Book picks similar to
Play a Cold Hand (Scott Elliott Mystery #5) by Terence Faherty


private-investigator
recommended
category-mystery-crime
good-read

A Cabinet of Wonders


Renee Dodd - 2006
    Set in 1927, this novel confronts the spectacle of the freak show, steps through the curtains and out the other side, taking the reader to a candid, complex and human space where they can know outsiders as intimates.

Under the Bright Lights


Daniel Woodrell - 1986
    Now, Shade's quest for the truth leads him on a chilling chase through a treacherous swamp of leeches and cottonmouths--while dodging his own unresolved past.

Trajectory Book 1


Robert M. Campbell - 2015
    Back on the planet, a group of students discover a mysterious object in space in an impossible orbit. The crew of the Lighthouse space station are shocked by a devastating accident that throws their routine into chaos as they strive to get their ships safely home. Cut off from Earth, the sub-surface Martian Colony of New Providence suddenly finds itself in peril from something hostile and unknown. Is it alien? Is it an AI from Old Earth? After five generations enduring the harsh conditions on Mars, will the 50,000 citizens of New Providence survive this new and terrifying threat?

Charles Fort and the Beast of Loch Ness (Charles Fort Historical Mysteries #2)


T.E. Scott - 2016
    Together they must investigate a strange murder at Boleskine House on the banks of Loch Ness. But what dark creature lurks at the heart of the Loch? And what do the murders have to do with Boleskine’s most infamous resident, Aleister Crowley? Second in the Charles Fort Historical Mysteries series by TE Scott, for fans of Golden Age style detectives and historical mysteries.

The Godwulf Manuscript


Robert B. Parker - 1973
    He is hardly surprised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest.The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't finish his assignment soon, he could end up marked "D" -- for dead.

The Last Gasp


Chautona Havig - 2021
    He just never imagined trading the silver screen for a pulpit would wreak such havoc.A cigarillo girl, Lucinda Ashton spends her days with her boyfriend, Gary, and her evenings selling candy and “gaspers” to the Hollywood elite at the Taj Mahal Theater.However, when gunshots ring out just as intermission begins, Lucinda finds herself smack-dab in the middle of a brouhaha that leaves three dead, and no one has a clue why.All the police know is that the evidence points to Lucinda as the killer and Gary as the intended target.Four new friends, one young orphan, and a potluck of clues that don’t seem to fit anywhere leave the police baffled, Lucinda in fear for her freedom, and Gary ready to trade in his acting shoes for gumshoes if it’ll save his “Cinda.”The first book in the Ever After Mysteries combining beloved fairy tales and mysteries, The Last Gasp. This Cinderella retelling blends a murder with enough crime and story clues to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Night Life


David C. Taylor - 2015
    Taylor.New York City in 1954. The Cold War is heating up. Senator Joe McCarthy is running a witch hunt for Communists in America. The newly formed CIA is fighting a turf battle with the FBI to see who will be the primary US intelligence agency. And the bodies of murdered young men are turning up in the city.Michael Cassidy has an unusual background for a New York cop. His father, a refugee from Eastern Europe, is a successful Broadway producer. His godfather is Frank Costello, a Mafia boss. Cassidy also has an unusual way of going about the business of being a cop-maybe that's why he threw a fellow officer out a third story window of the Cortland Hotel.Cassidy is assigned to the case of Alexander Ingram, a Broadway chorus dancer found tortured and dead in his apartment in Hell's Kitchen. Complications grow as other young men are murdered one after the other. And why are the FBI, the CIA, and the Mafia interested in the death of a Broadway gypsy?Meanwhile, a mysterious, beautiful woman moves into Cassidy's building in Greenwich Village. Is Dylan McCue a lover or an enemy? Cassidy is plagued by nightmares-dreams that sometimes become reality. And he has been dreaming that someone is coming to kill him.

Rough Cider


Peter Lovesey - 1986
    in World War II England.“When I was nine, I fell in love with a girl of twenty called Barbara, who killed herself.”Theo, a university lecturer, has his early life brought uncomfortably back when, in 1964 he is approached by an American girl called Alice. She wants to be told about her father, a GI hanged for murder in Somerset during World War II. As a boy, Theo had been a principal witness for the prosecution.Alice persuades him to revisit the farm where Theo was evacuated. She is too young to have known her father, but is staunchly determined to discover the true facts. The horrors of the past take on a frightening immediacy when another murder is committed.

