Book picks similar to
Human Face by Aline Templeton


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A Question of Despair


Maureen Carter - 2011
    Two streets away, through the open window of an unmarked police car, and they could hear the screams.HER BABY IS SNATCHED OFF THE STREET.When a child goes missing, every minute’s precious. When a baby’s taken, every second counts.Detective Sarah Quinn is called in.Baby Evie’s mother is in pieces. But then she seems unwilling to help. What isn’t she telling them?Time is running out to find Evie alive.TWO WOMEN ON THE CASERuthless TV journalist Caroline King is a thorn in the side of career cop DI Sarah Quinn. Caroline’s emotional and impulsive. Sarah’s known at work as the Ice Queen.WILL SPARKS FLY? CAN THE THIN BLUE LINE HOLD?The investigation reaches a dead end. The clock is ticking. The two enemies must work together to get baby Evie back alive.A heart-pounding thriller you won’t be able to put down. Perfect for fans of Helen H. Durrant, Charlie Gallagher, Angela Marsons, DS Butler, Carol Wyer and Rachel Abbott.

Artefacts of the Dead


Tony Black - 2014
    . . Can t you see someone s put a bloody great spike through him? The discovery of a dead banker sends shock waves through the sleepy coastal town of Ayr. And it s up to DI Bob Valentine recently back on the force after his near-fatal stabbing to find the killer. But leads are hard to find and the pressure is on from an anxious Chief Superintendent who is being hounded by the media and still has serious concerns about her DI's mental health. And as it becomes clear that there's a serial killer on the loose, Bob Valentine must battle the demons of his post-traumatic stress, an investigation team that's leaking like a sieve and frightening visions that might just be the key to unlocking the mystery. Valentine is close to breaking point, but can he crack the case before he cracks up?

Still Midnight


Denise Mina - 2009
    As DS Morrow tries to uncover one family's secrets, she must protect her own.

Natural Causes


James Oswald - 2012
    So the murderer has killed himself; that just saves the time and cost of a trial. But a second murder days later bears haunting similarities to the first, even though once more the murderer swiftly confesses and kills himself.Detective Inspector Anthony McLean is investigating the discovery of a dead girl, walled up in the basement of an old Edinburgh mansion. She has been brutally murdered, her internal organs removed and placed around her in six preserving jars. The evidence suggests this all happened over sixty years ago, an attempt to re-enact an ancient ceremony that by trapping a demon in the dead girl’s body would supposedly confer immortality on the six men who took one of her organs each.McLean’s grandmother – the woman who raised him after his parents were killed when he was a young boy – dies after months in a coma following a stroke. On top of this he has to investigate a series of unusual, violent suicides and a cat-burglar who targets the homes of the recently dead. But as another prominent Edinburgh businessman is killed, he begins to suspect that there may be a connection between the murders, the suicides and the ritual killing of the girl found in the basement. The same names keep cropping up. He just can’t find a rational explanation as to how that connection works.As he digs deeper, and as the coincidences stack up, McLean is forced to consider an irrational explanation. Could there really be something evil stalking the city he has sworn to protect? And if so, how on earth can he hope to stop it?

Shadow Man


Margaret Kirk - 2017
    But does Anna know more about the murder than she's letting on?Police informant Kevin Ramsay's murder looks like a gangland-style execution. But what could he have stumbled into that was dangerous enough to get him violently killed?Mahler has only a couple of weeks to solve both cases while dealing with his mother's fragile mental health. But caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, is ex-Met DI Lukas Mahler hunting one killer, or two?

Cambridge Blue


Alison Bruce - 2009
    When Gary discovers the first body in a series of murders involving an eccentric Cambridge family, he gets his chance to work on a homicide investigation. He must use his own initiative to flush out the killer, even though it means risking his job and discovering the truth about the one person he hopes is innocent. Alison Bruce was born in Surrey, United Kingdom, and now lives in Cambridge. She is the author of two previous nonfiction books, Cambridgeshire Murders and The Billingtons, Death in the Family.

A Litter of Bones


J.D. Kirk - 2019
    Was the biggest case of his career the worst mistake he ever made?Ten years ago, DCI Jack Logan stopped the serial child-killer dubbed 'Mister Whisper,' earning himself a commendation, a drinking problem, and a broken marriage in the process.Now, he spends his days working in Glasgow's Major Incident Team, and his nights reliving the horrors of what he saw.And what he did.When another child disappears a hundred miles north in the Highlands, Jack is sent to lead the investigation and bring the boy home.But as similarities between the two cases grow, could it be that Jack caught the wrong man all those years ago?And, if so, is the real Mister Whisper about to claim his fourth victim?A Litter of Bones is the explosive debut crime thriller novel from JD Kirk, an exciting new voice in Scottish crime fiction.

