Book picks similar to
Skin and Bone by Keary Taylor
thriller
romantic-suspense
mystery
psych-thriller
A Secondhand Lie
Pamela Crane - 2018
Things that you can never un-know. Things that will change the course of your life…and the fate of the ones you love. I found her in our living room, bleeding and close to death, but alive. Barely. Until morning stole her last breath. The media called her killer the “Triangle Terror” … and then forgot about her. But I never forgot—my murdered sister, and an investigation that led to my own resurrection from the dead. Twenty-two years ago, on a cold February night, Landon Worthington lost his father for the last time. After an armed robbery gone wrong, evidence and witness testimony pointed a shaky finger at Dan Worthington—deadbeat dad and alcoholic husband. But before the dust could settle over the conviction, Landon’s preteen sister, Alexis, is murdered in their home, plunging Landon’s life into further despair. Two decades and a cold case later, Landon is dogged by guilt over their estranged relationship and decides to confront his incarcerated father-of-the-year about what really happened the night of the robbery. But the years of lies are hard to unravel. And the biggest question of all haunts him: How does everything tie into his sister’s murder? And so begins Landon’s journey to piece together the puzzle of secrets, lies, and truths that can free his father, avenge his sister, and perhaps save himself. A short mystery perfect for fans of Robert Dugoni's Third Watch and Dean Koontz's The Neighbor. Read as a standalone or as the companion book to A Secondhand Life.
Whispered Lies
Kathleen Brooks - 2016
Without knowing the full scope of the scandal, the president decides to turn to the one person he knows he can trust—former FBI Agent, Elizabeth James. Her deep distrust of the system is rooted in her unfair discharge from service. Now she sees a chance to restore her reputation and send a message to those that would use their power to destroy others' lives. Elizabeth is ordered to do whatever it takes to end this criminal organization, but she's also told that this is completely off the books. Nothing can point back to the president until the entire network is dismantled. Elizabeth can only rely on her team comprised of a computer whiz and a former Air Force Pararescueman to get to the bottom of the leaks. Every decision could cost them their freedom . . . or their lives. What Elizabeth didn't count on was her heart becoming as entangled as the lies she tells to uncover the truth. With her heart now in the game, Elizabeth works on guarding those she loves as she dives headfirst into danger. Can Elizabeth follow the leads and take out the leaders of the secret group before the whole world is thrown into chaos?
Death at Sunrise: a 509 Crime Short Story
Colin Conway - 2020
Was it suicide or was it something else?Spokane County Detective Shane McAfee must unravel the mystery.Discover The 509 Crime Stories with this free short story.Then check out the books
The Side Hustle
The Long Cold Winter
The Blind Trust
The Suit
What readers are saying about The Side Hustle★★★★★ “… just looking for my next thriller fix, I discovered this gem.” – John Barksley★★★★★ “… a great read! A different kind of police procedural.” – Mickey★★★★★ “This book was hard to put down.” – Amazon Customer★★★★★ “…kept me reading.” – Mary Arnold★★★★★ “Loved my first foray into the 509 series… and Quinn!” – Cynthiareads★★★★★ “The story is well crafted and kept me quickly ‘turning the pages.’” – Sally★★★★★ “Great read. Very enjoyable.” – Amy Dalton
Tuesday's Child
Dale Mayer - 2011
Shunned and ridiculed all her life for something she can’t control, Samantha Blair hides her psychic abilities and lives on the fringes of society. Against her will, however, she’s tapped into a killer—or rather, his victims. Each woman’s murder, blow-by-blow, ravages her mind until their death releases her back to her body. Sam knows she must go to the authorities, but will the rugged, no-nonsense detective in charge of tracking down the killer believe her? Detective Brandt Sutherland only trusts hard evidence, yet Sam’s visions offer clues he needs to catch a killer. The more he learns about her incredible abilities, however, the clearer it becomes that Sam’s visions have put her in the killer’s line of fire. Now Brandt must save her from something he cannot see or understand…and risk losing his heart in the process. As danger and desire collide, passion raises the stakes in a game Sam and Brandt don’t dare lose. Length - 90,000 words. Excerpt Agony. Pain. Terror. A voice