A Dead Red Cadillac


R.P. Dahlke - 2011
    But when her trophy red Cadillac is found tail-fins up in a nearby lake, the police ask why a widowed piano teacher, who couldn’t possibly see beyond the hood ornament, was found strapped in the driver’s seat. Reeling from an interrogation with local homicide, Lalla is determined to extricate herself as a suspect in this strange murder case. Unfortunately, drug running pilots, a cross-dressing convict, a crazy Chihuahua, and the dead woman’s hunky nephew throw enough road blocks to keep Lalla neck deep in an investigation that links her family to a twenty-year old murder only she can solve.

The Legend of Devil's Creek


D.C. Alexander - 2012
    More abductions and killings soon follow. Justin Riddley, recently transferred to the island’s small college, faces growing evidence that one of his new friends and fellow students may be the murderer. John Marshall, redemption-seeking captain of the local police force, leads the frantic murder investigation and struggles to figure out whether the killings are tied to the island's dark and violent past. Tormented by tragic wartime memories, and more convinced with each day that it is humanity’s fate to destroy itself, Marshall races against both the murderer and the specter of his own mental breakdown. As blood continues to spill, Riddley and Marshall wonder whether there may be a dark, universal force that drives evil deeds great and small, and whether the nature of one’s childhood might sometimes, in the end, be all that separates the saint from the psychopath.

Good, Clean, Murder


Traci Tyne Hilton - 2013
    But being independent brings big trials, like falling for a handsome professor, dealing with an obnoxious roommate, and then there's the dead bodies...Who knew being housekeeper to wealthy owners of a Roly Burger franchise would mean sweeping up clues to their death, while ministering to the needs of their heirs?This is one big mess that Jane is intent on cleaning up before things get even worse.

A Death Displaced


Andrew Butcher - 2012
    A vision that could save her ...Nicolas Crystan, struggling to cope with his traumatic past, shuffles through life keeping mostly to himself ... until he has a disturbing daydream of a woman's death. At first he tries to forget it, but when real life mimics the daydream, he realises it was no ordinary fantasy—it was a vision of the future. To save a life, he must act fast.When Juliet Maystone escapes death, defying fate, she becomes 'displaced' in this world. All she wants is to return to her bustling day-to-day routine, successfully running her own business, but as hard as she tries, she can't ignore that things have changed for her. She has to face up to the fact that being 'displaced' comes with an unexpected ability.On Lansin Island, a quaint place with a dark history of its own, Nicolas and Juliet must learn to use their newfound abilities and work together to unravel a mystery more connected to Nicolas than he could ever have imagined ...A Death Displaced is the first book in a paranormal suspense/contemporary fantasy series with light romance.

My Sister's Grave


Robert Dugoni - 2014
    She doesn’t believe that Edmund House — a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder — is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.When Sarah’s remains are finally discovered near their hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Tracy is determined to get the answers she’s been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship to her past — and open the door to deadly danger.

Entangled


Barbara Ellen Brink - 2010
    One summer of her childhood is a mystery she intends to solve. But digging up her past also lays bare the skeletons of others, including her mother’s. Entangled between what she once believed and a new reality, will she be able to live with the consequences of full disclosure?

Concrete Evidence


Rachel Grant - 2013
    Now she wants revenge…Accused of stealing artifacts from a five hundred year-old shipwreck, underwater archaeologist Erica Kesling is determined to clear her name. She’s concealed her past and taken a job certain to give her access to the buyer of the missing antiquities. She's finally closing in on her goal, when she's distracted by a sexy, charismatic intern who makes her want something other than revenge.But Lee Scott is no intern. He's looking for the lead conspirator in an international artifact smuggling scheme, and Erica is his prime suspect. He’ll do whatever it takes to win her trust and get her to reveal her secrets, even seduce her.As Erica and Lee struggle to conceal their real agendas, the one thing they can’t hide is the attraction that burns hot between them. When Erica’s quest puts her life in jeopardy, Lee must choose between old loyalties and a woman he never expected to fall for.

Scraps of Paper


Kathryn Meyer Griffith - 2003
    It’s made her sympathetic to the missing and their families.Starting her new life, Abigail moves to small town and buys a fixer-upper house left empty when old Edna Summers died. Once it was also home to Edna’s younger sister, Emily, and her two children, Jenny and Christopher, who, people believe, drove away one night, thirty years ago, and just never came back.But in renovating the house Abigail finds scraps of paper hidden behind baseboards and tucked beneath the porch that hint the three could have been victims of foul play.Then she finds their graves hidden in the woods behind the house and with the help of eccentric townspeople and ex-homicide detective, Frank Lester, she discovers the three were murdered. Then she and Frank try to uncover who killed them and why…but in the process awaken the ire of the murderer. ***

The Profiler


Chris Taylor - 2014
    . . Federal Agent Clayton Munro, a criminal profiler with the Australian Federal Police (AFP), has been called upon to assist in hunting down a vicious murderer who is intent upon carving up his victims while they’re still alive. Guilt-stricken over his wife’s suicide, Clayton’s forced to set aside his personal issues in order to focus on the case. Detective Ellie Cooper is also no stranger to heartache. Pregnant and abandoned at the altar by a fiancé intent on pursuing a career with the AFP, her opinion of the elite body of officers is anything but favorable. Angered when her boss orders her to partner with the Fed, she’s determined not to cut him any slack. But women are dying on the streets of western Sydney and the pressure is mounting to find the person responsible. Will Clayton and Ellie be able to put aside their animosity and work together to catch a killer before it’s too late? And what about the special fascination the killer seems to have with Ellie . . .

