Book picks similar to
Don't Close Your Eyes by Lawrence Kelter
mystery
fiction
suspense
mystery-thriller
Wanted
Nick Stephenson - 2013
Caught in the cross hairs of a ruthless assassin and on the run from the police for a murder he didn't commit, Blake and his team must fight to clear his name before it's too late.As enemies close in from all sides, Blake is about to learn who he can trust - and who is determined to destroy him - as The City of Light becomes a new hunting ground.Wanted is the first novel in the Leopold Blake series of thrillers, which can be read and enjoyed in any order.
Just Evil
Vickie McKeehan - 2011
No one cared. But a stranger, bent on revenge, is out to change all that. Kit Griffin has finally overcome a painful childhood at the hands of her mother, former actress Alana Stevens. No longer living in the grasp of the cold, tyrannical woman, Kit has found a new life tucked away in little San Madrid, California, running a business she loves, surrounded by friends she considers family. For the first time her life is on track. That is, until Alana is found brutally murdered on Mother’s Day, pulling Kit back in to the dark horrors of her past. To make matters worse, the police consider her the prime suspect.Jake Boston, an old family friend and the man Kit has loved since she was a teen, is fighting his own demons as a suspect in his wife’s murder two years earlier. Despite his past, he’s determined to win Kit over once and for all. But before that can happen they need to convince the police there’s a killer working his way down a list with cold-hearted vengeance in mind. Forced to delve into Alana’s dark past, it becomes clear someone is out to settle a score. When Jake and Kit uncover a forty year old double murder that leads them straight to the door of a legal dynasty, they soon find out just how far the heirs will go to keep the past buried and eliminate all the loose ends to protect their empire. Will Jake and Kit become the next victims or will they find an unexpected guardian angel?
Blood Orchids
Toby Neal - 2011
On a routine patrol she finds two murdered teenagers—one of whom she’d recently busted. With its echoes of her own past, the murdered girl’s harsh life and tragic death affect Lei deeply. She becomes obsessed—even as the killer is drawn to Lei's intensity, feeding off her vulnerabilities and toying with her sanity.Despite her obsession with the case and fear that she's being stalked, Lei finds herself falling in love for the first time. Steaming volcanoes, black sand beaches and shrouded fern forests are the backdrop to Lei's quest for answers—and the stalker is closer than she can imagine, as threads of the past tangle in her future. Lei is determined to find the killer—but he knows where to find her first.
Due Justice
Diane Capri - 2011
Fiercely independent Carly is the number one suspect. When Carly asks Willa for due justice, Willa has everything to lose. But she risks it all to uncover the conspiracy and keep Carly alive. Can Willa possibly win?<**formerly titled Carly's Conspiracy
When the Man Comes Around
Bradley Wright - 2018
He's become a monster. Losing your wife, your daughter, and spending ten years behind bars will do that to a man. Especially an innocent one.Now Lawson's life sentence has been pardoned, and the people that conspired to put him away are desperately scrambling to bury their little secret in the Las Vegas desert once and for all.They know he's smart, they trained him. They know he's dangerous, he almost caught them. What they don't understand is that when the law he swore to protect failed him, the rules no longer apply. And when a well trained man, with nothing to lose, who's endured years of suffering comes for you, all the money and power on earth can't save you. But having the one thing left in the world that he is willing to die for, just might do the trick."Jack Reacher meets John Wick."
Steel Breeze
Douglas Wynne - 2013
It’s been a year since novelist Desmond Carmichael's wife Sandy was brutally murdered. Now, with someone stalking him and his four-year-old son, he fears that the wrong man has been imprisoned for the crime. Sandy’s parents and Detective Chuck Fournier have a different fear: that Desmond, despondent over Sandy’s death, has become too unstable to raise his own son.To prove them wrong, Desmond must work outside the law to defeat a threat born in the dust of an American wasteland, baptized by fire, and hellbent on riding the winds of karma.
