Book picks similar to
Combustible by David K. Wilson


fiction
mystery
amazon
mystery-thriller-adult

The Woman


David Bishop - 2011
    This is a story of just one woman. As the story unfolds Linda gradually learns that some people do deserve to die, but that she is not one of those people. Linda Darby is a seven-year divorcee, living quietly in a small let-the-world-go-by beach town on the coast of Oregon, who day trades for a living. Her only close friend is a widowed elderly woman who manages a small consulting company, which, as is later discovered, never has visitors, sends and receives its business correspondence only by courier, and is not listed in any phone directory. No one in town knows what kind of consulting the company does, but the rumor is that whatever they do is done for the government. Linda doesn’t date local men. When her celibacy grows intolerable, she visits nearby towns to frequent the watering holes of successful men. Her motto: No relationships. No second dates. No use of her real name during one-night stands. Then one evening, Linda goes for a walk and nothing for her is ever the same. She is dragged into an alley by two men, but saved by a third, a stranger who disappears as suddenly as he appeared. The next day she finds out the two men in the alley had been killed, the town’s first murders ever. The following day she learns that hours before she had been dragged into the alley, her close friend was tortured and killed.

Blindsided


Erica Hilary - 2020
    A man was the last thing she needed. But that was before Richard Lynch literally crashed into her life.After Reilly and the charismatic Brit are involved in a fender-bender, she's unable to resist the exhilarating romantic freefall. The enigmatic Rick is not who she thinks he is, however, and Reilly finds herself in a twisted maze of sordid secrets and devious manipulations. Navigating this terrifying new reality, can she rally and find a way out before her soulmate-turned-stranger destroys everything she treasures.

Safely Buried


John Pesta - 2011
    I had just come off I-65, and my high beams lit her up from behind. She was walking along the road between dark, endless cornfields, and her right leg was in a cast. She wore denim shorts and a yellow tank top that didn’t quite reach the shorts. Without crutches, she moved as fast as she could on the gravelly shoulder. She would take a long step with her good leg, stiffly swing the cast forward the same distance, and immediately start the next step. Tilting jerkily, she looked as if she would fall with every stride. I crossed the centerline to give her more room to fall. Just as I was about to pass her, she glanced over her shoulder and stuck out a thumb.When Phil Larrison picks up a hitchhiker, he gets more than he bargained for.

The Fifth Grave


Rob Jones - 2018
     Poised to return to work after a long bereavement leave, Detective Chief Inspector Jacob is called away from the sanctuary of his home to attend the grim discovery of human remains over a quarter of a century old. Found deep in woodland with its own grim history, they give little up, but he is soon confronted with local gossip of hauntings and witches. The mystery deepens when a second person is murdered in the same woods, and Jacob soon realises he is hunting a killer who will stop at nothing to keep the darkest of secrets buried in the past. Working alongside Dr Sophie Anderson, a criminal psychologist with her own damaged past, they close the net until tragedy strikes again in this gripping romantic suspense thriller. Set in the wild and beautiful Wiltshire Downs, The Fifth Grave is a fast-paced whodunit with a dash of humour and romance and a killer twist.

