Book picks similar to
A Small Town by Thomas Perry
thriller
fiction
mystery
suspense
Believe Me
Tony Strong - 2018
A struggling actor, a Brit in America without a green card, Claire needs work and money to survive. Then she gets both. But nothing like she expected. Claire agrees to become a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers. Hired to entrap straying husbands, she must catch them on tape with their seductive propositions. The rules? Never hit on the mark directly. Make it clear you’re available, but he has to proposition you, not the other way around. The firm is after evidence, not coercion. The innocent have nothing to hide. Then the game changes. When the wife of one of Claire’s targets is violently murdered, the cops are sure the husband is to blame. Desperate to catch him before he kills again, they enlist Claire to lure him into a confession. Claire can do this. She’s brilliant at assuming a voice and an identity. For a woman who’s mastered the art of manipulation, how difficult could it be to tempt a killer into a trap? But who is the decoy . . . and who is the prey?
Find Me
Anne Frasier - 2020
One catch: he’ll only do it if FBI profiler Reni Fisher, his estranged daughter, accompanies them. As hard as it is to exhume her traumatic childhood, Reni can’t say no. She still feels complicit in her father’s crimes.Perfect to play a lost little girl, Reni was the bait to lure unsuspecting women to their deaths. It’s time for closure. For her. For the families. And for Daniel. He shares Reni’s obsession with the past. Ever since he was a boy, he’s been convinced that his mother was one of Fisher’s victims.A five-hundred-mile road trip lies ahead. Thirty years of bad memories are flooding back. A master manipulator has gained their trust. For Reni and Daniel, this isn’t the end of a nightmare. It’s only the beginning.
Snap
Belinda Bauer - 2018
Jack's in charge, she said. I won't be long.But she doesn't come back. She never comes back. And life as the children know it is changed for ever.Three years later, mum-to-be Catherine wakes to find a knife beside her bed, and a note that says: I could have killed you.Meanwhile Jack is still in charge - of his sisters, of supporting them all, of making sure nobody knows they're alone in the house, and - quite suddenly - of finding out the truth about what happened to his mother.But the truth can be a dangerous thing ...
Need to Know
Karen Cleveland - 2018
On track for a much-needed promotion, she’s developed a system for identifying Russian agents, seemingly normal people living in plain sight.After accessing the computer of a potential Russian operative, Vivian stumbles on a secret dossier of deep-cover agents within America’s borders. A few clicks later, everything that matters to her—her job, her husband, even her four children—are threatened.Vivian has vowed to defend her country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But now she’s facing impossible choices. Torn between loyalty and betrayal, allegiance and treason, love and suspicion, who can she trust?
Her One Mistake
Heidi Perks - 2018
It all started at the school fair…Charlotte was supposed to be looking after the children, and she swears she was. She only took her eyes off of them for one second. But when her three kids are all safe and sound at the school fair, and Alice, her best friend Harriet’s daughter, is nowhere to be found, Charlotte panics. Frantically searching everywhere, Charlotte knows she must find the courage to tell Harriet that her beloved only child is missing. And admit that she has only herself to blame.Harriet, devastated by this unthinkable, unbearable loss, can no longer bring herself to speak to Charlotte again, much less trust her. Now more isolated than ever and struggling to keep her marriage afloat, Harriet believes nothing and no one. But as the police bear down on both women trying to piece together the puzzle of what happened to this little girl, dark secrets begin to surface—and Harriet discovers that confiding in Charlotte again may be the only thing that will reunite her with her daughter....This breathless and fast-paced debut—perfect for fans of Big Little Lies and The Couple Next Door—takes you on a chilling journey that will keep you guessing until the very last page.
The Boy at the Door
Alex Dahl - 2018
And she works hard to keep it all together. Too hard...There is no room for mistakes in her life. Even taking home a little boy whose parents forgot to pick him up at the pool can put a crimp in Cecilia's carefully planned schedule. Especially when she arrives at the address she was givenand finds an empty, abandoned house...There's nothing for Cecilia to do but to take the boy home with her, never realizing that soon his quiet presence and knowing eyes will trigger unwelcome memories from her past--and unravel her meticulously crafted life...
The President's Daughter
Bill Clinton - 2021
But it's the previous First Family who tops an international assassin's hit list.Michael Keating is a former Navy SEAL -- and a former President of the United States, now relocated to rural New Hampshire after a brave but ill-fated military mission cost him his second term.All he wants is to sink into anonymity with his family (and his Secret Service detail). But when he's briefed on an imminent threat against his daughter, Keating's SEAL training may prove more essential than all the power, connections, and political acumen he gained as President.
