Book picks similar to
Twelve Days by Paul Williams


crime
mystery-thriller
crime-mystery
seasonal

Now You See Her


Paul J. Teague - 2019
    While the authorities draw a blank, Cory picks up the cold trail and finds there's something sinister going on in Shallow Falls--something he'll regret ever getting involved in. Now You See Her is an exciting new thriller about pain, loss and regret. The conspiracies deepen with each turn of the page, leading readers on a relentless pursuit for answers until the very end.

Eyes


Joseph Glass - 1997
    Across town, detectives examine a body in a bathtub. As with other victims, the eyes were taken by the dead woman's savage killer.Now the frantic search is on for the Coed Killer, a serial murderer who is targeting female college athletes. Cursed with psychic powers, Dr. Susan Shader is swept into the heart of the explosive case--until she makes a fatal mistake. While the media derides her, destroying her reputation, a homicidal mastermind knows she has seen him. And so she too must die. . . .

Gamble


Anita Waller - 2020
    They socialise together, they work in the same bookmakers and they support each other as only best friends can.Then they are murdered together.When DI Tom Fowler is handed the case, he discovers a journal that Carla has left and must unpick the secrets Lorraine has kept hidden.Soon Carla’s and Lorraine’s husbands become the main suspects. It’s usually the spouse who is responsible, isn’t it?The investigation progresses until Isaac West, Lorraine’s sixteen-year-old son, disappears.Will the truth ever emerge?Will Isaac ever be found?And is knowing the truth always worth the sacrifice?

Would You Die For Her


Linda S. Prather - 2020
    Darkness creates monsters.Everything in Dakota Dale’s life was measured before and after Christian Salyer. He’d kidnapped and tortured her, leaving behind a broken body and damaged mind. She’d convinced herself she killed him, but her memory was flawed and she no longer knew what was real. She only knew she was desperate to find the truth.Christian’s body was never found and the murders were starting again. Was Salyer still alive? Was Dakota following the trail of bodies, or were the bodies following her?The answers were trapped behind the barriers she’d built in her mind. Until a faded photograph with a chilling message arrived on her doorstep.Would you die for her?

Murderland


Pamela Murray - 2019
    When DI Joe Burton and DS Sally Fielding are called to investigate a suspicious death in a care home, it is just the start of their problems. As further bodies are discovered, with playing cards placed beside their bodies, the Manchester police realise they have their work cut out.With the press closing in on the case, a criminal profiler is called in to help work out what the killer’s motive is.With the clock ticking and more victims uncovered, Fielding and Burton must race to track down a twisted killer before it’s too late. But could the killer be closer to home than anyone ever imagined?

A Winter's Kill


J.K. Ellem - 2019
    During the fall he spent his months preparing, getting ready, making sure this season would be his best ever. And when winter finally comes…he’ll hunt.The winters in Willow Falls, Iowa are cold, brutal and unforgiving. And so is the town’s newest visitor. Except he’s not passing through. He’s here on vacation, for some fun and he’s going to stay for a while.They call him “Robin Hood”, a winter serial killer who has left a gruesome trail of horror and death across four Midwestern states. His grisly trademark is skewering his victims to tree trunks using a hunting crossbow.Now he’s here…For ex-FBI Special Agent Carolyn Ryder, winter is the season to reflect, to come home, to take stock and to grieve. Willow Falls for her is filled with sorrow and regret. She has returned to her hometown to bury her mother after a long battle with illness. Her sister blames Carolyn for not caring, for not being there for her and their mother, for being a cold, dispassionate person who was more interested in building her career than in the family.In the close-knit community of Willow Falls, Ryder has no reputation, no authority and no say with the townsfolk. To them she’s a stranger, an outsider, someone who can’t be trusted.Then the first body is discovered; a local, a teenage girl found almost crucified to a white pine deep in the forest. The local police aren’t equipped to deal with something like this, yet they stubbornly refuse Ryder’s help. With no support, Ryder decides to go it alone, to follow the clues herself, to trust her instincts. Slowly she starts to formulate a theory as to who the killer is. But no one will believe her. It’s too incredible to conceive.Lock the doors, check the windows, stoke the fire and keep the lights on. It’s winter, and a new kind of predator has just come out of hibernation.