Marc Kadella Series Vol 1-3


Dennis Carstens - 2017
    Highlighting the beginning of his career, this collection features Marc’s involvement with an accused serial killer, the family of an influential (and irresistible) socialite, and the young mother of a missing toddler caught up in a media circus. Chock-full of grit and street savvy, this action-packed legal thriller series is a Grisham fan’s dream. (And we dare you not to fall in love with Marc’s best friend, badass private investigator Maddy Rivers). We guarantee you’ll tear right through these first 3 novels, now bundled in a page-turning box set.BOOK ONE – THE KEY TO JUSTICEFinancially embarrassed, getting a divorce, living in a shabby apartment, and distinctly short of clients, Marc Kadella’s beginning to question why he ever went into the law when a friend brings him the case all Minneapolis is watching--defending an accused serial killer. If he wins, it could turn his life around— if he blows it, he better go into sales.It's a classic David-and Goliath setup, and the author’s got some pretty fancy twists in store as Kadella unravels a complicated plot to set his client up, and Maddy battles demons that just keep coming at her. Fans of John Grisham, Richard North Patterson, and of course the most beloved lawyer sleuth of all time, Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason, will gobble up this one and go back for the rest of the series.BOOK TWO – DESPERATE JUSTICEAfter winning the case of a lifetime, Minneapolis criminal defense lawyer Marc Kadella welcomes the new energy his career is receiving. Another lawyer asks him to represent the co-defendant in a murder trial resulting from a petty crime that spiraled out of control—the somewhat “accidental” murder of the nephew of Vivian Corwin, grande dame of the influential Corwin family. Disarmingly charming and still downright sexy at sixty-eight, there’s more to Vivian than meets the eye. You just gotta love a society doyenne who can toss off, “… if I wasn’t a lady, right about now I would say: f--- you.”Marc has no illusions about why he’s being brought into the case, or what will happen. What he doesn’t know is that he’s gotten on the wrong side of a crooked judge; he just knows the guy hates him and will do everything he can to make life miserable for Marc and his client.BOOK THREE – MEDIA JUSTICEAn adorable—and photogenic—two-year-old girl is kidnapped, and, when her remains are found, her twenty-two-year-old widowed mother Brittany is arrested for her murder. But before she can even be charged, she’s been tried and convicted by the media., at the center of which is Melinda Pace, a cynical, mostly-functioning alcoholic Minneapolis television personality with a “legal news” show called The Court Reporter. Not even in the alternative universe of television news could she be described as a reporter, since she makes no attempt at or pretense of presenting the truth, or even the facts. She does do a great job of producing through-the-roof ratings and whipping the public into a frenzy—with tragic consequences.

Louisiana Blood (A Chandler Travis and Duke Lanoix Mystery Thriller)


Mike Donald - 2019
    When the remains of Jack the Ripper’s first five victims are discovered in present day Louisiana, an English detective and a local sheriff form an unlikely alliance to unravel the mystery…and find themselves caught up in a modern-day conspiracy.

Jenessa Jones Mysteries Boxed Set


Debra Burroughs - 2015
    Caught between her old boyfriend, with whom she shares a sordid past, and her new love interest, who offers her something she has desperately been wanting, Jenessa becomes embroiled in a series of homicide investigations that put her life and relationships in jeopardy. Can she uncover the truth of these murders before they destroys her family and any chance she has for a happy life?  These stories are full of mystery, twists of romance, lovable characters, and plenty of family and small town drama.

Meowing for Murder (A Clever Cat Detective Series Novel Book 1)


Sandra Baublitz - 2020
    It’s what sisters do.Lillian knew they’d argue like they always did. But murder?She’s shocked to find a dead neighbor in the middle of her sister’s living room. Why did the woman break in? And who killed her?It’s time for Lillian to pick up her spyglass and Saber to prowl for clues. A killer is on the loose.It will take one clever cat and one canny older woman to solve the purr-fect murder.

Pretty Corpse


Linda Berry - 2019
    The startling revelation hits the news and sends a shockwave through the city. A serial rapist with a “death” fetish is at large in San Francisco. The attack is intensely personal to Lauren. Not only did she find the victim, but the girl is a close friend of her daughter, Courtney. Lauren feels compelled to do some off-duty investigation. The perpetrator is keenly intelligent and methodical, and essentially, invisible. But Lauren has uncanny skills for detection, and routinely finds evidence missed by the detectives. She earns official trouble for her effort, but the warnings from her superiors don’t keep her from tugging at elusive clues. As she gets closer to the predator, he takes notice. Taunting Lauren, he demonstrates that he can get close to her, and to Courtney, without a trace. Lauren has put her daughter right in his crosshairs, and put herself on a collision course. Stressed and sleep-deprived, she is determined to find him and bring him down. But can she succeed before her daughter becomes his next victim?

