Book picks similar to
Lights Out by Jason Starr


crime
fiction
mystery
crime-fiction

The Bone Collection: Four Novellas


Kathy Reichs - 2016
    "The Bone Collection" presents her trademark artistry in this collection of thrilling short fiction. In "First Bones, " a prequel to Reichs s first novel, "DejaDead," she at last reveals the tale of how Tempe became a forensic anthropologist. In this never-before-published story, Tempe recalls the case that lured her from a promising career in academia into the grim but addictive world of criminal investigation. (It all began with a visit from a pair of detectives and a John Doe recovered from an arson scene in a trailer.) The collection is rounded out with three more stories that take Tempe from the low country of the Florida Everglades, where she makes a grisly discovery in the stomach of an eighteen-foot Burmese python, to the heights of Mount Everest, where a frozen corpse is unearthed. No matter where she goes, Tempe s cases make for the most gripping reading. Praise for Kathy Reichs and the Temperance Brennan series Nobody does forensics thrillers like Kathy Reichs. She s the real deal. David Baldacci Kathy Reichs writes smart no, make that brilliant mysteries that are as realistic as nonfiction and as fast-paced as the best thrillers about Jack Reacher or Alex Cross. James Patterson Every minute in the morgue with Tempe is golden. "The New York Times Book Review""

Dark Origins


Anthony E. Zuiker - 2009
    It is well known among law enforcement personnel that murderers can be categorized on a scale of twenty-five levels of evil, from the naive opportunists starting out at Level 1 to the organized, premeditated torture-murderers who inhabit Level 25.What almost no one knows, except for the elite unnamed investigations group assigned to hunt down the world's most dangerous killers, a group of men and women accounted for in no official ledger, headed by the brilliant but reluctant operative Steve Dark, is that a new category of killer is in the process of being defined.Only one man belongs to this group.His targets:Anyone.His methods:Unlimited.His alias:Sqweegel.His classification:Level 26.

Sirens


Joseph Knox - 2017
    Pulling it off while also rescuing Isabelle Rossiter, a runaway politician's daughter, from Zain's influence? Impossible. That's why Aidan Waits is the perfect man for the job. Disgraced, emotionally damaged and despised by his superiors. In other words, completely expendable.But Aidan is a born survivor. And as he works his way deep into Zain's shadowy world, he finds that nothing is as it seems. Zain is a mesmerizing, Gatsby-esque figure who lures young women into his orbit--women who have a bad habit of turning up dead. But is Zain really responsible? And will Isabelle be next?Before long, Aidan finds himself in over his head, cut loose by his superiors, and dangerously attracted to the wrong woman.How can he save the girl if he can't even save himself?

In the Heat of the Summer


John Katzenbach - 1982
    (It was adapted as the Kurt Russell/Mariel Hemingway film The Mean Season.) Katzenbach's tale blazes with local color, and his depiction of the newspaper life is accurate, entertaining, and animated by an interesting dilemma: What does a newshound do when he becomes part of the story he's covering? That's what happens to Malcolm Anderson of The Miami Journal. One day in 1975, fate hands him Page One material: a beautiful teenager found with the back of her head removed by a .45 bullet. Katzenbach takes us through the reporter's paces: eliciting quotes from the victim's family and friends (the girls at school wonder who'll replace the deceased on the cheerleading squad); getting great "art" for the photographer; negotiating the story's space, timing, and emphases with the city editor. But this is no ordinary killing. The only thing worse than a dead teen is a dead teen with a note in her pocket reading, "Number One." Worse yet, Malcolm gets a call at his desk from the "Numbers Killer," who taunts him with an elliptical account of his tormented childhood and violent Vietnam experiences. As Malcolm desperately tries to deduce the killer's motives and prevent the next murder, he wrestles with the terrible question of his own complicity. The bad guy here is just OK, but the reporter is a very good character, and the novel well merits its Edgar Award nomination. --Tim Appelo

Forgotten


Heleyne Hammersley - 2016
    The doctor names her Kai, the Thai word for fever.Unable to recall what led her to end up at the bottom of a cliff, Kai’s only clue to her identity is a diary. Stuck in a foreign land with no memory, she begins to unpick the truth about her past. And she will discover who she and why she is in danger…This is Kai’s story.

