I will realise I was completely wrong about everything that happened that night…But will you believe me?

Lamb to the Slaughter


Karen Ann Hopkins - 2014
    To solve the murder, she must investigate the nearby Amish community with the help of a man who was shunned years ago. Lamb to the Slaughter is a story about the intertwining lives of three unlikely people in an Indiana Amish Community and the devastating results when a rebellious teenage girl is found shot to death in a corn field during the harvest. Serenity Adams is the newly elected young sheriff in the country town of Blood Rock and besides dealing with the threatening behavior of her predecessor, she now has a dead Amish girl on her plate. At first glance, the case seems obvious. The poor girl was probably accidentally shot during hunting season, but when the elders of the Amish community and even the girl’s parents react with uncaring subdued behavior, Serenity becomes suspicious. As she delves deeper into the secretive community that she grew up beside, she discovers a gruesome crime from the past that may very well be related to the Amish girl’s shooting. Serenity enlists the help of the handsome bad-boy building contractor, Daniel Bachman, who left the Amish when he was nineteen and has his own dark reasons to help the spunky sheriff solve the crime that the family and friends who shunned him are trying desperately to cover up. Serenity’s persistence leads her to a stunning discovery that not only threatens to destroy her blossoming romance with Daniel, but may even take her life in the end.

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife


Ashley WinsteadAshley Winstead - 2021
    One college reunion. One unsolved murder. A college reunion turns dark and deadly in this chilling and propulsive suspense novel about six friends, one unsolved murder, and the dark secrets they’ve been hiding from each other—and themselves—for a decade.Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to southern, elite Duquette University, down to the envious whispers that are sure to follow in her wake. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see—confident, beautiful, indifferent—not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather’s murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she’d been closest to since freshman year. Ten years ago, everything fell apart, including the dreams she worked for her whole life—and her relationship with the one person she wasn’t supposed to love. But not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone left Duquette ten years ago, and not everyone can let Heather’s murder go unsolved. Someone is determined to trap the real killer, to make the guilty pay. When the six friends are reunited, they will be forced to confront what happened that night—and the years’ worth of secrets each of them would do anything to keep hidden.Told in racing dual timelines, with a dark campus setting and a darker look at friendship, love, obsession, and ambition, In My Dreams I Hold A Knife is an addictive, propulsive read you won’t be able to put down.

Playing Dead


Julia Heaberlin - 2012
    The woman who wrote it claims that Tommie is her daughter—and that she was kidnapped as a baby thirty-one years ago. Tommie wants to believe it’s all a hoax, but suddenly a girl who grew up on a Texas ranch finds herself linked to a horrific past: the slaughter of a family in Chicago, the murder of an Oklahoma beauty queen, and the kidnapping of a little girl named Adriana. Tommie races along a twisting, nightmarish path while an unseen stalker is determined to keep old secrets locked inside the dementia-battered brain of the woman who Tommie always thought was her real mother. With everything she has ever believed in question, and no one she can trust, Tommie must discover the truth about the girl who vanished—and the very real threats that still remain.

The Priest's Graveyard


Ted Dekker - 2011
    Soon, their paths will cross and lead to one twisted fate.Danny Hansen is a Bosnian immigrant who came to America with hopes of escaping haunted memories of a tragic war that took his other's life. Now he's a priest incensed by the powerful among us who manipulate the law for their own gain, uncaring of thes hattered lives they leave behind. It is his duty to show them the error of their ways, even if he must put them in the grave.Renee Gilmore is the frail and helpless victim of one such powerful man. Having escaped his clutches, she now lives only to satisfy justice by destroying him, regardless of whom she must become in that pursuit.But when Danny and Renee's paths become inexorably entangled things go very, very badly and neither of them may make it out of this hunt alive.

Confessions on the 7:45


Lisa Unger - 2020
    The woman introduces herself as Martha and soon confesses that she’s been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When the train arrives at Selena’s station, the two women part ways, presumably never to meet again.Then the nanny disappears.As Selena is pulled into the mystery of what happened, and as the fractures in her marriage grow deeper, she begins to wonder, who was Martha really? But she is hardly prepared for what she’ll discover…

Daughter


Jane Shemilt - 2014
    The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised.

Every Single Secret


Emily Carpenter - 2018
    Both very private people, they’ve kept their pasts hidden from the world, and each other, until Heath’s escalating nightmares begin to put an undeniable strain on their relationship. Determined to give their impending marriage the best chance of succeeding, Heath insists that Daphne join him on a seven-day retreat with Dr. Matthew Cerny, a psychologist celebrated for getting to the root of repressed memories. Daphne reluctantly agrees—even though the past is the last place she wants to go.The retreat’s isolated and forbidding location increases her unease, as do the doctor’s rules: they must relinquish their keys and phones, they’ll be monitored at all hours by hidden cameras, and they’re never to socialize with the other guests.One sleepless night, Daphne decides to leave her room…and only then does she realize that the institute is not at all what it seems—and that whatever’s crying out from Heath’s past isn’t meant to be heard. It’s meant to be silenced.

False Memory


Meli Raine - 2018
    Not the best way to wake up, right? I work in a flower shop. I know a funeral arrangement when I see one. I know a killer when I see one, too. And one is standing in my hospital room right now, straight behind the man who saved my life. I can’t tell anyone the truth, because that’s the fastest way to really die. So I do the next best thing. I “lose” my memory. I fake my amnesia. Pretending not to remember a brutal attempted murder has its perks. The killer is backing down, spending less time around me, loosening the noose. The less I claim to recall, the more my rescuer, Duff, works to help me “remember.” I hate lying to him. But he doesn’t understand that my memory is dangerous. To me. And to him. Fooling everyone isn’t easy. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Except it’s starting to look like I’ve been fooling myself. In more ways than one.

For Your Own Good


Samantha DowningSamantha Downing - 2021
    His main focus is on pushing these kids to their full academic potential.All he wants is for his colleagues—and the endlessly meddlesome parents—to stay out of his way.It's really too bad that sometimes excellence can come at such a high cost.USA Today bestselling author Samantha Downing is back with her latest sneaky thriller set at a prestigious private school—complete with interfering parents, overeager students, and one teacher who just wants to teach them all a lesson…

Pitch Black


Elise Noble - 2015
    Forced to abandon everything she holds dear - her home, her friends, her job in special ops - she builds a new life for herself in England. As Ashlyn Hale, she meets Luke, a handsome local who makes her realise just how lonely she is.Yet, even in the sleepy village of Lower Foxford, the dark side of life dogs Diamond’s trail when the unthinkable strikes. Forced out of hiding, she races against time to save those she cares about. But is it too little, too late?  Please be aware that although one story arc is concluded in this book, Diamond’s full story is told over books 1-3 in the Blackwood Security series.