Book picks similar to
Flat White by Bob Truluck
crime
crime-noir
mystery-legal
novel
Blessed Are the Dead
Kristi Belcamino - 2014
To catch a killer, one reporter must risk it all ...San Francisco Bay Area newspaper reporter Gabriella Giovanni spends her days on the crime beat, flitting in and out of other people's nightmares, yet walking away unscathed. When a little girl disappears on the way to the school bus stop, her quest for justice and a front-page story leads her to a convicted kidnapper, Jack Dean Johnson, who reels her in with promises to reveal his exploits as a serial killer. But Gabriella's passion for her job quickly spirals into obsession when she begins to suspect the kidnapper may have ties to her own dark past: her sister's murder.Risking her life, her job, and everything she holds dear, Gabriella embarks on a quest to find answers and stop a deranged murderer before he strikes again.Perfect for fans of Sue Grafton and Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan series!
The Kiln
William McIlvanney - 1996
With school behind him and a summer job at a brick works, Tom had his whole life before him. Years later, alone in a rented flat in Edinburgh and lost in memories, Tom recalls the intellectual and sexual awakening of his youth. In looking back, Tom discovers that only by understanding where he comes from can he make sense of his life as it is now.
The Woods
Harlan Coben - 2007
Her body was never found. Now, Paul is the prosecutor for Essex County, New Jersey, immersed in one of the biggest cases of his career-a case that will change everything he believes about the past...and the truth.
In a Lonely Place
Dorothy B. Hughes - 1947
The suggestively named Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect. Dix knows enough to watch his step, especially since his best friend is on the force, but when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray—a femme fatale with brains—something begins to crack. The basis for extraordinary performances by Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in the 1950 film version of the book, In a Lonely Place tightens the suspense with taut, hard-boiled prose and stunningly undoes the conventional noir plot.
Memory Man
David Baldacci - 2015
A big, towering athlete, he was the only person from his hometown of Burlington ever to go pro. But his career ended before it had a chance to begin. On his very first play, a violent helmet-to-helmet collision knocked him off the field for good, and left him with an improbable side effect--he can never forget anything.The second time was at home nearly two decades later. Now a police detective, Decker returned from a stakeout one evening and entered a nightmare--his wife, young daughter, and brother-in-law had been murdered.His family destroyed, their killer's identity as mysterious as the motive behind the crime, and unable to forget a single detail from that horrible night, Decker finds his world collapsing around him. He leaves the police force, loses his home, and winds up on the street, taking piecemeal jobs as a private investigator when he can.But over a year later, a man turns himself in to the police and confesses to the murders. At the same time a horrific event nearly brings Burlington to its knees, and Decker is called back in to help with this investigation. Decker also seizes his chance to learn what really happened to his family that night. To uncover the stunning truth, he must use his remarkable gifts and confront the burdens that go along with them. He must endure the memories he would much rather forget. And he may have to make the ultimate sacrifice.Memory Man will stay with you long after the turn of the final page.