whispered through the blackness of her mind, so odd, so different it caught her attention. She strained to hear the words. “Let go. It’s time to let go.” Sam stared through the flames, stunned. Let go of what? She couldn’t hear over the roaring fire and could barely see, but knowing that someone was there stirred her survival instinct, and she fought with the seatbelt buckle jammed at her side. She was saved. Just another minute and they’d open the door and pull her free. She’d be fine. “Please hurry,” she cried out. “Let go. You don’t need to be in there. Let it all go, and come with me.” She peered through the golden orange windshield to see a strange male face peering at her through the flames. He smiled. “Come with me.” “I want to, damn it. Can’t you see I’m trapped?” she screamed, her vocals crisping in the heat. “Release yourself. Come with me. Say yes.” The pain hit a crescendo. She twisted against it, hearing her spine splinter. The car seat melted into her skin. So much pain, she couldn’t breathe. Blackness crowded into her mind, blessed quiet, soothing darkness. She reached for it. “Let it go. You don’t need to go through this. Hurry.” She started. Why wasn’t he opening the door or getting others to help? He should be trying to save her. Shouldn’t he? Sam, so confused and so tired, she could barely feel the pain overtaking her body. Where had he gone? She tried to concentrate. His face was now only a vague outline that rippled with the heat waves. A soft smile played at the corner of his mouth. The flames burned around him, weird as they centered him in the warm glow. She wanted to be with him. To live. “Here, take my hand.” Dazed and on the brink of death, Sam focused on the hand reaching for her. She struggled to raise the charred piece of flesh that had been her arm and reached out to grasp his. She was free. Overwhelmed, she turned to hug her savior, her head just reaching his shoulder. He stood beside her, the same radiant beaming look on his face. His blond hair glowed, and he had the brightest teeth. She sighed. This beautiful man pointed to her right arm. Confused, Sam glanced down at her burned arm, realizing she could feel none of her injuries. Just like her other one, her broken arm had miraculously healed – whole, smooth and soft. Her skin hadn’t looked this good in ten years. She spun around to find a massive fireball below. What the hell? She had to be dead.
Devil Dealing
Ian Patrick - 2015
Lead detective Jeremy Ryder is a physically powerful, quiet and meticulous investigator. His partner Navi Pillay is a small and exceptionally strong Tamil martial arts instructor, and she provides the speed and physical power to complement Ryder's incisive sleuthing abilities. Together with their other detective colleagues Ryder and Pillay crack open two interwoven criminal operations. There are two key villains. One is a corrupt murderous senior police officer at the heart of the illegal gambling operation and the other is a sinister and violent gangster dealing in drugs and murder. Each of them presides over lesser criminals and each of them controls separate domains of corruption until their paths cross in a spectacular climax.
Exclusive
Sandra Brown - 1996
Then, suddenly, she receives an invitation from First Lady Vanessa Merritt for an off-the-record conversation. Barrie's reporter's instincts are instantly aroused. During a furtive, emotionally charged meeting, Barrie sees that the President's beautiful wife is stunned by grief after the crib death of her infant son. Vanessa's motive for meeting Barrie seems to be to share her heartache with another woman. What Barrie overlooks in her excitement at hearing the confidences of the First Lady are the questions she should be asking: Why would Vanessa Merritt call her? And why would the President's wife hint to an unknown reporter that her child may have been murdered? Blind to everything but getting her exclusive, Barrie is determined to investigate the death of the President's child. But she soon realizes that getting her story will test her ethics and her patriotism. Would she expose information that could topple the presidency? She confronts this problem when she tracks down Gray Bondurant, a former presidential aide and war hero who shunned the politics of Washington in favor of life on a remote Wyoming ranch. And when they both begin to follow a trail of lies and intrigue right to the White House door, Barrie's exclusive puts at least three people on the firing line: the First Lady, Gray, and herself - as crimes and ambitions combine to endanger their lives and the future of the nation.
