The Girl with a Clock for a Heart


Peter Swanson - 2014
    When George first met her, she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman from Sweetgum, Florida. She and George became inseparable in their first fall semester, so George was devastated when he got the news that she had committed suicide over Christmas break. But, as he stood in the living room of the girl's grieving parents, he realized the girl in the photo on their mantelpiece - the one who had committed suicide - was not his girlfriend. Later, he discovered the true identity of the girl he had loved - and of the things she may have done to escape her past.Now, twenty years later, she's back, and she's telling George that he's the only one who can help her...

Since We Fell


Dennis Lehane - 2017
    In all other respects, however, she enjoys an ideal life with an ideal husband. Until a chance encounter on a rainy afternoon causes that ideal life to fray. As does Rachel’s marriage. As does Rachel herself. Sucked into a conspiracy thick with deception, violence, and possibly madness, Rachel must find the strength within herself to conquer unimaginable fears and mind-altering truths. By turns heart- breaking, suspenseful, romantic, and sophisticated, Since We Fell is a novel of profound psychological insight and tension. It is Dennis Lehane at his very best.

The Lincoln Lawyer


Michael Connelly - 2005
    But what he should have been on the watch for was evil.Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers — they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence — it’s about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it’s even about justice.A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney’s dream, what they call a franchise case. And as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career.Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal — this time to save his own life.

The Poison Artist


Jonathan Moore - 2016
    Caleb Maddox is a San Francisco toxicologist studying the chemical effects of pain. After a bruising breakup with his girlfriend, he’s out drinking whiskey when a hauntingly seductive woman appears by his side. Emmeline whispers to Caleb over absinthe, gets his blood on her fingers and then brushes his ear with her lips as she says goodbye. He must find her.As his search begins, Caleb becomes entangled in a serial-murder investigation. The police have been fishing men from the bay, and the postmortems are inconclusive. One of the victims vanished from the bar the night Caleb met Emmeline. When questioned, Caleb can’t offer any information, nor does he tell them he’s been secretly helping the city’s medical examiner, an old friend, study the chemical evidence on the victims’ remains. The search for the killer soon entwines with Caleb’s hunt for Emmeline, and the closer he gets to each, the more dangerous his world becomes.From the first pages up to the haunting, unforgettable denouement, The Poison Artist is a gripping thriller about obsession and damage, about a man unmoored by an unspeakable past and an irresistible woman who offers the ultimate escape.

The Serial Killer’s Wife


Alice Hunter - 2021
    And they’re saying she knew.Beth and Tom Hardcastle are the envy of their neighbourhood – they have the perfect marriage, the perfect house, the perfect family.When the police knock on their door one evening, Beth panics. Tom should be back from work by now – what if he’s crashed his car? She fears the worst.But the worst is beyond imagining.As the interrogation begins, Beth will find herself questioning everything she believed about her husband.They’re husband and wife – till death do them part…

Child 44


Tom Rob Smith - 2008
    He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken. He is forced to watch a man he knows to be innocent be brutally tortured. And then he is told to arrest his own wife. Leo understands how the State works: Trust and check, but check particularly on those we trust. He faces a stark choice: his wife or his life. And still the killings of children continue...

A Case of Need


Jeffery Hudson - 1968
    Set against the ever-building pressure and pace of a large Boston medical center, the tensions flare-and explode-when a surgical operation tragically ends in death, raising countless questions. Was it accidental malpractice? A violation of the Hippocratic oath? Or cold-blooded murder?

Try Not to Breathe


Holly Seddon - 2016
    Only fifteen years old, Amy disappeared walking home from school one day and was found in a coma three days later. Her attacker was never identified and her angelic face was plastered across every paper and nightly news segment.Fifteen years later, Amy lies in the hospital, surrounded by 90’s Britpop posters, forgotten by the world until reporter Alex Dale stumbles across her while researching a routine story on vegetative patients.Remembering Amy’s story like it was yesterday, she feels compelled to solve the long-cold case.The only problem is, Alex is just as lost as Amy—her alcoholism has cost her everything including her marriage and her professional reputation.In the hopes that finding Amy’s attacker will be her own salvation as well, Alex embarks on a dangerous investigation, suspecting someone close to Amy.Told in the present by an increasingly fragile Alex and in dream-like flashbacks by Amy as she floats in a fog of memories, dreams, and music from 1995, Try Not to Breathe unfolds layer by layer to a breathtaking conclusion.