A Simple Lie


Mary Bush - 2019
    With foreclosure looming she acts in desperation, lying to get a position as an assistant to the county medical examiner. Val’s relieved. She won’t be homeless. But Val didn’t count on the lie trapping her in a dangerous game with a killer. Val quickly becomes involved in the case of Francine Donohue, who disappeared from her neighbourhood and is discovered dead six months later. The bizarre circumstances surrounding the murder are not the first of their kind. With the evidence pointing to a serial killer, and a calling card Val understands, she quickly gets sucked into the case.   As Val is pulled in further, the situation takes a darker turn. Someone is aware of the lie she told. Someone who is prepared to kill…

The Last Kind Words


Tom Piccirilli - 2012
    Upon the razor-thin edge between love and violence lives a pair of brothers, their bonds frayed by betrayals and guilt, their loyalty to each other their last salvation.Raised to pick a pocket before he could walk, Terry Rand cut free from his family after his older brother, Collie, went on a senseless killing spree that left eight dead. Five years later, only days before his scheduled execution, Collie contacts Terry and asks him to return home. Collie claims he wasn’t responsible for one of the murders—and insists that the real killer is still on the loose.Dogged by his own demons, Terry is swept back into the schemes and scams of his family: His father, Pinsch, a retired cat burglar, brokenhearted because of his two sons. His card-sharp uncles, Mal and Grey, who’ve incurred the anger of the local mob. His grandfather, Shep, whose mind is failing but whose fingers can still slip out a wallet  from across the room. His teenage sister, Dale, who’s flirting dangerously with the lure of the family business. And Kimmie, the woman Terry abandoned, who’s now raising a child with Terry’s former best friend.  Terry pieces together the day his brother turned rabid, delving into a blood history that reveals the Rand family tree is rotten to the roots, and the secrets his ancestors buried are now coming furious and vengeful to the surface.A meditation on how love can confine a person just as easily as it can free him, juxtaposing shocking violence and sly humor, The Last Kind Words is the brilliantly inventive family saga that only a singular talent like Tom Piccirilli could conjure.

The Last One To See Her


Mark Tilbury - 2020
    So why did he lie?Mathew Hillock was the last person to see eleven-year-old Jodie Willis alive. When her dead body turns up four days later in his garden shed, the police think he’s guilty of her murder. So do most people in the town. But there’s no DNA evidence to link him to the crime. Battling the weight of public opinion and mental illness due to a childhood head trauma, he sinks into a deep depression. Can Mathew do what the police failed to do and find evidence linking the real killer to the crime?The Last One to See Her is a terrifying story of what happens when you’re accused of a crime and no one believes you are innocent

Impostor


L.J. Ross - 2019
    Forensic psychologist Doctor Alexander Gregory has a reputation for being able to step inside the darkest minds to uncover whatever secrets lie hidden there and, soon enough, he finds himself drawn into the murky world of murder investigation.In the beautiful hills of County Mayo, Ireland, a killer is on the loose. Panic has a stranglehold on its rural community and the Garda are running out of time. Gregory has sworn to follow a quiet life but, when the call comes, can he refuse to help their desperate search for justice?Murder and mystery are peppered with dark humour in this fast-paced thriller set amidst the spectacular Irish landscape.“LJ Ross keeps company with the best mystery writers” – The Times“A literary phenomenon” – Evening Chronicle“LJ Ross is the Queen of Kindle” – Sunday Telegraph

In Cold Blood


Jane Bettany - 2020
    The house she used to live in as a child…The forensic team estimate that the body has been in the ground for up to forty years – coinciding with the time Isabel’s family lived in the house.Isabel’s father vanished without a trace when she was fourteen years old. And with her mother remaining tight-lipped about her father’s disappearance, Isabel can’t escape the unnerving sense of dread that it’s his body, buried in the garden.

Saving Max


Antoinette van Heugten - 2010
    Until he's accused of murder.Attorney Danielle Parkman knows her teenage son Max's behavior has been getting worse—using drugs and lashing out. But she can't accept the diagnosis she receives at a top-notch adolescent psychiatric facility that her son is deeply disturbed. Dangerous.Until she finds Max, unconscious and bloodied, beside a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death.Trapped in a world of doubt and fear, barred from contacting Max, Danielle clings to the belief that her son is innocent. But has she, too, lost touch with reality? Is her son really a killer?With the justice system bearing down on them, Danielle steels herself to discover the truth, no matter what it is. She'll do whatever it takes to find the killer and to save her son from being destroyed by a system that's all too eager to convict him.

The Locked Door


Freida McFadden - 2021
    Nobody knows her father was a notorious serial killer. And she intends to keep it that way.Then Nora discovers one of her young female patients has been murdered. In the same unique and horrific manner that her father used to kill his victims.Somebody knows who Nora is. Somebody wants her to take the fall for this unthinkable crime. But she’s not a killer like her father. The police can’t pin anything on her.As long as they don’t look in her basement.

Caught


Harlan Coben - 2010
    Which is why, when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before, and three months quickly pass without word from the girl, the community assumes the worst.Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission, to identify and bring down sexual predators via elaborate—and nationally televised—sting operations. Working with local police on her news program Caught in the Act, Wendy and her team have publicly shamed dozens of men by the time she encounters her latest target. Dan Mercer is a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens, but his story soon becomes more complicated than Wendy could have imagined.

Hidden


Lisa Sell - 2019
    Taylor's Sleep. As well as for fans of authors like Louise Jensen, Rachel Abbott and Heidi Perks.