River Bodies


Karen Katchur - 2018
    The crime is eerily similar to a twenty-year-old cold case: another victim, brutally murdered, found in the Delaware River. Lead detective Parker Reed is intent on connecting the two murders, but the locals are on lockdown, revealing nothing.The past meets the present when Becca Kingsley, who returns to Portland to be with her estranged but dying father, runs into Parker, her childhood love. As the daughter of the former police chief, Becca's quickly drawn into the case. Coming home has brought something ominous to the surface - memories long buried, secrets best kept hidden. Becca starts questioning all her past relationships, including one with a man who's watched over her for years. For the first time, she wonders if he's more predator than protector.In a small town where darkness hides in plain sight, the truth could change Becca's life - or end it.

The Obituary Society


Jessica L. Randall - 2014
    Lila is charmed by the people of Auburn, from the blue-eyed lawyer with the southern drawl to the little old lady who unceasingly tries to set Lila up with her grandson. But when strange things begin to happen, Lila realizes some of her new friends are guarding a secret like it's a precious family heirloom. It's a dangerous secret, and it has come back to haunt them. Lila is caught in the middle, and her life may depend on uncovering it. But even if she can, can she stay in Auburn when not everyone is what they seem, and even the house wants her gone?

Talking to the Dead


Harry Bingham - 2012
    . . . At first, the murder scene appears sad, but not unusual: a young woman undone by drugs and prostitution, her six-year-old daughter dead alongside her. But then detectives find a strange piece of evidence in the squalid house: the platinum credit card of a very wealthy--and long dead--steel tycoon. What is a heroin-addicted hooker doing with the credit card of a well-known and powerful man who died months ago? This is the question that the most junior member of the investigative team, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, is assigned to answer.But D.C. Griffiths is no ordinary cop. She's earned a reputation at police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, for being odd, for not picking up on social cues, for being a little overintense. And there's that gap in her past, the two-year hiatus that everyone assumes was a breakdown. But Fiona is a crack investigator, quick and intuitive. She is immediately drawn to the crime scene, and to the tragic face of the six-year-old girl, who she is certain has something to tell her . . . something that will break the case wide open.Ignoring orders and protocol, Fiona begins to explore far beyond the rich man's credit card and into the secrets of her seaside city. And when she uncovers another dead prostitute, Fiona knows that she's only begun to scratch the surface of a dark world of crime and murder. But the deeper she digs, the more danger she risks--not just from criminals and killers but from her own past . . . and the abyss that threatens to pull her back at any time.

Birdman


Mo Hayder - 1999
    The Met's crack murder squad, AMIP, is called out by nervous CID detectives to a grim discovery. Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered and dumped on wasteland near the Dome. As each post-mortem reveals a singular, horrific signature linking the victims, officers realize that they are on the trail of that most dangerous offender: a sexual serial killer. Detective Inspector Jack Caffery - young, driven, unshockable - finds himself facing both hostility within the force and echoes of his past in this, his first case with AMIP. Haunted by the memory of a death long ago, he employs every weapon forensic science can offer for he knows it is only a matter of time before this chaotic, sadistic killer strikes again.

An Accidental Death


Peter Grainger - 2013
    As a matter of routine, or so it seems, the case passes across the desk of Detective Sergeant Smith, recently returned to work after an internal investigation into another case that has led to tensions between officers at Kings Lake police headquarters. As an ex DCI, Smith could have retired by now, and it is clear that some of his superiors wish that he would do so. The latest trainee detective to work with him is the son of a member of his former team, and together they begin to unravel the truth about what happened to Wayne Fletcher. As the investigation proceeds, it becomes clear that others are involved - some seem determined to prevent it, some seem to be taking too much interest. In the end Smith operates alone, having stepped too far outside standard procedures to ask for support. He knows that his own life might be at risk but he has not calculated on the life of his young assistant also being put in danger. He might still get his man but at what cost?

One for Sorrow


Sarah A. Denzil - 2018
    To nurse Leah Smith, no matter what, all offenders are patients first and foremost. When Leah is appointed as nurse to Isabel Fielding, she is determined to remain professional despite the shocking crime Isabel allegedly committed in her past.Years ago, six-year-old Maisie Earnshaw was found face down in a duck pond, her body mutilated. Isabel--at age fourteen, found covered in Maisie's blood--was convicted of murder.As Leah spends time with Isabel, she comes to know her as a young woman with a sweet, gentle nature, someone she could never see as a murderer. Leah begins to suspect members of the Fielding family of framing Isabel as a young girl, and she's not the only one. True crime blogger James Gorden thinks Isabel is innocent too.Is Leah allowing her own dark past to taint her judgement as she grows closer to her patient? Or has a young woman been unjustly robbed of her childhood?