Book picks similar to
Knife Music by David Carnoy
fiction
mystery
thriller
mystery-thriller
The Winner
David Baldacci - 1997
All she has to do is change her identity and leave the U.S. forever.The KillerIt's an offer she dares to refuse...until violence forces her hand and thrusts her into a harrowing game of high-stakes, big-money subterfuge. It's a price she won't fully pay...until she does the unthinkable and breaks the promise that made her rich.The WinnerFor if LuAnn Tyler comes home, she will be pitted against the deadliest contestant of all: the chameleonlike financial mastermind who changed her life. And who can take it away at will...
Once Gone
Blake Pierce - 2015
A serial killer is out there, his frequency increasing, and they know there is only one agent good enough to crack this case: Special Agent Riley Paige. Riley is on paid leave herself, recovering from her encounter with her last serial killer, and, fragile as she is, the FBI is reluctant to tap her brilliant mind. Yet Riley, needing to battle her own demons, comes on board, and her hunt leads her through the disturbing subculture of doll collectors, into the homes of broken families, and into the darkest canals of the killer’s mind. As Riley peels back the layers, she realizes she is up against a killer more twisted than she could have imagined. In a frantic race against time, she finds herself pushed to her limit, her job on the line, her own family in danger, and her fragile psyche collapsing. Yet once Riley Paige takes on a case, she will not quit. It obsesses her, leading her to the darkest corners of her own mind, blurring the lines between hunter and hunted. After a series of unexpected twists, her instincts lead her to a shocking climax that even Riley could not have imagined. A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, ONCE GONE marks the debut of a riveting new series—and a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #2 and #3 in the Riley Paige series are also available.
15 Seconds
Andrew Gross - 2012
Stopped by the police for a minor traffic violation, the situation escalates and he is pulled from his vehicle, handcuffed, and told he is under arrest. Several other police cars arrive and the questioning turns scary, but after it subsides, and Henry is about to move on, the officer is suddenly killed in his car and there is only one suspect: the very person he was about to arrest not ten minutes before. Henry! When a second friend turns up dead, Henry realizes he's being elaborately framed. But in a chilling twist, the stakes grow even darker, and he is unable to go to the police to clear his name.15 Seconds is a story of how even the best of lives can be destroyed in just an instant—and of an innocent man, framed for murder, who has to save the person he loves the most, and who cannot go the police to clear his name.
Flower Net
Lisa See - 1997
ambassador's son is discovered entombed in a frozen lake in Beijing. Then the son of a powerful Chinese politician is found dead in the hold of a smuggler's freighter bound for California. The Chinese and American authorities suspect the deaths are linked and, in a rare move, join forces to solve the crime, and soon U.S. District Attorney David Stark is sent across the Pacific to team up with brilliant yet rebellious police detective Liu Hulan. Their investigation takes them into every corner of today's China -- from glitzy karaoke bars, where government leaders and mafia kingpins make their most unsavory deals, to Beijing's labyrinthine hutongs, where working-class Chinese have eked out their livings for centuries.Revealing a China that most Westerners have never seen -- a strange nation at once admirable and frightening -- Flower Net is an utterly original story and one of the most timely, thrilling, and thought-provoking reads from an astonishing new writer."Flower Net is a treat. In this, her debut mystery, Lisa See begins to do for contemporary Beijing what, say, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did for turn-of-the-century London or Dashiell Hammett did for 1920s San Francisco". -- Washington Post
Gray Justice
Alan McDermott - 2011
But when the killer is let off with time served on remand, Gray knows there is something fundamentally wrong with the justice system. Engaging the help of his ex-SAS buddies, he kidnaps five repeat offenders and asks the public to vote on their fate: Should they be allowed to continue their criminal ways with inadequate punishment, or has Britain had enough?His website attracts a worldwide audience and, although the authorities know where he is, they are powerless to stop him.Can Gray carry out his audacious plan? Will Andrew Harvey and his fellow MI5 operatives find a way to stop him?Gray Justice is more than a simple tale of revenge: it’s a rollercoaster ride with an ending you’ll never forget.
The Intercept
Dick Wolf - 2012
So when a passenger from the same plane disappears into the crowds of Manhattan, it’s up to Fisk and his partner Krina Gersten to find him before the celebrations begin... And time is running out.
Chasing the Dime
Michael Connelly - 2002
It's on the site."Pierce has just been thrown out by his girlfriend and moved into a new apartment, and the company he founded is headed into the most critical phase of fund-raising. He's been "chasing the dime" - doing all it takes to come out first in a technological battle whose victor will make millions. But he can't get the messages for a woman named Lilly out of his head:"Uh, yes, hello, my name is Frank. I'm at the Peninsula. Room six twelve. So give me a call when you can."Something is wrong. Pierce probes, investigates, and then tumbles through a hole, leaving behind a life driven by work to track down and help a woman he has never met.The world he enters is one of escorts, websites, sex, and secret passions. The beautiful Lilly is an object of desire to thousands. To Pierce, she becomes the key that might fix a broken life. But in pursuing Lilly, Pierce has entered a landscape where his success and expertise mean nothing. He is a mark, an outsider, and soon he is also the victim of astonishing violence, the chief suspect in a murder case, and fighting for his life against forces he can barely discern.