The Bane Affair
Alison Kent - 2004
Unimaginably skilled, they’re the spies you want on your side…of the bed.Christian Bane is a man of few words who battles demons rooted in a woman’s betrayal, and being left to die in a Thai prison. All these years later, he still isn’t free of the past.Now Spectra IT, the crime syndicate responsible for his imprisonment, has recruited a computer scientist facing his own death sentence to hack critical government encryption technology. Christian, a member of the elite Smithson Group, SG-5, has been tasked with stopping him.Posing as a womanizing Spectra boss, Christian gets up close and personal with the scientist’s goddaughter, Natasha Gaudet, who handles his business affairs, and is the most obvious way in.But the closer Christian gets to Natasha, the harder it is to deceive her. The fact that she knows nothing about her godfather’s dealings has Christian wondering who fed him the faulty intel.Because if she isn’t the criminal he’s been led to believe, they’re both being taken for a very dangerous ride. And if he doesn’t face his demons and trust her, neither one of them will survive.
Killer Cupcakes
Leighann Dobbs - 2012
She's finally opened her dream bakery, gotten rid of her cheating boyfriend and settled into her grandmothers house with her perky dog Sprinkles at her side.But her blissful life doesn't last long. When her ex boyfriend is found poisoned with cupcakes from her bakery, Lexy finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation headed up by her hunky neighbor detective Jack Perillo.With the help of a gang of iPad toting, would-be detective grandmothers, Lexy decides to take it upon herself to find the real murderer in order to clear her name and get her bakery back in business. As things heat up on the murder trail, in the kitchen and between Lexy and the hunky detective, it's a race against time to put the real murderer behind bars and get back to baking.Will Lexy get her man?
Storm Island
Linda Watkins - 2018
A second-year-resident in surgery, she thinks she has her life under control. But a curious conversation overheard while taking a catnap launches her on a descent into a world filled with nightmarish visions that cause her to doubt her own sanity.Sent to Storm Island to rest and recuperate from an apparent breakdown, Kate is forced to come to grips with memories of the summer her mother died as well as new terrors that plague her mind. Even the blossoming of an unexpected romance with islander, Jeremy Bradshaw, cannot keep her fears at bay for long.The discovery of a strange little silo, hidden deep in the woods, spurs Kate to action as she tries to unravel its mysteries. But is the silo real or just another illusion created by her tortured mind? Storm Island, A Kate Pomeroy Mystery, is the first book in a series of mysteries taking place on Storm, a remote island off the coast of Maine.
Tangled Web
Wendy Saunders - 2017
There's only one thing missing... her sister.Cassandra hasn't seen her sister since the night their wealthy, prominent father died from a massive heart attack. She had only been five years old at the time and can barely recall the events of that night. All she can remember was that men came to the house and that it was the last time she saw her sister. Her alcoholic, emotionally unstable mother refuses to discuss her and will only say that she had been sent away to an exclusive boarding school in Europe. But, as the years pass by with no word from her, Cassandra begins to suspect there is more to her father's death and her sister's disappearance than she first thought.Desperate to find answers she hires a private investigator, but when he turns up dead it becomes clear someone doesn't want her looking into her family's past. When wealthy businessman Jackson Evans stumbles into her life, with problems of his own, they realize his family and hers are inexplicably entwined in a web of deceit and murder, which spans two decades.One by one, everyone who was in her home the night of her Father's death, begin to die under suspicious circumstances and it becomes a race against time to uncover the truth, before she becomes the next victim.