Thin Air
Lisa Gray - 2019
But after receiving a photo of a three-year-old kidnapped from Los Angeles twenty-five years ago, Jessica is stunned to recognize the little girl as herself.Eager for answers, Jessica heads to LA's dark underbelly. When she learns that her biological mother was killed the night she was abducted, Jessica's determined to solve a case the police have forgotten. Meanwhile, veteran LAPD detective Jason Pryce is in the midst of a gruesome investigation into a murdered college student moonlighting as a prostitute. A chance encounter leads to them crossing paths, but Jessica soon realizes that Pryce is hiding something about her father's checkered history and her mother's death.To solve her mother's murder and her own disappearance, Jessica must dig into the past and find the secrets buried there. But the air gets thinner as she crawls closer to the truth, and it's getting harder and harder to breathe.
A Share in Death
Deborah Crombie - 1993
But the discovery of a body floating in the whirlpool bath ends Kincaid's vacation before it's begun. One of his new acquaintances at Followdale House is dead; another is a killer. Despite a distinct lack of cooperation from the local constabulary, Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't allow him to ignore the heinous crime, impelling him to send for his enthusiastic young assistant, Sergeant Gemma James. But the stakes are raised dramatically when a second murder occurs, and Kincaid and James find themselves in a determined hunt for a fiendish felon who enjoys homicide a bit too much.
Blacktop Wasteland
S.A. Cosby - 2020
But he was once known - from North Carolina to the beaches of Florida - as the best getaway driver on the East Coast. Just like his father, who disappeared many years ago.After a series of financial calamities (worsened by the racial prejudices of the small town he lives in) Bug reluctantly takes part in a daring diamond heist to solve his money troubles - and to go straight once and for all. However, when it goes horrifically wrong, he's sucked into a grimy underworld which threatens everything, and everyone, he holds dear . . .
The Lost Night
Andrea Bartz - 2019
Mercurial and beguiling, she was the shining star of a group of recent graduates living in a Brooklyn loft and treating the city like their playground. When Edie’s body was found near a suicide note at the end of a long, drunken night, no one could believe it. Grief, shock, and resentment scattered the group and brought the era to an abrupt end.A decade later, Lindsay has come a long way from the drug-addled world of Calhoun Lofts. She has devoted best friends, a cozy apartment, and a thriving career as a magazine’s head fact-checker. But when a chance reunion leads Lindsay to discover an unsettling video from that hazy night, she starts to wonder if Edie was actually murdered—and, worse, if she herself was involved. As she rifles through those months in 2009—combing through case files, old technology, and her fractured memories—Lindsay is forced to confront the demons of her own violent history to bring the truth to light.
The Dark Winter
David Mark - 2012
To that moment when the masked man appeared from the doorway of the church and looked into his eyes.‘Is there anything distinctive, Sarge?’ asks Nielsen.‘Yes’, he says, with the sudden sense that memory is important.‘There were tears in his eyes.’DS Aector McAvoy is a man with a troubled past. His unwavering belief in justice has made him an outsider in the police force he serves.When three seemingly unconnected people are brutally murdered in the weeks before Christmas, the police must work quickly to stop more deaths. It is only McAvoy who can see the connection between the victims. A killer is playing God – and McAvoy must find a way to stop the deadly game.
Rules of Prey
John Sandford - 1989
You are about to meet Lucas Davenport, the police detective in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who does it his way. The "maddog" murderer who is terrorizing the Twin Cities is two things: insane and extremely intelligent. He kills for the pleasure of it and thoroughly enjoys placing elaborate obstacles to keep the police befuddled. Each clever move he makes is another point of pride. But when the brilliant Lieutenant Davenport--a dedicated cop and a serial killer's worst nightmare--is brought in to take up the investigation, maddog suddenly has an adversary worthy of his genius.Librarian's note: the first five books in the Lucas Davenport series are #1, Rules of Prey, 1989; #2, Shadow Prey, 1990; #3, Eyes of Prey, 1991; #4, Silent Prey, 1992; and #5, Winter Prey, 1993.
Blood on the Tracks
Barbara Nickless - 2016
But railroad police Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell, brought in by the Denver Major Crimes unit to help investigate, can't shake the feeling that larger forces are behind this apparent crime of passion.In the depths of an icy winter, Parnell and her K9 partner, Clyde ― both haunted by their time in Iraq ― descend into the underground world of a savage gang of rail riders. There, they uncover a wide-reaching conspiracy and a series of shocking crimes. Crimes that threaten everything Parnell holds dear.As the search for the truth puts her directly in the path of the killer, Parnell must struggle with a deadly question: Can she fight monsters without becoming one herself?