Deuce Mora Mystery Series
Jean Heller - 2018
The scrappy lead columnist for the Chicago Journal normally writes about politics, and, rather than shying away from fights, she tends to pick them, but every once in a while, Deuce’s search for a good story brings her face to face with more trouble than she was really looking for. In Award-winning journalist Jean Heller’s first action-packed mystery featuring the intrepid sleuth, Deuce learns in short order that if you mess with organized crime, you have to be tough—and you’d better be as much detective as reporter. The second volume finds Deuce on the wrong side of the NSA, the FBI and the CIA. At a minimum. Exhausted by these two white-knuckle investigations in one year, Deuce is content to focus on her column until she gains information that could help catch the relentless arsonist whose Burning Rage is consuming Chicago. Fans of hard-boiled female protagonists should hang onto their fedoras-- this one’s an action-packed extravaganza! "Good reporters do not always good novelists make, but Jean Heller is both." -- The Boston Sunday Globe "Superb ... It reads like a multimillion-dollar movie thriller." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Deuce … finds dead-ends and danger at every turn. Part journalism procedural, part character study, THE SOMEDAY FILE is a humdinger of a mystery, the first of a welcome new series.” --Paul Levine, author of Bum Rap THE SOMEDAY FILE Deuce uncovers a series of crimes committed over nearly six decades, and, as her human interest story morphs into a hard-boiled, action-packed mystery, she finds herself dead center in a storm of threats and reprisals from the mob. Fortunately, she has many allies, but at least one of them, she suspects, is hiding a secret–- corruption? Murder? The veteran reporter knows: if you’re talking Chicago crime scene—it’s probably both. THE HUNTING GROUND The grisly discovery of a human bone while Deuce is out for a hike with handsome arson investigator Mark Hearst leads to the unearthing of a vast burial field, a human trafficking ring, and international intrigue. The pull-no-punches columnist-- and meticulous detective-- keeps turning up information, but the Journal’s lawyer appears daily, bringing warnings about “national security.” What, Deuce seethes, could be a greater matter of national security than the safety of the city’s children, who are being kidnapped and murdered? BURNING RAGE Whole blocks of Chicago real estate are falling to an arsonist, but no one knows why and everyone suspects the worst – terrorism. But no terrorist group has claimed the mayhem. From the moment she hears the earliest details of the first fire, her detective-instincts say the pieces don’t fit, and every other instinct tells the hard-hitting reporter she can’t walk away from the story – even though she knows she’ll regret it. WHO WILL LIKE IT: Fans of Chicago private investigators VI Warshawski and Libby Fischer Hellman’s Georgia Davis, get-the-story-or-die reporters like Hank Philippi Ryan’s Jane Rylan
Thirteen Days in Milan
Jack Erickson - 2013
Moments later, a Paris-bound train with Sylvia's ten-year old daughter and fiance aboard departs the station without Sylvia. Sylvia is seized at gunpoint, thrown into the back of a van, blindfolded, beaten, and driven to a warehouse where she is imprisoned in a cell. When the terrorists discover Sylvia's father is a wealthy Wall Street investment banker, they demand a ransom for her safe release.
Johnny Revenge
Remington Kane - 2019
Jude claims he's innocent, even as the evidence against him keeps piling up.FBI Special Agent Erica Novac focuses on Jude even as she finds herself wanting to believe in his innocence. Is Jude Rowland a devious murderer playing a game only he knows the rules to, or is there an unseen hand framing Jude in an attempt to seek vengeance?This is Book One in The Revenge Series
Another One
Tony Faggioli - 2017
After two tours in the Afghanistan War, he thought the horrors that he witnessed there were behind him. But the death of his partner has now opened a dark hole of memories that are threatening to swallow Parker alive. Desperate to maintain his grip, he focuses on the last unsolved case his partner left behind: the brutal murder of Hymie Villarosa. Father Bernardino Soltera is being destroyed by the present. After ministering to the gang ridden streets of East L.A. for over twenty years, he's unable to see past the pain and suffering that drugs and violence have wreaked on his neighborhood; he’s ready to give up. But when a young girl confesses that she's pregnant and her boyfriend will hurt her if she doesn't get an abortion? Father Soltera decides to make one more stand. Hector Villarosa is being mocked by the future. After being released from jail he discovers the love of his life is with another man. As the leader of his gang, losing face could mean losing his life, and the fact that detectives are now asking questions about the death of Hector's cousin, Hymie, isn't helping. But Hector's bigger problem is the demon that has followed him out of jail and on to the mean streets of East L.A. Three men, one neighborhood. All about to discover that the veil between this world and the next is razor thin. “Faggioli does an astonishing job bringing both criminals and cops to life as three-dimensional, sympathetic characters.” – Amazon 5 Star Review “This is a book that so profoundly illustrates the never ending battle of good and evil, I'm almost without the words to explain it.” – Amazon 5 Star Review
Walk Into Silence
Susan McBride - 2016
Did she simply run off, or is something darker at play?When Patrick Dielman shows up at Detective Jo Larsen’s desk insisting that his wife, Jenny, is missing, Jo wonders if it’s a case of a bored housewife running away.But as she digs deeper into Jenny’s life, Jo learns that Dielman keeps a stranglehold on the family finances, down to the last nickel, and that Jenny’s first marriage dissolved following the death of her young son. By all accounts—including her doctor’s—she never recovered from the loss. Between a controlling husband, a tragic past, and a callous ex-husband, Jo can’t be sure if she should suspect foul play or accept that the woman may have wanted to disappear.For Jo, whose own demons are shadowing her every step, finding Jenny becomes more than the typical protect-and-serve.
