Mitigating Circumstances


Nancy Taylor Rosenberg - 1993
    Eager to step into her new role as Chief of the Sex Crimes Division, she is also coping with a foundering marriage and the lure of an extremely attractive man. What keeps her anchored is her quirky, thirteen-year-old daughter, Shana.But when an intruder invades their home and commits a savage attack against them, Lily heads out on a trail of vengeance beyond any law but that of her own rage. And suddenly, with one shattering act, she finds her life is spinning out of control, leaving her nowhere to hide. But even as a circle of danger closes in on her, Lily Forrester knows that she must find a way out, because there's no turning back.

Cimarron Rose


James Lee Burke - 1997
    Among them is Vernon Smothers' son Lucas, a teenaged boy about whom only Vernon and Billy Bob know the truth. Lucas is really Billy Bob's illegitimate son, and when Lucas is arrested for murder, Billy Bob knows that he has no choice but to confront the past and serve as the boy's criminal attorney. During Lucas's trial, Billy Bob realizes that he will have to bring injury upon Lucas as well as himself in order to save his son. And as a result, Billy Bob creates enemies that are far more dangerous than any he had faced as a Texas Ranger.

The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau


Graeme Macrae Burnet - 2014
    Socially awkward and perpetually ill at ease, he spends his evenings quietly drinking and surreptitiously observing Adele Bedeau, the sullen but alluring waitress at a drab bistro in the unremarkable small French town of Saint-Louis. One day, she simply vanishes into thin air and Georges Gorski, a detective haunted by his failure to solve one of his first murder cases, is called in to investigate the girl's disappearance. He sets his sights on Manfred. As Manfred cowers beneath Gorski's watchful eye, the dark secrets of his past begin to catch up with him and his carefully crafted veneer of normalcy begins to crack. Graeme Macrae Burnet's masterful play on literary form featuring an unreliable narrator makes for a grimly entertaining psychological thriller that questions if it is possible--or even desirable--to know another man's mind.

Birdsongs


Jason Deas - 2009
    Fired from the FBI for inadvertently sleeping with the perp in a murder case, he tries to disappear to a houseboat and retirement. Not having what it takes to relax, Benny starts a service offering discreet investigations. That is until a body is found crucified near his marina. The local police department requests Benny’s help and he knows if he can catch the killer, redemption is his. The Chief gives Benny and the department ten days to solve the crimes before he promises to request the help of the FBI. As the case grows, grabbing national attention, and the murders continue, the media soon fills the normally quiet town. Media goddess, Rachael Martin arrives and adds spice to an already flavorful mix. A few newcomers straggle in as well. An ex-convict fresh out of prison from a thirty year murder rap slinks in unnoticed with revenge on his mind. Days later, a Greyhound bus delivers a strange young man raised by deaf-mute parents from deep within the Ozark Mountains. An old newspaper clipping and a dark secret pulls him to town. Whatever is going on has something strange to do with birds. At each murder site, dead birds are displayed in disturbing ways—the killer arranging them as an artist might. All the strange occurrences and unexplained visitors to this quiet town press Benny James to his max as he vehemently struggles to solve the most important case of his life.

Dig Two Graves


Keith Nixon - 2017
    or murder? Detective Sergeant Solomon Gray is driven to discover the truth. Whatever the personal cost.When teenager Nick Buckingham tumbles from the fifth floor of an apartment block, Detective Sergeant Solomon Gray answers the call with a sick feeling in his stomach. The victim was just a kid, sixteen years old. And the exact age the detective's son was, the son Gray has not seen since he went missing at a funfair ten years ago. Each case involving children haunts Gray with the reminder that his son may still be out there – or worse, dead. The seemingly open and shut case of suicide twists into a darker discovery. Buckingham and Gray have never met, so why is Gray's number on the dead teenager's mobile phone?Gray begins to unravel a murky world of abuse, lies, and corruption. And when the body of Reverend David Hill is found shot to death in the vestry of Gray's old church, Gray wonders how far the depravity stretches and who might be next. Nothing seems connected, and yet there is one common thread: Detective Sergeant Solomon Gray, himself. As the bodies pile up, Gray must face his own demons and his son's abduction.Crippled by loss Gray takes the first step on the long road of redemption. But is the killer closer to home than he realised?Set in the once grand town of Margate in the south of England, the now broken and depressed seaside resort becomes its own character in this dark police suspense thriller, perfect for fans of Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride, and Peter James. Dig Two Graves is the first in the Solomon Gray series.

The Only Game


Patrick Ruell - 1993
    Title: Only Game Binding: Paperback Author: Reginald Hill Publisher: Harper Collins Paperbacks

One Grave Too Many


Beverly Connor - 2004
    Now, she ratchets up the suspense with a brand new series featuring one of today's most cunning and complex sleuths: forensic anthropologist Diane Fallon. Her new job as director of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History in Georgia takes Diane out of the game-until a former love and a murdered family bring her back in.