The Bone Keeper


Luca Veste - 2018
    Your bones he'll keep. Twenty years ago, four teenagers went exploring in the local woods, trying to find to the supposed home of The Bone Keeper. Only three returned. Now, a woman is found wandering the streets of Liverpool, horrifically injured, claiming to have fled the Bone Keeper. Investigating officer DC Louise Henderson must convince skeptical colleagues that this urban myth might be flesh and blood. But when a body is unearthed in the woodland the woman has fled from, the case takes on a much darker tone. The disappeared have been found. And their killer is watching every move the police make.The brilliant new police procedural from Luca Veste, featuring series characters Murphy and Rossi - a guaranteed page-turner.

After Anna


Alex Lake - 2015
    A girl is missing. Five years old, taken from outside her school. She has vanished, traceless. The police are at a loss; her parents are beyond grief. Their daughter is lost forever, perhaps dead, perhaps enslaved. But the biggest mystery is yet to come: one week after she was abducted, their daughter is returned. She has no memory of where she has been. And this, for her mother, is just the beginning of the nightmare.

If She Wakes


Michael Koryta - 2019
    As she drives to deliver a visiting professor to a conference, a horrific car accident kills the professor and leaves Tara in a vegetative state. At least, so her doctors think. In fact, she's a prisoner of locked-in syndrome: fully alert but unable to move a muscle. Trapped in her body, she learns that someone powerful wants her dead--but why? And what can she do, lying in a hospital bed, to stop them?Abby Kaplan, an insurance investigator, is hired by the college to look in to Tara's case. A former stunt driver, Abby returned home after a disaster in Hollywood left an actor dead and her own reputation--and nerves--shattered. Despite the fog of trauma, she can tell that Tara's car crash was no accident. When she starts asking questions, things quickly spin out of control, leaving Abby on the run and a mysterious young hit man named Dax Blackwell hard on her heels.Full of pulse-pounding tension, If She Wakes is a searing, breakneck thriller from the genre's "best of the best" (Michael Connelly).

Child of Rage


Jim Thompson - 1972
    With a new introduction by Ed Gorman, an interview with Thompson's original paperback publisher, two original color works by Harry O. Morris, created just for this edition, two photographs of Jim Thompson himself, a small reproduction of the original paperback cover art, and a bonus novella by Thompson ("A Horse in the Baby's Bathtub"), long out of print, this is the definitive edition of this raunchy classic. Bound in cloth with gold cloth panels.

The Axeman's Jazz


Ray Celestin - 2014
    As a dark serial killer – The Axeman – stalks the city, three individuals set out to unmask him…Though every citizen of the ‘Big Easy’ thinks they know who could be behind the terrifying murders, Detective Lieutenant Michael Talbot, heading up the official investigation, is struggling to find leads. But Michael has a grave secret – and if he doesn’t find himself on the right track fast – it could be exposed…Former detective Luca d’Andrea has spent the last six years in Angola state penitentiary, after Michael, his protégée, blew the whistle on his corrupt behaviour. Now a newly freed man, Luca finds himself working with the mafia, whose need to solve the mystery of the Axeman is every bit as urgent as the authorities’.Meanwhile, Ida is a secretary at the Pinkerton Detective Agency.Obsessed with Sherlock Holmes and dreaming of a better life, Ida stumbles across a clue which lures her and her trumpet-playing friend, Lewis ‘Louis’ Armstrong, to the case and into terrible danger…As Michael, Luca and Ida each draw closer to discovering the killer’s identity, the Axeman himself will issue a challenge to the people of New Orleans: play jazz or risk becoming the next victim. And as the case builds to its crescendo, the sky will darken and a great storm will loom over the city…