George Gently Omnibus (Books 1-4)
Alan Hunter - 2012
For most people, that would easily qualify as the holiday from hell. For George Gently, it is a case of business as usual. The Chief Inspector's quiet Easter break in Norchester is rudely interrupted when a local timber merchant is found dead. His son, with whom he had been seen arguing, immediately becomes the prime suspect, although Gently is far from convinced of his guilt. Norchester City Police gratefully accept Gently's offer to help investigate the murder, but he soon clashes with Inspector Hansom, the officer in charge of the case. Hansom's idea of conclusive evidence appals Gently almost as much as Gently's thorough, detailed, methodical style of investigation exasperates Hansom, who considers the murder to be a straightforward affair.Locking horns with the local law is a distraction Gently can do without when he's on the trail of a killer.GENTLY BY THE SHORE: You'll find plenty of bodies stretched out on a summer beach - but they're not usually dead...In a British seaside holiday resort at the height of the season, you would expect to find a promenade and a pier, maybe some donkeys, 'Kiss-Me-Quick' hats, candy floss and kids building sandcastles. You would not expect to find a naked corpse, punctured with stab wounds, lying on the sand.Chief Inspector George Gently is called in to investigate the disturbing murder. The case has to be wrapped up quickly to calm the nerves of concerned holidaymakers. No one wants to think that there is a maniac on the loose in the town but with no clothes or identifying marks on the body, Gently has a tough time establishing who the victim is, let alone finding the killer. In the meantime, who knows where or when the murderer might strike again?GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM: Time spent messing about on the river isn't supposed to end with a brutal murder.The staff at Stoley's Boatyard were used to holidaymakers returning their pleasure cruisers a little late after a week or so exploring the network of waterways around Norchester. They were not used to finding their yachts burned almost beyond recognition with the charred remains of a client still aboard.Taking on the murder investigation, Chief Inspector George Gently faces an enquiry like no other he has ever handled. Somewhere beneath the lies of the victim's wife, somewhere obscured by the brittle edge of her daughter's fear, somewhere hidden by her son's hysteria, lies the truth. Gently's only hope is to sweep aside the litter of chaos and confusion to uncover the identity of the killer.LANDED GENTLY: Having been invited to spend Christmas in the country, fishing for pike, Gently finds himself hunting a completely different predator when a guest at Merely Hall, a nearby stately home, is found dead at the foot of the grand staircase on Christmas morning.At first the tragedy is assumed to be a simple accident, but Gently is not one to jump to conclusions and is soon in no doubt whatsoever that this was murder. Merely produces the finest tapestries in England but the threads that Gently must unravel in his investigation are more complex than any weaver's design, with everyone from the lord of the manor to his most lowly servant falling under suspicion.
The Jack Harvey Novels: Witch Hunt; Bleeding Hearts; Blood Hunt
Jack Harvey - 2000
For years, Interpol have tried, and failed, to find her. But now Scotland Yard, MI5 and Witch obsessive Dominic Elder are all out to hunt the hunter. Suddenly she’s vulnerable—and visible.Bleeding HeartsHit man Michael Weston has a problem. His latest job has been carried out with habitual, cool precision but now the police are on to him. Has he been set up? Weston knows his reputation, and his life, are at stake as never before.Blood HuntGordon Reeve is a survival expert in the Scottish Highlands with an SAS past well behind him. Then his brother is murdered in San Diego and all the signs point to Reeve heading towards the same fate. The difference is that Reeve is a trained killer, now forced back into an all too familiar way of life.
The Late Show
Michael Connelly - 2017
A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.But one night she catches two cases she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job no matter what the department throws at her.
Chill Factor
Sandra Brown - 2005
Not so, lately. Four women have disappeared from Cleary over the past two years. And there’s always a blue ribbon left near the spot where each of the women was last seen. There are no bodies, no other clues, and no suspicion as to who their abductor might be. And now, another woman has disappeared without a trace. It is to this backdrop that Lilly Martin returns to close the sale of her mountain cabin, marking the end of her turbulent eight-year marriage to Dutch Burton, Cleary’s chief of police. Dutch’s reluctance to let her go isn’t Lilly’s only obstacle. As she’s trying to outrun a snowstorm, her car skids on the icy road and strikes a man who emerges from the woods on foot. She recognizes the injured man as Ben Tierney, whom she’d met the previous summer. They’re forced to wait out the storm in the cabin, but as the hours of their confinement mount, Lilly begins to wonder if the greatest danger to her safety isn’t the blizzard outside, but the mysterious man right beside her. Is Ben Tierney the feared abductor? Or is he who he claims to be...her rescuer from harm and from the tragedy that haunts her?