The Cipher


Isabella Maldonado - 2020
    Until now…FBI Special Agent Nina Guerrera escaped a serial killer’s trap at sixteen. Years later, when she’s jumped in a Virginia park, a video of the attack goes viral. Legions of new fans are not the only ones impressed with her fighting skills. The man who abducted her eleven years ago is watching. Determined to reclaim his lost prize, he commits a grisly murder designed to pull her into the investigation…but his games are just beginning. And he’s using the internet to invite the public to play along.His coded riddles may have made him a depraved social media superstar—an enigmatic cyber-ghost dubbed “the Cipher”—but to Nina he’s a monster who preys on the vulnerable. Partnered with the FBI’s preeminent mind hunter, Dr. Jeffrey Wade, who is haunted by his own past, Nina tracks the predator across the country. Clue by clue, victim by victim, Nina races to stop a deadly killer while the world watches.

The Long and Faraway Gone


Lou Berney - 2015
    Six movie-theater employees were killed in an armed robbery, while one inexplicably survived. Then, a teenage girl vanished from the annual State Fair. Neither crime was ever solved.Twenty-five years later, the reverberations of those unsolved cases quietly echo through survivors’ lives. A private investigator in Vegas, Wyatt’s latest inquiry takes him back to a past he’s tried to escape—and drags him deeper into the harrowing mystery of the movie house robbery that left six of his friends dead. Like Wyatt, Julianna struggles with the past—with the day her beautiful older sister Genevieve disappeared. When Julianna discovers that one of the original suspects has resurfaced, she’ll stop at nothing to find answers.As fate brings these damaged souls together, their obsessive quests spark sexual currents neither can resist. But will their shared passion and obsession heal them, or push them closer to the edge? Even if they find the truth, will it help them understand what happened, that long and faraway gone summer? Will it set them free—or ultimately destroy them?

Goodnight, Irene


Jan Burke - 1993
    When a veteran reporter is killed while trying to solve a murder that occurred in 1955, Irene Kelly attempts to find out who silenced her comrade--and quickly becomes the killer's next target.

A Death in Vienna


Frank Tallis - 2005
    Every dream, inflection, or slip of tongue in his “hysterical” patients has meaning and reveals some hidden truth. When a mysterious and beautiful medium dies under extraordinary circumstances, Max’s good friend, Detective Oskar Rheinhardt, calls for his expert assistance. The medium’s body has been found in a room that can only be locked from the inside. Her body has been shot, but there’s no gun and absolutely no trace of a bullet. All signs point to a supernatural killer, but Liebermann the scientist is not so easily convinced. Set in the Vienna of Freud, Klimt, and Mahler, a time of unprecedented activity in the worlds of philosophy, science, and art, A Death in Vienna (original title: Mortal Mischief) is an elegantly written novel, taut with suspense and rich in historical details.

The Death of an Irish Politician


Bartholomew Gill - 1976
    Now, here is the novel that started it all--the Chief Inspector's very first appearance. It was twilight on Killiney Bay when they pulled the Yank out of the water, his head split open by a violent blow. For McGarr, the case was a welcome chance to escape the gloom of Dublin. But from his first moment at the injured man's yacht club, McGarr realizes getting at the truth will require fitting together a number of jagged pieces: the world-class sailor who ran both his boat and his life aground; the beautiful woman who paid his bills; and the politician who was uncharacteristically involving himself in a homicide investigation. Suddenly, McGarr must face a malevolent plot of IRA gunrunning, betrayal, and conspiracy--all aimed at not just killing one unhappy sailor, but framing a certain Chief Inspector, and keeping him away from secrets even more dangerous than murder.

The Lime Pit


Jonathan Valin - 1980
    His latest hopeless cause is Cindy Ann, a teenage hooker. She's not very pretty or bright or engaging . . . she doesn't have much to offer at all, in fact, and somehow that makes her disappearance all the more disturbing for Stoner who knows what can happen to girls that nobody wants. And he's got a sick hunch that it happened to Cindy Ann, right across the Cincinnati border. Stoner's hunches are almost always on the money, and they rarely feature happy endings. But while the story may be ugly, in Valin's hands it has the brutal grace of a world-class boxing match.

Head Game


Tim Downs - 2007
    . .He wants you to do it for him.He watches your every move. He studies you like a mouse in a maze. He knows everything about you—every dream, hunger, weakness, and strength. What you long for and what you fear most. What you live for, and what you cannot live without. He plans to take those things away from you one at a time, invisibly manipulating the events of your life until there is nothing left to live for. Then he wants you to take the final step.Or is it all in your head?Is he just a figment of your irrational fear, a face you've given to your terrible misfortune? Everything you love is slipping away. You want to fight back but who, or what, do you fight against?Let the head game begin.

The Lesson of Her Death


Jeffery Deaver - 1993
    He cannot know, as he stands there at the trampled, muddy scene beside the college girl’s corpse, that his own life is about to slip into terror. He cannot know that everything he holds precious is about to shatter before his eyes. He cannot know that his career–and his family–are about to enter a new dimension of danger. For Bill Corde, the killer is everything he fears most. For Sarah, Bill’s wild, learning-impaired daughter, trapped in a world of frustration and ridicule, he may be just the person she’s been waiting for. Someone who understands her worries and loneliness. Someone who signs his notes “The Sunshine Man.” Someone she can run away with–even a perfect stranger.