The Other Emily


Dean Koontz - 2021
    She was presumed to be one of serial killer Ronny Lee Jessup’s victims whose remains were never found.Writer David Thorne still hasn’t recovered from losing the love of his life, or from the guilt of not being there to save her. Since then, he’s sought closure any way he can. He even visits regularly with Jessup in prison, desperate for answers about Emily’s final hours so he may finally lay her body to rest. Then David meets Maddison Sutton, beguiling, playful, and keenly aware of all David has lost. But what really takes his breath away is that everything about Maddison, down to her kisses, is just like Emily. As the fantastic becomes credible, David’s obsession grows, Maddison’s mysterious past deepens—and terror escalates.Is she Emily? Or an irresistible dead ringer? Either way, the ultimate question is the same: What game is she playing? Whatever the risk in finding out, David’s willing to take it for this precious second chance. It’s been ten years since he’s felt this inspired, this hopeful, this much in love…and he’s afraid.

No Good Deed


M.P. McDonald - 2010
    It triggers dreams of disasters. Tragedies that happen exactly as he envisions them. He learns that not only can he see the future, he can change it. Then the unthinkable happened and everyone ignored his frantic warnings. Thousands die. Suddenly, the Feds are pounding on his door and the name they have for Taylor isn't urban hero. It's enemy combatant. And, it means they can do anything they want to him. Anything at all.

Don't Believe It


Charlie Donlea - 2018
    Lucian prison, and reaches out to filmmaker Sidney Ryan in a last, desperate attempt to prove her innocence.As Sidney begins researching, she uncovers startling evidence overlooked during the original investigation. Before the series even finishes filming, public outcry leads officials to reopen the case. Delving into Grace’s past, Sidney peels away layer after layer of deception. But as she edges closer to the real heart of the story, Sidney must decide if finding the truth is worth risking her newfound fame, her career … even her life.

A Reason to Live


Matthew Iden - 2012
    Twelve years later, the victim's daughter begs for help: the killer is stalking her now. But Marty has retired to battle cancer. A second shot at the killer - and a first chance at redemption - Marty has A Reason to Live.

The Escape Room


Megan Goldin - 2019
    Your goal is simple. Get out alive.In the lucrative world of finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are at the top of their game. They’ve mastered the art of the deal and celebrate their success in style―but a life of extreme luxury always comes at a cost.Invited to participate in an escape room challenge as a team-building exercise, the ferociously competitive co-workers crowd into the elevator of a high-rise building, eager to prove themselves. But when the lights go off and the doors stay shut, it quickly becomes clear that this is no ordinary competition: they’re caught in a dangerous game of survival.Trapped in the dark, the colleagues must put aside their bitter rivalries and work together to solve cryptic clues to break free. But as the game begins to reveal the team’s darkest secrets, they realize there’s a price to be paid for the terrible deeds they committed in their ruthless climb up the corporate ladder. As tempers fray, and the clues turn deadly, they must solve one final chilling puzzle: which one of them will kill in order to survive?

She's Not There


Marla Madison - 2011
    . . Is the rising number of abused women who've gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a serial killer targeting this vulnerable group of women? When the Milwaukee Police Department refuses to investigate because no bodies have been discovered, Lisa Rayburn, the clinical psychologist who discovers the anomaly, is drawn into an investigation to discover the cause after one of her own clients goes missing. She finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, TJ Peacock, and the husbands of two of the missing women who may themselves be murderers. When TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is found murdered, they know . . . someone is willing to kill to protect his secret. Can they reveal the killer before he gets to them?

Next to Disappear


Malcolm Richards - 2015
    Until disgraced ex-teacher Emily Swanson moves into the couple’s former home.Emily’s life is in ruins and she’s meant to be making a fresh start. But when she learns about the missing nurse, she sees a chance for redemption. Because finding Alina could help right the wrongs of Emily’s past. It could even mark the start of a new career in private investigation.But what Emily doesn’t know is that Alina had a horrifying secret. One about the care foundation where she worked. And the closer Emily gets to uncovering the truth, the closer she gets to terrible danger.Inspired by a shocking true crime, Next To Disappear introduces a thrilling, twist-filled series and a refreshingly different take on the private investigator genre.Revised edition: Previously published as Lost Lives.

Swerve


Vicki Pettersson - 2015
    But when Daniel is abducted from a desolate rest stop, Kristine is forced to choose: return home unharmed, but never to see her fiancé again, or plunge forward into the searing desert to find him…where a killer lies in wait.