Club Alpha
Marata Eros - 2015
May contain triggers.Francisco “Paco” Castillo is a bilingual billionaire with unconventional ideas about love, sex and possession. He believes there is no other half to make him whole. Paco dreams of experimenting with a dangerous reality not of his own making. Club Alpha owner, Zaire Sebastian, can make Paco's vision a reality—for a price.Greta Dahlem is an extreme sports executive whose ambition masks a terrible secret. When her mentor Gia Township, sponsors her as a player in Club Alpha, Greta's unsure she can survive the inherent risk of the game Zaire weaves. But in her heart, Greta yearns for a man who will complete her, and erase the brutal tragedy of two years ago.As the fantasy progresses, Greta comes to realize she is the loose string in a plot of murder and deception that begins to unravel. Without knowing who to trust, Greta must decide between two men. When the three are thrown together, the lines of reality and fantasy blur.Is there any way for her to know what is real?Cliff-hanger freeStandalone novelHEAPsychological Dark Romantic Suspense.
The Bones of Others
Vickie McKeehan - 2013
Not this one.Brutalized as a young girl by a vile sexual predator, Skye Cree is a survivor. Guided by the visions of her mystical spirit guide to the whereabouts of abducted girls, she uses her unique abilities to turn her horrifying past into a positive force for justice. Fighting the demons that have haunted her for years, she trusts only in herself—until she falls hard for a man for the first time in her life. Now, discovering her abductor is back with a vengeance, she becomes locked in a deadly race against time to stop the horrors of an evil human-trafficking ring that threatens to tear her world, and her newfound love apart.
Twisted
Aleatha Romig - 2019
It’s a world where knowledge means power, power money, and money everything. While I paid the ultimate price to have it all, it wasn’t my decision to give my life.. That doesn’t mean I ceased to exist, only to live.Going where the job takes me and living in the shadows, with deadly accuracy I utilize the skills inherent to me, not knowing from where they came, not recalling what I’d lost. And then I saw her.Laurel Carlson.I shouldn’t want her, desire her, or need her, yet with each sighting I know she is exactly what I have to have. Laurel has the ability to do what I thought was impossible. She sees what others don’t. My gut tells me that it’s a deadly mistake to change my plans and open my world to her. My mind says she’ll be repulsed by my twisted existence. None of that matters, because my body won’t take no for an answer. I’ve made dangerous mistakes before.This time, will the price be too high?From New York Times bestselling author Aleatha Romig comes a brand-new dark romance bringing us back to the same dangerous underworld as SECRETS. You do not need to read the Web of Sin trilogy to get caught in this new and intriguing saga, Tangled Web. TWISTED is book one of the TANGLED WEB trilogy which will continue in OBSESSED and conclude in BOUND.Have you been Aleatha’d?
Come with Me
Ronald Malfi - 2021
Haunted by her absence--and her ghost--Aaron goes through her belongings, where he finds a receipt for a motel room in another part of the country. Piloted by grief and an increasing sense of curiosity, Aaron embarks on a journey to discover what Allison had been doing in the weeks prior to her death.Yet Aaron is unprepared to discover the dark secrets Allison kept, the death and horror that make up the tapestry of her hidden life. And with each dark secret revealed, Aaron becomes more and more consumed by his obsession to learn the terrifying truth about the woman who had been his wife, even if it puts his own life at risk.
Dirty Blue
N.E. Henderson - 2018
A badge. A life. A promise to walk the thin blue line clean. Nowhere in the academy was I prepared for the consequences of falling for the enemy.
DRAGO ACERBI I've known his name a long time. You'd have to live under a rock not to know of the heartless and cruel reputation the Acerbi family has established. They are monsters cloaked in suits and ties, or so my colleagues in blue have said. Being on the job, you quickly learn to watch your back, trust no one, and as much as I hate to admit this, sometimes that includes a fellow badge. But to want to kill your own child for being born? Now that's monstrous. Unjust. And something I will not stand for. I'll take him down before I allow an innocent to be harmed. Even if that means not only taking on the most dangerous family in Southern California but bringing down the drug lord they're in bed with too.
From author N. E. Henderson comes a contemporary, emotionally captivating and thrilling, romantic suspense trilogy. Start Bri and Drago's intense story today!
♥♥♥ This is not a standalone and the saga does not conclude until the third book. ♥♥♥