Friends and Foes: A Read Wine Bookstore Cozy Mystery Book 1


L.C. Turner - 2020
    

I Believe You


Jeanne Grunert - 2016
    Now he struggles to raise his three sons alone and run the financial empire founded by his outlandish father. One night, a mysterious stranger appears to be watching his home. The next day, $100,000 is missing from his bank account. As David untangles the knot of lies, deception and intrigue surrounding his wife's death, he threatens to shatter his close-knit family forever.

Torch Song


Shelley Singer - 2014
     It’s a strange world that’s left—composed of tiny city-states, like Redwood, Sierra, and Rocky—run with a variety of futuristic machines and broken down ones. Fancy new cars float as well as roll, but the Internet’s now so glitchy you can't even blog properly—newspapers have come back! So many machines are so broken-down that a fixer in this world isn't someone who rigs elections or cleans up after murders—it’s a person who can repair both an elevator and an ancient toilet. But roving bands of bandits, godders, causies, breeders, khakis, and toxies threaten to destroy what’s just been fixed. A POST-APOCALYPTIC GUNSLINGER KICKS ASS Anywhere there are people—however few—there’ll be power plays, and Rica’s current job at the Blackjack Casino is to run interference between the warring clans of Tahoe, in tiny Sierra. But then Rocky gets ambitious. And that means war. On the one hand, Sierra’s ready; everybody’s got plenty of fancy laser weapons. On the other, the term “everybody” in this world, applies more to the kinds of numbers usually found in neighborhood gangs than opposing armies. Singer’s built an intriguing half-world resembling a medieval society equipped—and sometimes ill-equipped—with technology. In Rica she’s created a fascinating, complex character, who meets more like her in Sierra (all with the fashionable striped hair of the day). WHO WILL LIKE IT: Fans of post-apocalyptic thrillers and dystopian fiction. Think LEGEND for adults.

This Side of Midnight (Tildas Islands #4)


Tamsen Schultz - 2021
    But when tourists start dying under suspicious circumstances, she never imagines that the biggest battle she’d have to fight is within her own department. That is, until her friend, Dominic Burel, and the FBI Task Force he’s a part of, prove she’s right to be concerned.As an FBI agent and former PJ with the elite Air Force Pararescue Unit, Dominic Burel has been happy to move through life solely focused on work. But when a family visit leaves him shaken, he realizes his friendship with Anika could, and should, be so much more. Now he has to change her mind about them and he’s not above using his investigative skills to finagle his way into her case—and life—to do it.As Anika and Dominic hunt a killer, they quickly realize they’ve uncovered something much more sinister. The simple murders aren’t so simple and there’s a much grander plan at play. And when they find they aren’t the only ones hunting, it will take everything they have to stay out of the true killer’s crosshairs.If you revel in escaping into a story, this friends-to-lovers romantic suspense will keep you turning the pages.

Redemption Lake


Susan Clayton-Goldner - 2017
    Guilt forces Matt to act on impulse and hide his involvement with Crystal.Detective Winston Radhauser knows Matt is hiding something. But as the investigation progresses, Radhauser’s attention is focused on Matt’s father. Matt’s world closes in when his father is arrested for Crystal’s murder, and Travis breaks off their friendship.Despite his father’s guilty plea, Matt knows his dad is innocent and only trying to protect his son. Devastated and bent on self-destruction, Matt heads for the lake where his cousin died—the only place he believes can truly free him. Are some secrets better left buried?

Capital Kill


Marc Rainer - 2012
    Federal prosecutor Jeff Trask joins a team of FBI agents and police detectives as they try and solve the series of brutal murders. As the body count rises, the investigation leads to a chilling confrontation with the leader of an international drug smuggling ring, and no one is safe, not even the police.Written by former Washington prosecutor Marc Rainer, Capital Kill is a swirling thrill ride through the labyrinth of a major federal investigation and trial, with a gripping conclusion that no one will see coming.