Sunset Beach
Mary Kay Andrews - 2019
Out of a job and down on her luck, life doesn’t seem to be getting any better when her estranged father, Brice Campbell, a flamboyant personal injury attorney, shows up at her mother’s funeral after a twenty-year absence. Worse, he’s remarried – to Drue’s eighth grade frenemy, Wendy, now his office manager. And they’re offering her a job.It seems like the job from hell, but the offer is sweetened by the news of her inheritance – her grandparents’ beach bungalow in the sleepy town of Sunset Beach, a charming but storm-damaged eyesore now surrounded by waterfront McMansions.With no other prospects, Drue begrudgingly joins the firm, spending her days screening out the grifters whose phone calls flood the law office. Working with Wendy is no picnic either. But when a suspicious death at an exclusive beach resort nearby exposes possible corruption at her father’s firm, she goes from unwilling cubicle rat to unwitting investigator, and is drawn into a case that may – or may not – involve her father. With an office romance building, a decades-old missing persons case re-opened, and a cottage in rehab, one thing is for sure at Sunset Beach: there’s a storm on the horizon.Sunset Beach is a compelling ride, full of Mary Kay Andrews' signature wit, heart, and charm.
Blood Defense
Marcia Clark - 2016
J. Simpson trial prosecutor Marcia Clark, a “terrific writer and storyteller” (James Patterson).
Samantha Brinkman, an ambitious, hard-charging Los Angeles criminal defense attorney, is struggling to make a name for herself and to drag her fledgling practice into the big leagues. Sam lands a high-profile double-murder case in which one of the victims is a beloved TV star—and the defendant is a decorated veteran LAPD detective. It promises to be exactly the kind of media sensation that would establish her as a heavy hitter in the world of criminal law.Though Sam has doubts about his innocence, she and her two associates (her closest childhood friend and a brilliant ex-con) take the case. Notorious for living by her own rules—and fearlessly breaking everyone else’s—Samantha pulls out all the stops in her quest to uncover evidence that will clear the detective. But when a shocking secret at the core of the case shatters her personal world, Sam realizes that not only has her client been playing her, he might be one of the most dangerous sociopaths she’s ever encountered.
The Lyttleton Case
R.A.V. Morris - 1922
Morris.The chance discovery of a young man’s body floating in a Sussex stream provides the first clue to the mysterious disappearance of Sir James Lyttleton, who sent his daughter a curt wire announcing his departure for America before completely vanishing. But this is no ordinary missing persons inquiry – when Sir James’s body turns up inside another man’s coffin, journalist James Dawson and Chief Inspector Candlish of Scotland Yard find themselves on the trail of a particularly ruthless and ingenious murderer.This Detective Story Club classic is introduced by author and editor Douglas A. Anderson, whose authoritative books on Kenneth Morris led to the discovery of R.A.V. Morris’s true identity.
The Sound of Rain
Gregg Olsen - 2016
Driven off the force by her treacherous partner and lover, she’s flat broke and struggling with a gambling addiction. All Nicole has left is the dream of a warm bed at a homeless shelter and the haunting memories of three-year-old Kelsey Chase—whose murder case ended her career.As Nicole obsesses over the old facts, she realizes everything about that case felt off: a disinterested mom, a suicidal pedophile, and too many questions left unanswered. When the little girl’s grieving father begs Nicole for help, she’s drawn back into the investigation…and given one shot at redemption.But the deeper Nicole digs, the more evil she uncovers, including betrayals that hit painfully close to home. Will a shocking discovery be the key to finally getting justice for Kelsey and resurrecting her own life?
Sirens
Joseph Knox - 2017
Pulling it off while also rescuing Isabelle Rossiter, a runaway politician's daughter, from Zain's influence? Impossible. That's why Aidan Waits is the perfect man for the job. Disgraced, emotionally damaged and despised by his superiors. In other words, completely expendable.But Aidan is a born survivor. And as he works his way deep into Zain's shadowy world, he finds that nothing is as it seems. Zain is a mesmerizing, Gatsby-esque figure who lures young women into his orbit--women who have a bad habit of turning up dead. But is Zain really responsible? And will Isabelle be next?Before long, Aidan finds himself in over his head, cut loose by his superiors, and dangerously attracted to the wrong woman.How can he save the girl if he can't even save himself?