The Portsmouth Murders


Pauline Rowson - 2005
    It’s his second day back in Portsmouth’s CID and things aren’t going well.DI Andy Horton is on his morning run along an isolated stretch of beach when he stumbles across a dead man. Stark naked and bludgeoned to death.Eight months ago, DI Horton’s life fell apart when he was suspended for misconduct. His wife kicked him out and stopped him seeing his daughter.The young woman who’d accused him went missing and the charges were dropped, but his personal and professional life are still in a mess.And now it doesn’t look good for a detective under suspicion to be the one to find a dead body. His colleagues don’t want him on the case.But this murder will challenge Detective Horton in every single way. And when another body turns up with the same cause of death, Horton suspects he might be the next person in the killer’s sights.Please note this was previously published as Tide of Death.

The Complaints


Ian Rankin - 2009
    It's a department known within the force as "The Dark Side," and it's where Malcolm Fox works. He's a serious man with a father in a nursing home and a sister who persists in an abusive relationship, frustrating problems about which he cannot seem to do anything. Then the reluctant Fox is given a new case. There's a cop named Jamie Breck, and he's dirty. The problem is, no one can prove it. As Fox takes on the job, he learns that there's more to Breck than anyone thinks--dangerous knowledge, especially when a vicious murder takes place far too close to home.In THE COMPLAINTS, Rankin proves again why he is one of the world's most beloved and bestselling crime writers, mixing unstoppable pacing with the deeper question of who decides right from wrong.

Mind of a Killer


Dan Padavona - 2018
     A teenage girl is brutally murdered in an idyllic lake community. In over his head, the local sheriff calls upon the Behavior Analysis Unit’s best profiler, Scarlett Bell, to find the murderer. Is a serial killer stalking Coral Lake? Now Scarlett faces a killer unlike any she’s encountered. Bloodthirsty. Cunning. Insane. Another girl goes missing, and the special agent must stop the killer before time runs out. But the killer is a ghost, a phantom hiding in plain sight, and Scarlett must untangle a confusing web of evidence if she hopes to track him down. If she fails, the girl dies. The body count will grow. Scarlett should beware. The killer is coming for her now.

Blood in the Water


Gillian Galbraith - 2007
    1 in the UK eBook Library-Lending charts, 2020 - The GuardianThis thrilling police-procedural debut from crime writer Gillian Galbraith introduces readers to Alice Rice, Edinburgh's latest fictional detective and a new female presence in the macho world of crime detection. Galbraith draws on her own experience to give a realistic portrayal of the medical and legal worlds. Smart and capable, but battling disillusionment and loneliness, Alice races against time and an implacable killer to solve a series of grisly murders amongst the professional elite of Edinburgh's well-to-do New Town.

Winding Up The Serpent


Priscilla Masters - 1995
    Provocatively dressed and elaborately made-up, Marilyn is also very dead. Despite a lack of evidence at the post mortem, DI Piercy is convinced that Marilyn was murdered. A newcomer and a woman in the remote moorland town, Piercy must battle against several prejudices in her determination to find the killer - but could she be wrong? Is it possible that Marilyn Smith's death was not murder at all...?

The Gathering Murders


Keith Moray - 2006
    But with the tiny Scottish Hebridean island population suddenly doubling, the local police force is stretched to breaking point. And this year they have to deal with more than just drunken fights and rowdy behaviour…Ranald Buchanan, the local poet, is found dead, with his head brutally caved in, and Inspector Torquil McKinnon is brought into investigate. Did Ranald trip and fall, as suggested? Or is something more sinister happening?Before Torquil can find out more, another victim is found. The island is on lockdown. There is a serial killer in their midst. And this time the victim is someone very close to him.Now finding justice is personal. Torquil is out for revenge.Can he solve the mystery before the killer strikes again? Or will more bodies fall victim to The Gathering Murders?

Western Approaches


Graham Hurley - 2012
    Surely a job in Major Crimes in the West Country will offer some respite? He finds a remote cottage nestled in a fold of Dartmoor and, with his wife and two year old daughter, heads West for what he is sure will be a saner existence. How wrong could he be? Soon he is investigating the murder of a long-distance rower in the small town of Exmouth. The man rowed in the same 5-man boat as a man who, two years before, dodged a murder charge when his wife went missing during a cross atlantic rowing challange. There had been tensions between the two. Has a killer killed again? As the job takes over, Lizzie, Suttle's wife, is increasingly unhappy about the move. Trying to juggle family life with her own new job on a local paper, isolated in a lonely cottage with a demanding toddler and struggling to make new friends, Lizzie thought the whole point of the move was that she and Suttle could at least see more of each other. As his marriage frays at the edges and his first investigation becomes mired Suttle begins to feel the hills around their cottage crowding in, the wind over the moors above ever chillier, the waters ever greyer. He really has reached land's end ...

The Blackhouse


Peter May - 2011
    For Lewis-born Macleod, the case represents a journey both home and into his past.A SECRETSomething lurks within the close-knit island community. Something sinister.A TRAPAs Fin investigates, old skeletons begin to surface, and soon he, the hunter, becomes the hunted.