Book picks similar to
Epitaph by Shaun Hutson


horror
shaun-hutson
books-for-review
crime-psychological-thriller

Apt Pupil


Stephen King - 1982
    Good grades, good family, a paper route. But he is about to meet a different kind of teacher: Mr. Dussander. Todd knows all about Dussander's dark past. The torture. The death. The decades-old manhunt Dussander has escaped to this day. Yet Todd doesn't want to turn him in. Todd wants to know more. Much more. He is about to learn the real meaning of power—and the seductive lure of evil.

The Woman Outside My Door


Rachel Ryan - 2021
    It’s perfectly normal, and they all grow out of it in the end. But when her seven-year-old son, Cody, tells her about New Granny, the new friend he’s met in the park, Georgina is instantly suspicious. Something—call it maternal instinct—tells her he isn’t making it up.But maybe Georgina is losing her mind. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all. And with her own mother’s recent death leaving her bereft and trying to cope with life as a busy working mom, it’s no wonder she’s feeling paranoid that Cody has invented a “New Granny” to replace his beloved grandmother.Her husband, Bren, becomes the voice of reason, assuring Georgina that it’s just a game, the product of their son’s overactive imagination. But what if Cody’s imaginary friend is not so imaginary after all?

An Unwanted Guest


Shari Lapena - 2018
    . . but when the storm hits, no one is getting awayIt's winter in the Catskills and Mitchell's Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing--maybe even romantic--weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge woodburning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery.So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity--and all contact with the outside world--the guests settle in and try to make the best of it.Soon, though, one of the guests turns up dead--it looks like an accident. But when a second guest dies, they start to panic.Within the snowed-in paradise, something--or someone--is picking off the guests one by one. And there's nothing they can do but hunker down and hope they can survive the storm--and one another.

Mo Hayder 2-Book Bundle: Birdman / The Treatment


Mo Hayder - 2012
    Download both ebooks for a special low price. Birdman Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered and dumped near the Millennium Dome in southeast London. A post-mortem examination tells the police they’re dealing with a sexual serial killer. Detective Inspector Jack Caffery knows he has only limited time before the sadistic killer strikes again. The Treatment In a residential neighbourhood in south London, a husband and wife are found tied up and imprisoned in their house. Their young son is missing. Detective Jack Caffery is called in to investigate. When the child’s body is found, he attempts to unravel the motive and sequence of events, especially when he discovers that a tragedy in his own past is indirectly connected to the murder.

The Runaway


Linda Huber - 2020
    The death of her mother-in-law coincides with husband Ed losing his job and daughter Kelly getting into trouble with the police. Time to abandon their London lifestyle and start again by the sea in far-away Cornwall.It should be the answer to everything – a new home, a new job for Ed and a smaller, more personal school for fifteen-year-old Kelly. But the teenager hates her new life, and it doesn’t take long before events spiral out of control and the second set of bad things starts for Nicola.Some secrets can’t be buried.Or… can they?A gripping family drama, perfect for fans of Diane Chamberlain, Linda Green, and Sophie Hannah.

Juror #3


James Patterson - 2018
    Ruby's client is a college football star who has returned home after a career-ending injury, and she is determined to build a defense that will stick. She finds help in unexpected quarters from Suzanne, a hard-charging attorney armed to the teeth, and Shorty, a diner cook who knows more than he lets on.Ruby never belonged to the country-club set, but once she nearly married into it. As news breaks of a second murder, Ruby's ex-fiancé, Lee Greene, shows up on her doorstep--a Southern gentleman in need of a savior. As lurid, intertwining investigations unfold, no one in Rosedale can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women impaneled on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.

Those People


Louise Candlish - 2019
    The houses are beautiful, the neighbors get along, and the kids play together on weekends.But when Darren and Jodie move into the house on the corner, they donʼt follow the rules. They blast music at all hours, begin an unsightly renovation, and run a used-car business from their yard. It doesn't take long for an all-out war to start brewing.Then, early one Saturday, a horrific death shocks the street. As police search for witnesses, accusations start flying--and everyone has something to hide.

Someone Close to Home


Alex Craigie - 2015
    It reads like a memoir and grips like great fiction should - beautiful characterization"Viga Boland - Author - No Tears For My FatherTalented pianist Megan Youngblood has it all – fame, fortune and Gideon.But Gideon isn’t good enough for Megan’s ambitious, manipulative mother, whose meddling has devastating repercussions for Megan and for those close to her.Now, trapped inside her own body, she is unable to communicate her needs or fears as she faces institutional neglect in an inadequate care home.And she faces Annie. Sadistic Annie who has reason to hate her. Damaged Annie who shouldn’t work with vulnerable people.Just how far will Annie go?