Sign Off
Patricia McLinn - 2012
TV journalist Elizabeth “E. M.” Danniher will tell you she committed two sins — she didn’t stay young, and she made an enemy of a powerful news executive — her ex. She used to break national news. Now her top story as the “Helping Out!” reporter at dinky KWMT-TV in Sherman,Wyoming is getting a refund for a defective toaster. Tough, funny and determined, Elizabeth wrestles with isolation, keeping a professional edge, and an evolving self-image. Is Wyoming — the land of cattle, cowboys, tumbleweeds, and fewer than six people per square mile — her new home or a road to permanent obscurity? Soon she’s in a battle of wills with ex-football player turned journalist Mike Paycik, who sees her as a handy rung on his career ladder. And there’s the matter of a deputy sheriff—missing or murdered? Elizabeth finds herself investigating at the insistence of a girl who’s set on proving her father’s innocence. Not that enigmatic rancher Thomas David Burrell makes investigating easy. But Elizabeth won’t fade to black without a fight, no matter how final some might want to make her SIGN OFF. Don’t miss any of the Caught Dead in Wyoming series by USA Today bestselling author Patricia McLinn:Sign OffLeft HangingShoot FirstLast DitchLook LiveBack StoryCold OpenHot Roll
What You Did
Claire McGowan - 2019
A devastating accusation. Who should she trust, her husband or her best friend?It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.When Karen staggers in from the garden, bleeding and traumatised, she claims that she has been assaulted—by Ali’s husband, Mike. Ali must make a split-second decision: who should she believe? Her horrified husband, or her best friend? With Mike offering a very different version of events, Ali knows one of them is lying—but which? And why?When the ensuing chaos forces her to re-examine the golden era the group shared at university, Ali realises there are darker memories too. Memories that have lain dormant for decades. Memories someone would kill to protect.
Hope's Peak
Tony Healey - 2017
He’ll make her a princess like the others…Detective Jane Harper can’t shake the image of the young woman discovered in a field—eyes closed, a crown of woven vines on her head. She expects macabre murders like this in her native San Francisco, not here. Jane and her partner, Stu, vow to catch the killer, but in this town, that’s easier said than done. The police department is in the grips of a wide-reaching scandal that could topple the entire force, and Jane and Stu face a series of dead ends. Until they meet Ida Lane.Ida knows too well the evil that lurks in the cornfields. Tortured by her mother’s murder years before, Ida is paralyzed by the fear that she could be next. As the killer grows bolder, Jane must persuade Ida to use her remarkable gifts to help in the investigation. It’s a decision that brings them closer to the killer…maybe too close.
Final Passage
Timothy J. Frost - 2009
Twenty-five years later, Martin discovers hidden logbooks in his mother's attic, and vows to find out the truth. His quest takes him racing across the Atlantic in the Columbus Cup, the world's largest-ever regatta, an event that becomes a personal voyage of discovery and disaster. On the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, with his enemies closing in, Martin must make one desperate final sea passage to discover the shocking truth about his family - and himself.