The 7th Victim
Alan Jacobson - 2008
His brutal murders confound the local task force, despite the gifted profiling skills of Special Agent Karen Vail. But along with Vail’s insight and expertise comes considerable personal and professional baggage. On leave pending a review of her assault on her abusive ex-husband, Vail must battle forces determined to bring her down, as she fights to find Dead Eyes before he murders more young women. But the seventh victim is the key to all that stirs this killer...the key that will unlock secrets perhaps too painful for Vail to bear. These are secrets that threaten to destroy her, secrets that will bring down her storied career. For Karen Vail, the truth rests at the heart of a lie. And uncovering it could get her killed...With material meticulously researched during seven years of study with the Bureau’s vaunted profiling unit, Alan Jacobson brings refreshing realism and unprecedented accuracy to his pages.The 7th Victim is a page-turner as only Alan Jacobson can write, with a stunning twist of an ending that will satisfy even the most discerning thriller reader.
Don't Blink
James Patterson - 2010
Effortlessly, the assassin slips through the police's fingers, and his absence sparks a blaze of accusations about who ordered the hit.Seated at a nearby table, reporter Nick Daniels is conducting a once-in-a-lifetime interview with a legendary baseball bad-boy. In the chaos, he accidentally captures a key piece of evidence that lands him in the middle of an all-out war between Italian and Russian mafia forces. NYPD captains, district attorneys, mayoral candidates, media kingpins, and one shockingly beautiful magazine editor are all pushing their own agendas - on both sides of the law.Back off - or die - is the clear message Nick receives as he investigates for a story of his own. Heedless, and perhaps in love with his beautiful editor, Nick endures humiliation, threats, violence, and worse in a thriller that overturns every expectation and finishes with the kind of flourish only James Patterson knows.
High Heat
Lee Child - 2013
In the midst of a savage heat wave and an infamous murder spree, a blackout awakens the dark side of the city that never sleeps—and a young Jack Reacher takes action as only he can. Don’t miss the exciting preview of Lee Child’s highly anticipated Jack Reacher novel, Never Go Back! July 1977. Jack Reacher is almost seventeen, and he stops in New York City on the way to visit his brother at West Point. The summer heat is suffocating, the city is bankrupt, and the mad gunman known as Son of Sam is still on the loose. Reacher meets a woman with a problem, and agrees to help her . . . but then the power grid fails and the lights go out, plunging the lawless city into chaos. What does a visiting teenager do in the dark? If that visiting teenager is Jack Reacher, the answer is plenty.
The King of Lies
John Hart - 2006
But does that make her capable of a vicious murder? Fearing the worst, Work launches his own investigation, crossing paths with a power-hungry detective, a string of damning evidence, and the ugly rumors that swirl within his small, moneyed Southern town.Desperate for the redemption that has eluded him for so many years and stripped of everything he once valued, he fights to save his sister and clear his name--in this poignant and thrilling anatomy of a murder and its ripple effect within a family and a community.
No Rest for the Dead
Andrew Gulli - 2011
Long suffering under Christopher's unfaithful ways, Rosemary is tried, convicted and executed. Ten years later, Jon Nunn, the detective who cracked the case, becomes convinced that the wrong person was put to death. Along with financier Tony Olsen, he plans to gather everyone who was there the night Christopher died and finally uncover the truth about what happened that fateful evening. Could it have been the ne'er do well brother Peter Hausen, interested in his sister's trust fund having got through his own; the curatorial assistant Justine Olengard, used and betrayed by Christopher; the artist Belle who turned down his advances only to see her career suffer a setback; or someone else all together? No Rest for the Dead is a thrilling, page-turning accomplishment that only the very best thriller writers could achieve.
Busted
Karin Slaughter - 2013
This electrifying eBook novella featuring Will Trent is a prequel to Slaughter’s upcoming novel, Unseen. Detective Will Trent is standing in a Georgia convenience store, waiting on an obstinate Icee frozen drink machine. To the surveillance cameras and bored staff of the Lil’ Dixie Gas-n-Go, however, Will appears to be someone very different—the menacing ex-con Bill Black. Going undercover as Bill, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent is about to infiltrate the most corrupt town in the most corrupt county in the new American South. But first: his Icee. Everything changes in one horrific instant, as all hell breaks loose at the Lil’ Dixie. A cop is shot. A bag of cash goes flying across the floor. A young woman disappears while a killer takes off in a battered pick-up truck. Within seconds, Will is in pursuit. Includes an exclusive preview of Karin Slaughter’s thrilling new novel of suspense, Unseen.
Fragile
Lisa Unger - 2010
It's a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another's kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows's insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients' lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie's intuitive gift proves useful to the case--and also dangerous.The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father.Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene's disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret--one that could destroy everything she holds dear.
The Girl Beneath the Sea
Andrew Mayne - 2020
An auxiliary officer for Lauderdale Shores PD, she’s the go-to diver for evidence recovery. Then Sloan finds a fresh kill floating in a canal—a woman whose murky history collides with Sloan’s. Their troubling ties are making Sloan less a potential witness than a suspect. And her colleagues aren’t the only ones following every move she makes. So is the killer.Stalked by an assassin, pitted against a ruthless cartel searching for a lost fortune, and under watch within her ranks, Sloan has only one ally: the legendary DEA agent who put Sloan’s uncle behind bars. He knows just how deep corruption runs—and the kind of danger Sloan is in. To stay alive, Sloan must stay one step ahead of her enemies—both known and unknown—and a growing conspiracy designed to pull her under.