On the Fifth Day


A.J. Hartley - 2007
    But Thomas and curator Deborah Miller aren't alone in retracing the priest's final steps. They're followed by fanatics desperate to hide the secret stumbled upon by Thomas's brother-and willing to kill to keep it buried forever.

Cold Florida


Phillip DePoy - 2016
    Foggy Moskowitz, a Jewish car thief on the run from the Brooklyn authorities, ends up in Florida working for the first office of Child Protective Service. For personal reasons. An unlikely, but tenacious, child protection officer, he takes on an investigation to find a missing infant, taken from the hospital by her addict mother. But the case takes several unexpected turns as Foggy makes his way from seedy Fry's Bay to Indian Seminole swampland, undertaking a vision quest, a rite of passage in some Native American cultures, in the process. Along the way he encounters more than a few interesting characters, including John Horse, an Indian mystic, and works to foil a vast land-grab scam by an uber-rich felon.

Clea's Moon


Edward Wright - 2003
    Now, after two years in prison, John Ray Horn lives on the margins of post-World War II Los Angeles. His wife has left him, and, blacklisted by the studios, he makes ends meet by collecting debts for his old Indian co-star, Joseph Mad Crow. Then an old friend, Scotty, contacts Horn. He has come across some obscene photos, including one, several years old, of Horn's stepdaughter, Clea. Within days, Scotty is dead, and Clea has run away. Horn's search takes him from neon-lit ocean-front piers to wooded canyons, from rich homes in the Hollywood Hills to Central Avenue, the Harlem of LA, a street rich in jazz and corruption. But will the on-screen tough-guy hero be able to sustain his role off-screen?

The Other: A traditional clean Victorian Gothic (Gothika Series)


L.C. Kincaide - 2017
    She was wrong. New widow, Haley Colbrooke travels to Ashdown to meet her husband’s family and to visit his grave. The shocking news of their recent marriage is awkward enough. That her brother in-law is Lance’s identical twin is worse. Given her circumstances, she accepts the invitation to stay, which sets in motion a chain of events that will risk Haley losing all she has left. Rather than finding solace, she is drawn into past tragedies and deadly secrets. Perhaps coming to the family estate was a terrible mistake.

Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay


Gordon Carroll - 2020
    I do that when I'm considering pummeling someone.Gil Mason is a simple guy with complex problems. Cross Phillip Marlow with Caesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer, and you create a new breed of private eye; courage of a Pit Bull, heart of a Labrador.Max, Gil's K9 partner, has a few problems of his own. It's a love-hate relationship. Part of Max wants to love his human master, while his alpha personality instinctively drives him to take control of the pack.So how does a former cop turned PI find a missing teenage boy who has been kidnapped by a corporate billionaire, while dealing with his own feelings of guilt and loneliness over the murder of his family, and keep his canine's homicidal tendencies in check? Brains, guns and fists combined with an intimate understanding of dog psychology.As long as Max doesn't eat him first.

Bullet for a Star


Stuart M. Kaminsky - 1977
    First published in 1977, Peters' first case has been out of print since 1987.

Salvation Boulevard


Larry Beinhart - 2008
    In Salvation Boulevard, P.I. Carl Van Wagener has found a case that tests them all, and then goes on to test his soul. A professor is dead and a suspect—who has confessed—is in custody. But nothing is what it seems. After all, the dead man is an atheist professor, the accused an Islamic foreign student, the defense attorney a Jew, and the detective a Born Again Christian. As Carl gets deeper and deeper into the investigation of the death of professor Nathaniel MacLeod, his most basic beliefs and relationships are tried and his world is turned upside down. The mega-church, the pastor, and his new wife who have redeemed Carl from a life of grim debauchery insist on his dropping the case. But he can't stop searching for the real killer and the truth—no matter what the personal cost.Salvation Boulevard is a page-turning thriller in the tradition of John Grisham and Richard Condon that grapples with the ecstatic and entropic nature of religious faith in contemporary America.