Devil's Corner


Lisa Scottoline - 2005
    Attorney Vicki Allegretti goes to meet a confidential informant and finds herself facing a loaded 9 mm Glock semiautomatic weapon, wielded by a panicky teenager. Violence is the last thing this neophyte lawyer expects. The case is easy, the kind given to new ADAs to help them cut their teeth. Yet almost before she has time to react, her partner is dead, shot in the chest.From that high-octane introduction to her job, Vicki vows to continue with the case, protect her informant, and find the shadowy figure behind the death of her partner. This decision will take her to the depths of the federal detention center’s “bowl,” to a row house on the street where she grew up, and to the posh suburbs where her parents now live. Set against the gritty backdrop of a modern American city and imbued with Lisa Scottoline’s trademark style and wit, Cater Street is the story of a determined young lawyer seeking justice.

Long After Midnight


Iris Johansen - 1997
    She wanted to save lives.  The killer wanted to end hers.The first warning was triggered hundreds of miles away.  The second warning exploded only yards from where she and her son stood.  Now Kate Denby realizes the frightening truth:  She is somebody's target.Danger has arrived in Kate's backyard with a vengeance.  And the gifted scientist is awakening to a nightmare world where a ruthless killer is stalking her...where her innocent son is considered expendable...and where the medical research to which she has devoted her life is the same research that could get her killed.  Her only hope of protecting her family and making that medical breakthrough is to elude her enemy until she can face him on her own ground, on her own terms—and destroy him.

The Secretary


Renée Knight - 2019
    Danvers in Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.From her first day as Personal Assistant to the celebrated Mina Appleton, Christine Butcher understands what is expected of her. Absolute loyalty. Absolute discretion. For twenty years, Christine has been a most devoted servant, a silent witness to everything in Mina’s life. So quiet, you would hardly know she is there.Day after day, year after year, Christine has been there, invisible—watching, listening, absorbing all the secrets floating around her. Keeping them safe.Christine is trusted. But those years of loyalty and discretion come with a high price. And eventually Christina will pay.Yet, it would be a mistake to underestimate such a steadfast woman. Because as everyone is about to discover, there’s a dangerous line between obedience and obsession.

False Step


Victoria Helen Stone - 2019
    In this marriage of secrets and lies, nothing is what it seems.For days, all of Denver, Colorado, has worried over the fate of a missing child, little Tanner Holcomb. Then, a miracle: handsome, athletic Johnny Bradley finds him, frightened but unharmed, on a hiking trail miles from his wealthy family’s mountain home.In a heartbeat, his rescuer goes from financially strapped fitness trainer to celebrated hero. The heat of the spotlight may prove too much for Johnny’s picture-perfect family, however. His wife, Veronica, despises the pressure of the sudden fame, afraid that secrets and bitter resentments of her marriage may come to light. And she’s willing to do anything to keep them hidden.But when a shocking revelation exposes an even darker side to Tanner’s disappearance, Veronica realizes that nothing in her life can be trusted. And everything should be feared.

The Cutting Crew


Steve Mosby - 2006
    Four months on, that group is in disarray. Sean has disappeared into the city's black heart and not returned, and Martin is separated from his job, his wife, and his friends. But then a simple note from his ex-partner forces him to re-enter an investigation he'd rather forget. "I found her," it says. The search leads him from one side of the city to the other in a downward spiral of violence and pain, and drags him into the orbit of the things that are really wrong with the city—the eight brothers rumored by legend to have control over everything.

I Am Watching You


Teresa Driscoll - 2017
    But just as she’s decided to call for help, something stops her. The next day, she wakes up to the news that one of the girls—beautiful, green-eyed Anna Ballard—has disappeared.A year later, Anna is still missing. Ella is wracked with guilt over what she failed to do, and she’s not the only one who can’t forget. Someone is sending her threatening letters—letters that make her fear for her life.Then an anniversary appeal reveals that Anna’s friends and family might have something to hide. Anna’s best friend, Sarah, hasn’t been telling the whole truth about what really happened that night—and her parents have been keeping secrets of their own.Someone knows where Anna is—and they’re not telling. But they are watching Ella.Listening Length: 8 hours and 26 minutes

Deception Point


Dan Brown - 2001
    A conspiracy of staggering brilliance. A thriller unlike any you've ever read....When a NASA satellite discovers an astonishingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory—a victory with profound implications for NASA policy and the impending presidential election. To verify the authenticity of the find, the White House calls upon the skills of intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic scholar Michael Tolland, Rachel travels to the Arctic and uncovers the unthinkable: evidence of scientific trickery—a bold deception that threatens to plunge the world into controversy. But before she can warn the President, Rachel and Michael are ambushed by a deadly team of assassins. Fleeing for their lives across a desolate and lethal landscape, their only hope for survival is to discover who is behind this masterful plot. The truth, they will learn, is the most shocking deception of all.