CXVI The Beginning of the End


Angie Smith - 2015
    However, a degree of mystery surrounds his new colleague, Maria Barnes. She’s quirky, extremely talented, but comes with a chequered history. Is there more to her than meets the eye?It’s clear that the killer is on a mission which is far from over as the murders escalate. Can they work out who the next victim will be? Then, a chance discovery provides a lead: initials left at the crime scene. But, what do they mean?Even the Intelligence Services show an interest in Barnes and the case, so the pair break convention and go undercover looking for who or what CXVI really is. Woods’ life hangs in the balance when they discover the shocking truth.What do other readers think?Top Drawer – M A Comley – New York Times best selling authorA complex thriller with fascinating characters – Compulsive ReadersBreathtakingly fast paced – reviewerWow, a thriller to the end – S Hampson – Top 1000 reviewerBrilliant Thriller - Love Books Blog

Eeny Meeny


M.J. Arlidge - 2014
    As hunger and thirst set in, only one walks away alive.It’s a game more twisted than any Detective Helen Grace has ever seen. If she hadn’t spoken with the shattered survivors herself, she almost wouldn’t believe them.Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....

The Girl with a Clock for a Heart


Peter Swanson - 2014
    When George first met her, she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman from Sweetgum, Florida. She and George became inseparable in their first fall semester, so George was devastated when he got the news that she had committed suicide over Christmas break. But, as he stood in the living room of the girl's grieving parents, he realized the girl in the photo on their mantelpiece - the one who had committed suicide - was not his girlfriend. Later, he discovered the true identity of the girl he had loved - and of the things she may have done to escape her past.Now, twenty years later, she's back, and she's telling George that he's the only one who can help her...

Detour


James Siegel - 2005
    The Washington Post called it "spectacularly inventive," and James Patterson raved, "James Siegel has arrived in high style." Now this acclaimed new master of suspense returns with the explosive story of a mother's love, a father's devotion-and an adopted daughter who turns their lives upside down. They want what every young couple wants: a child of their own. But Paul and Joanna Breidbart have been trying to conceive for five long years-a torturous process of failed medical procedures that nearly tore their marriage apart. When they finally decide to adopt, American agencies tell them they will have to wait years for their dream to come true. The couple agrees to fly to war-torn Colombia to adopt a baby girl. Paul knows all about risks. As an insurance executive, he routinely calculates the odds of dying in a plane crash or being hit by a bus. Yet all the accident statistics in the world can't prepare him for what is about to happen. Paul and Joanna receive the baby girl of their dreams and their world seems perfect. Then one afternoon they briefly leave their baby daughter alone with their new nanny. When they return, something is disturbingly different about their child...and suddenly everything Paul values is in jeopardy. Again, James Siegel gives us a tale of ordinary men and women thrust into extraordinary circumstances-and a novel that confirms him as one of today's most powerful writers of psychological suspense.

The Hollow Man


Oliver Harris - 2011
    At dawn he checks in at the station to collect his things on what should be the last day of his career, but something in the overnight files catches his interest-a missing person report from Bishops Avenue, London's richest street. Alex Devereux-worth a fortune, never seen, lived alone-has vanished, leaving his Porsche in the garage and a suicide note on his desk. In Devereux's disappearance, Belsey sees a way out for himself: the opportunity for a new start by stealing the man's identity. It's a pity, however, that so many other people are looking for Devereux as well. Belsey quickly realizes that his would-be scam is about to be outclassed by a far more ambitious fraud, as the race to get to the elusive oligarch's fortune becomes a game with life and death stakes.The Hollow Man is a tour de force of pace and plotting, and a vividly evocative love-letter to London. Oliver Harris is a sharp and stylish writer who has created a seductive, worldly, and cunning anti-hero. Nick Belsey is amoral and cynical but nonetheless deeply serious about his investigation, about a police officer's vision of the world, and about the quest for truth that haunts any good detective.