Child of Silence


Abigail Padgett - 1993
    Child abuse investigator Bo Bradley gets the case. Staff at St. Mary’s Hospital for Children assume the boy is mentally impaired because he cannot talk, but Bo remembers a little sister named Laurie. She knows that the boy, like Laurie, is deaf. Complicating things is Bo’s manic depressive disorder, a troubling but occasionally valuable problem for which she always, well sometimes, takes her meds. The prime directive in Bo's job is "Don't become emotionally involved with the child!" But the little boy is so bright inside his silence, and so alone. Bo feels the ominous first ripples of an oncoming manic episode and grabs her meds, but they won't have much effect for weeks and the child is in danger now! Risking her job and ultimately her life in a perhaps-delusional race to protect a four-year-old whose only word is his own name - "Weppo" - Bo finds herself alone with the child in a desert night fraught with terrors as she tries to reach an imagined safety among the Paiute. But political intrigue, desperate secrets and a relentless evil lurk in every shadow of a moonlit landscape in which Bo has only her own intense and uncanny perceptions as guide. She knows she's "crazy," but sometimes crazy sees what rational cannot. And "crazy" is now Weppo's only chance for a life! “A sensationally fine first novel… breathtakingly well-told…”The Los Angeles Times

All the Shiny Things


Robin Mahle - 2013
    That is, until she discovers it was all a lie. Now, her desperate search for the truth begins.After learning of the terrible events that forever altered her childhood, Katie is compelled to dig into a past no one wants to relive. A past her parents kept hidden from her at all costs.A decades-old investigation is reluctantly unearthed when Katie discovers her role as the lone survivor. It is Detective Marshall Avery who lends her the resources needed to hunt down the person responsible. When that search breathes new life into an old monster—one who has left a trail of innocent blood in his wake—it is too late to turn back.Katie’s desire for retribution places her in great danger and costs her dearly. So when the tables are turned, and the hunted becomes the hunter, will Detective Avery be able to keep Katie from going too far?

Everything You Want Me to Be


Mindy Mejia - 2017
    But Hattie wants something more, something bigger, and ultimately something that turns out to be exceedingly dangerous. When she’s found brutally stabbed to death, the tragedy rips right through the fabric of her small-town community.It soon comes to light that Hattie was engaged in a highly compromising and potentially explosive secret online relationship. The question is: Did anyone else know? And to what lengths might they have gone to end it? Hattie’s boyfriend seems distraught over her death, but had he fallen so deeply in love with her that she had become an obsession? Or did Hattie’s impulsive, daredevil nature simply put her in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading her to a violent death at the hands of a stranger?Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront…and she inches closer and closer to death.Evocative and razor-sharp, Everything You Want Me to Be challenges you to test the lines between innocence and culpability, identity and deception. Does love lead to self-discovery—or destruction?

Follow the Crow


B.B. Griffith - 2014
    Six years ago his little sister Ana vanished without a trace. His best friend saw what happened, but he refuses to speak of what he knows, and so was banished from the Navajo tribe. That was the day the crows started following Ben. Caroline Adams is a nurse with a special talent: she sees things others can’t see. She knows that Ben is more than he seems, and that the crows are trying to tell him something. What the crows know will shed new light on the mystery of Ana’s disappearance, and throw Ben and Caroline into a race against time to find out what happened before they end up vanishing just like she did.

The Family Plot


Megan Collins - 2021
    Raised in a secluded island mansion deep in the woods and kept isolated by her true crime-obsessed parents, she has spent the last several years living on her own, but unable to move beyond her past—especially the disappearance of her twin brother Andy when they were sixteen. With her father’s death, Dahlia returns to the house she has avoided for years. But as the rest of the Lighthouse family arrives for the memorial, a gruesome discovery is made: buried in the reserved plot is another body—Andy’s, his skull split open with an ax. Each member of the family handles the revelation in unusual ways. Her brother Charlie pours his energy into creating a family memorial museum, highlighting their research into the lives of famous murder victims; her sister Tate forges ahead with her popular dioramas portraying crime scenes; and their mother affects a cheerfully domestic façade, becoming unrecognizable as the woman who performed murder reenactments for her children. As Dahlia grapples with her own grief and horror, she realizes that her eccentric family, and the mansion itself, may hold the answers to what happened to her twin.

Just Add Water


Jinx Schwartz - 2004
    Pushing forty and still single, Hetta is the epitome of the b word: bold, bossy, brassy, breezy and brash. After leaving a lifelong swath of failed multi-national affairs in her jet stream, it is no wonder Hetta prefers living with her dog R.J. But old habits die hard, and trolling for triceps is Hetta s hobby. Plying the waterfront in search of Saturday brunch, Hetta s attention is snagged by a parade of passing yacht--especially their predominantly male skippers--and experiences a champagne-induced epiphany: if she had a boat, she could get a man. In hopes a floating Valhalla will overcome an all-time low-water mark in her life, Hetta buys her dream boat in spite of a spectacular ignorance of all things nautical. But a shadowy stalker, an inconvenient body, and Hetta s own self-destructive foibles imperil not only her new life, but a newly- found romance.

Sara's Game


Ernie Lindsey - 2012
    His car was found. He wasn't. Unbelievably, the police report said, "No foul play suspected." There were a few unreliable sightings over the following months, but little else.Now, on the last day before summer break, her three children have gone missing from their schools, all at the same time.And the note under her windshield wiper asks one simple question: Are you ready to play the game?