Book picks similar to
Blood on the Leaves by Jeff Stetson


mystery
historical-fiction
african-american
african-american-fiction

When You Disappeared


John Marrs - 2013
    But Simon never makes it to the office. His running shoes are by the front door. Nothing is missing - except him.Catherine knows Simon must be in trouble. He wouldn't just leave her. He wouldn't leave the children.But Simon knows the truth - about why he left and what he's done. He knows things about his marriage that it would kill Catherine to find out. The memories she holds onto are lies.While Catherine faces a dark new reality at home, Simon's halfway around the world, alive and thriving. He's doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the truth.But he can't hide forever, and when he reappears twenty-five years later, Catherine will finally learn who he is.And wish she'd stayed in the dark.Revised edition: Previously published as The Wronged Sons, this edition of When You Disappeared includes editorial revisions.

Unknown Remains: A Novel


Peter Leonard - 2016
    Outside his office window, Jack hears a booming sound, and then the worst thing imaginable. He works in the World Trade Center, and it is September 11, 2001.His wife in Connecticut, Diane, is visited the next day by a grief counselor, and then the mob, where she learns her husband owes them $750,000. Their personal bank accounts have been emptied. She’s totally and utterly broke. Lost in grief and now shock, Diane soon learns her husband was not the loving spouse he appeared to be. But neither is she, owing to that Beretta she keeps tucked into her handbag.The perfect summer read, Unknown Remains boasts an exciting crime story, inventive plot twists, and a cast of rogues, who just might be using a national tragedy to cover up their own deep transgressions and greed.

Gone Without a Trace


Mary Torjussen - 2017
    Fans of I LET YOU GO and THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN will be gripped. No one ever disappears completely...You leave for work one morning.Another day in your normal life.Until you come home to discover that your boyfriend has gone. His belongings have disappeared. He hasn't been at work for weeks. It's as if he never existed.But that's not possible, is it?And there is worse still to come.Because just as you are searching for himsomeone is also watching you.

Golden Buddha


Clive Cussler - 2003
    In this adventure he must find and seize a golden Buddha - the artifact and its contents are vital to striking a deal with the Russians and the Chinese and restoring the Dalai Lama to power in Tibet.

The Casebook of Inspector Blackstone


Sally Spencer - 2017
    Yet to Inspector Sam Blackstone, the case is as puzzling as any he has ever come across. As his investigation proceeds, Blackstone finds himself entering the world of the aristocracy and tramping the dangerous streets of London's Little Russia, where English law and order are not welcome. So begins the illustrious career of the talented inspector, who earns the equal ire and respect of his superiors for his controversial tactics. Absorbing in their detailed depictions of the period, gripping in their ingenious plots, this trilogy of historical whodunnits is the perfect box set for any mystery-lover. Praise for Sally Spencer 'Spencer's finest hour: a tightly plotted puzzler with surprises at every turn' – Kirkus Reviews 'Spencer is an accomplished craftsman who serves up a good puzzle and deftly solves it with intelligence and insight' – Publishers Weekly Sally Spencer worked as a teacher both in England and Iran - where she witnessed the fall of the Shah. She now writes full time.

The Eighth Detective


Alex Pavesi - 2020
    There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective. The rest is just shuffling the sequence. Expanding the permutations. Grant McAllister, a professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out – calculating the different orders and possibilities of a mystery into seven perfect detective stories he quietly published. But that was thirty years ago. Now Grant lives in seclusion on a remote Mediterranean island, counting the rest of his days.Until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor knocks on his door. Julia wishes to republish his book, and together they must revisit those old stories: an author hiding from his past, and an editor, keen to understand it.But there are things in the stories that don’t add up. Inconsistencies left by Grant that a sharp-eyed editor begins to suspect are more than mistakes. They may be clues, and Julia finds herself with a mystery of her own to solve.

Lawyers, Guns and Money


J.D. Rhoades - 2011
    Local crime boss Voit Fairgreen has just dropped a bag full of cash on his desk and hired him to defend Voit's brother Danny on a murder charge. Andy's one of the movers and shakers in the small southern town of Blainesville, and Voit figures Andy's the kind of inside guy that can cut a deal to get his baby brother out of the jam. The problem is that Danny just might be innocent. But someone powerful needs this case buried, and if an innocent man dies for that, so be it. Andy Cole is a guy who's made a good living by going along to get along. He's been willing to bend every rule, except Rule One--always get paid. But this case will cause him to re-examine his life and push him and his lover, beautiful newspaper editor Elizabeth Sinclair, to risk everything--including their lives-- for the truth. J.D. Rhoades, author of the Kindle bestseller BREAKING COVER and an attorney himself, turns his eye on his own profession in a book that combines the hard-boiled tone of the classic P.I novel with the white-knuckle suspense of the legal thriller.