Dead Simple


Peter James - 2005
    While out celebrating with a group of friends a few nights before the wedding, Michael suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself enclosed in a coffin equipped only with a flashlight, a dirty magazine, a walkie-talkie, and a tiny breathing tube. It's all in good fun — payback for the grief his mates suffered due to his own penchant for tomfoolery — that is until the four are killed in a drunk driving accident just moments after leaving Michael completely alone and buried alive.Detective Superintendent Grace—himself dealing with the pain of losing his wife—is brought on to the case when Ashley reports Michael missing. Suspicions are raised when Michael's only friend not at the bachelor party refuses to cooperate, and Ashley's faithfulness—not to mention her increasingly mysterious past—are suddenly thrown in to question. As Superintendent Grace soon discovers, one man's disaster is another man's fortune.

Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde


John Kennett - 1996
    

The Skittering


David Haynes - 2020
    But what emerges from the shadows of the town’s waste plant is beyond anything found in nature.Fist-sized cockroaches. Bird-sized wasps. Spiders, millipedes, ticks, all swollen to enormous bulk with vicious appetites to match. And other things, creatures that should never exist.Through the night they come, slithering, buzzing, scuttling, crawling over skin, burrowing into flesh, making the town their nest.Time is soon running out for Crease and the other survivors, as that hideous skittering noise closes in from all around…

Mother


Tamara Thorne - 2016
    Priscilla Martin. She’s the diva of Morning Glory Circle and a driving force in the quaint California town of Snapdragon. Overseer of garage sales and neighborhood Christmas decorations, she is widely admired. But few people know the real woman behind the perfectly coiffed hair and Opium perfume. Family is Forever. And Ever and Ever ... No one escapes Prissy’s watchful eye. No one that is, except her son, who committed suicide many years ago, and her daughter, Claire, who left home more than a decade past and hasn’t spoken to her since. But now, Priscilla’s daughter and son-in-law have fallen on hard times. Expecting their first child, the couple is forced to move back … And Prissy is there to welcome them home with open arms … and to reclaim her broken family. The Past Isn’t Always as Bad as You Remember. Sometimes it’s Worse ... Claire has terrible memories of her mother, but now it seems Priscilla has mended her ways. When a cache of vile family secrets is uncovered, Claire struggles to determine fact from fiction, and her husband, Jason, begins to wonder who the monster really is. Lives are in danger - and Claire and Jason must face a horrifying truth … a truth that may destroy them … and will forever change their definition of “Mother.” “A great combination of strong characters that remind me of my V.C. Andrews characters, wonderful creepy twists, and a plot that will recall Mommie Dearest in an original take that shocks and delights at the same time. This is a full blown psychological thriller worth the investment of time and money.” -Andrew Neiderman, Author of The Devil's Advocate and the V.C. Andrews novels

The Au Pair


Emma Rous - 2019
    Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle.Now an adult, Seraphine mourns the recent death of her father. While going through his belongings, she uncovers a family photograph that raises dangerous questions. It was taken on the day the twins were born, and in the photo, their mother, surrounded by her husband and her young son, is beautifully dressed, smiling serenely, and holding just one baby.Who is the child and what really happened that day?One person knows the truth, if only Seraphine can find her.

The Cellar


Minette Walters - 2015
    and Mrs. Songoli’s young son fails to come home from school, fourteen-year-old Muna’s fortunes change for the better. Until then, her bedroom was a dank windowless cellar, her activities confined to cooking and cleaning. Over the years, she had grown used to being abused by the Songoli family—to being their slave.Now that Scotland Yard has swarmed the Songoli house to investigate the disappearance of the son, Muna is given a real bedroom, real clothing, and treated, at least nominally, as a daughter. But her world remains confined. She is not allowed to go outside, doesn’t know how to read or write, and cannot speak English. At least that’s what the Songolis believe. Before long it becomes clear that young Muna is far cleverer—and her plans more terrifying—than the Songolis, or anyone else, can ever imagine.

The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek


Rhett McLaughlin - 2019
    Beneath the town’s cheerful façade, however, Bleak Creek teens live in constant fear of being sent to the Whitewood School, a local reformatory with a history of putting unruly youths back on the straight and narrow—a record so impeccable that almost everyone is willing to ignore the suspicious deaths that have occurred there over the past decade.At first, high school freshmen Rex McClendon and Leif Nelson believe what they’ve been told: that the students’ strange demises were all just tragic accidents, the unfortunate consequence of succumbing to vices like Marlboro Lights and Nirvana. But when the shoot for their low-budget horror masterpiece, PolterDog, goes horribly awry—and their best friend, Alicia Boykins, is sent to Whitewood as punishment—Rex and Leif are forced to question everything they know about their unassuming hometown and its cherished school for delinquents.Eager to rescue their friend, Rex and Leif pair up with recent NYU film school graduate Janine Blitstein to begin piecing together the unsettling truth of the school and its mysterious founder, Wayne Whitewood. What they find will leave them battling an evil beyond their wildest imaginations—one that will shake Bleak Creek to its core.