The Truth of All Things


Kieran Shields - 2012
    When newly appointed Deputy Marshal Archie Lean is called in to investigate a prostitute's murder in Portland, Maine, he's surprised to find the body laid out like a pentagram and pinned to the earth with a pitchfork.  He's even more surprised to learn that this death by "sticking" is a traditional method of killing a witch.      Baffled by the ritualized murder scene, Lean secretly enlists the help of historian Helen Prescott and brilliant criminalist Perceval Grey.  Distrusted by officials because of his mixed Abenaki Indian ancestry, Grey is even more notorious for combining modern investigative techniques with an almost eerie perceptiveness.  Although skeptical of each other's methods, together the detectives pursue the killer's trail through postmortems and opium dens, into the spiritualist societies and lunatic asylums of gothic New England.      Before the killer closes in on his final victim, Lean and Grey must decipher the secret pattern to these murders--a pattern hidden within the dark history of the Salem witch trials.

Noir


Christopher MooreChristopher Moore - 2018
    Summer, 1947. A dame walks into a saloon . . .It’s not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar. It’s love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an Air Force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. ’Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he’s got the connections on the street.Meanwhile, a suspicious flying object has been spotted up the Pacific coast in Washington State near Mount Rainer, followed by a mysterious plane crash in a distant patch of desert in New Mexico that goes by the name Roswell. But the real weirdness is happening on the streets of the City by the Bay.When one of Sammy’s schemes goes south and the Cheese mysteriously vanishes, Sammy is forced to contend with his own dark secrets—and more than a few strange goings on—if he wants to find his girl.

The Short Drop


Matthew FitzSimmons - 2015
    Still unsolved, the mystery remains a national obsession.For legendary hacker and marine Gibson Vaughn, the case is personal—Suzanne Lombard had been like a sister to him. On the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, the former head of Benjamin Lombard’s security asks for Gibson’s help in a covert investigation of the case, with new evidence in hand.Haunted by tragic memories, he jumps at the chance to uncover what happened all those years ago. Using his military and technical prowess, he soon discovers multiple conspiracies surrounding the Lombard family—and he encounters powerful, ruthless political players who will do anything to silence him and his team. With new information surfacing that could threaten Lombard’s bid for the presidency, Gibson must stay one step ahead as he navigates a dangerous web to get to the truth.

The Accident


C.L. Taylor - 2014
    In her hunt for evidence, Sue begins to mistrust everyone close to her daughter and she’s forced to look further, into the depths of her own past.There is a lot that Sue doesn’t know about Charlotte’s life. But then there’s a lot that Charlotte doesn’t know about Sue’s …

Recipes for Love and Murder


Sally Andrew - 2015
    Tannie Maria writes recipes for a column in her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette. One Sunday morning, as Maria savours the breeze through the kitchen window whilst making apricot jam, she hears the screech and bump that announces the arrival of her good friend and editor Harriet. What Maria doesn't realise is that Harriet is about to deliver the first ingredient in two new recipes (recipes for love and murder) and a whole basketful of challenges. A delicious blend of intrigue, milk tart and friendship, join Tannie Maria in her first investigation. Consider your appetite whetted for a whole new series of mysteries . . .

Smash Cut


Sandra Brown - 2008
    Wheeler’s mistress, Julie Rutledge, who is also a suspect, believes that Creighton is the killer, despite his rock-solid alibi, and she’ll do almost anything in her quest to prove his guilt—even ruin Derek’s career. But the more Derek learns of Creighton’s darker side, especially his bizarre fascination with movie murders, the more he comes to believe Julie is right. The clock ticks down to a shocking ending as Derek and Julie join forces to find the truth. Has Creighton begun reenacting cinema’s goriest scenes? And who will be his unwilling costars? They won’t know until the final SMASH CUT.

Stillhouse Lake


Rachel Caine - 2017
    But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband’s crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace.But just when she’s starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed—or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she’s learned how to fight evil. And she’ll never stop.

Sex, Marry, Kill


Todd Travis - 2014
    A fat chick. A slow learner. A psycho suicide girl. A wannabe criminal. Five outcast high school kids with nothing in common except that nobody liked them. Five losers with nothing to look forward to but torment and harassment every day; nothing, that is, until they were introduced to the game. SEX, MARRY, KILL. An online game that would change their lives and give them power over others. They could do anything they wanted, sleep with anyone they wanted to, kill anyone who got in their way. Their every fantasy fulfilled. But at a mortal price. They soon discover that game will consume and destroy them unless they find some way to stop it before it’s too late. For fans of Stephen King and Joe Hill, a dark tale of horror, revenge and gaming gone lethally wrong.