Book picks similar to
Cutter's Grove by Patrick Dakin


mystery
paranormal
amazon
horrifying-places

A Pink Zombie, with a Mist


Jada Ryker - 2013
    As children, she and Emma Martin wandered into Heaven’s Bottom, an isolated Kentucky community cut off by the Ohio River and mountainous terrain. The two women share strange memories of the traumatic experience. Emma is convinced they witnessed a blood sacrifice and moon magic, surrounded by zombies. As a scientist, Olivia believes there’s a logical explanation.Detective Steven Lewis pursues his own investigation of the mysterious town. His wife, a social worker, fought her way into the Bottom to investigate suspected child abuse. She didn’t make it out alive. Haunted by grief and regret, Steven is obsessed with finding her killer. He’s convinced the murderer is hiding in the wild forest, camouflaged by the swirling mist.Olivia and Steven enter into an uneasy partnership to find Emma and solve his wife’s brutal murder. They contact Sheriff Noah McCracken, who holds the local law enforcement role that’s been passed down through his family for centuries. Like his ancestors, the sheriff ignores the chilling events in Heaven’s Bottom.Can Olivia and Steven convince Noah to “release the McCracken” in time to save their lives?SPECIAL BONUS: As a reader appreciation gift, “The Hand of Karma” mystery/horror short story is included FREE at the end of the book.

Gretel


Christopher Coleman - 2015
    When it sets its sights on an unsuspecting mother one routine morning along an isolated stretch of highway, a quiet farming family is suddenly thrust into a world of unspeakable terror, and a young girl must learn to be a hero.

The Cypress Trap


J.C. Gatlin - 2015
    She has no choice. Since the tragedy, they lost so much. They need to reconnect. Without her knowledge, Owen texts his best buddy, Daryl, to join the getaway. The three of them aren’t alone in the backwoods of Georgia, though. Owen took something that didn’t belong to him. Something that changed their lives. And now the owner wants it back. By any means -- including a posse led by a killer dog. At first, Rayanne is clueless about the item and its value. One thing becomes crystal clear: If it’s not returned, they might not make it home alive. The Cypress Trap eBook Categories: Florida Mysteries Georgia Mysteries Murder Mystery Female Protagonist Women’s Adventure Vacation Mysteries Thrillers 100 Must Reads Florida Book Thrillers Florida Fiction Books ˃˃˃ Q - So, what makes The Cypress Trap special? A ”" The Cypress Trap is a vacation mystery. About a Florida couple who getaway for the weekend on a Georgia lake, this book is a fun read that is scary in some parts, nail-biting in others, and surprisingly funny when you least expect it. It’s a murder mystery with a female protagonist that takes its heroine, Rayanne Meeks, on an emotional roller coaster ride. She’s dealing with the state of her marriage to realizing that her husband, Owen, has stolen something that is now putting their lives in jeopardy to coming to terms with the past tragedy that set these events in motion. This Florida Mystery touches on all the senses and offers some humor in the mix too. ˃˃˃ Q ”" What type of mystery is The Cypress Trap? A - First off, be under no illusions: this is an edge-of-your-seat women’s adventure, not a cozy mystery or detective story. It’s about a husband and wife trying to repair their shaky marriage, and end up running through the woods for their lives. There is peril, violence, psychotic teens and a crazy dog on the loose. However, it’s never so over the top that readers with a squeamish stomach should be turned away, but it doesn't let you forget the fact that this is a thriller for a single minute Ultimately, readers who enjoy a page-turner with a mystery that twists and turns all the way to the end will enjoy The Cypress Trap. ˃˃˃ Q ”" Do I need to read one of your other books before I read The Cypress Trap? A ”" Not at all. The Cypress Trap is unique mystery with a plot and characters that have no connection to my previous books. However, all my books are set in Florida and Georgia. I like to call The Cypress Trap a Florida Book Thriller. ˃˃˃ Q - So, why should readers give these books a try? A ”" Rayanne and Owen come to life on the page in a way that, hopefully, sucks the reader into the story as if he or she is right there with the couple, experiencing everything they’re going through. There’s a mystery that unfolds, as the reader tries to figure out exactly what Owen stole, and why the previous owner of that item is so desperately trying to retrieve it ”" no matter what it takes.

Shadows in the Water


Kory M. Shrum - 2017
    They didn't kill her — and they'll soon regret it.When DEA agent Jack Thorne's house is stormed by vengeful drug lords, both he and his wife are shot dead. Only his daughter Louie survives — by using a terrifying power that defies reason.Piecing together a life in his absence, Louie embraces her gift and her rage under the force of a single need: revenge.She will destroy the men that took her family. No matter the cost, no matter how many bullets, she won't stop until justice has been well and truly served.

Next Christmas in Girouette (Adventures in Girouette Book 1)


Michael Welch - 2011
    This book will appeal to people of all ages—nine to ninety-nine—who want to share a classic, heart-warming literary adventure at Christmastime. Next Christmas in Girouette is the story of a brother and sister—Autry and Oxana Quinn—who find themselves stranded in a Girouette, a virtual ghost town, from Thanksgiving through Christmas when their father is taken seriously ill. Their grandfather, a Marine Captain long retired, plus an eccentric old café proprietress, a Blackfeet Indian horse trader who once served as the town’s mayor, a couple who published the local newspaper and an ancient deaf-mute trapper are the only remaining inhabitants of Girouette. These self-styled, “diehards” all seem to have one thing in common. Thanks to a mysterious event 60 years earlier, they still believe in Santa Claus. Girouette features something for everyone: carefree cowboys who race their horses over snow covered country road, a team of wolves trained to pull a dogsled, a stroll that nearly turns tragic on a buffalo jump, a serialized newspaper story titled “The Adventures of Rocky Mountain Santa,” a desperate attempt to escape from an abandoned copper mine, a night-time journey through the mountains on a frozen river and the miracle that delivers wayfaring strangers to Girouette during a storm on Christmas Eve. The book revels in the solitary beauty of winter in Big Sky Country, the enduring wisdom of the elderly citizens of Girouette, the excitement of frontier history coming to life, the inspiration of a family healing itself and the magic of an old-fashioned western Christmas. Read Next Christmas in Girouette with your family this year, and you’ll want to revisit it for years to come at holiday time.

The Cannibal's Daughter


Mitchell Nelson - 2014
    She’s a nobody. And that’s the way she likes it. Her father, on the other hand — Hank Keeling, the serial killer and occasional cannibal better known as the Pork Chop Killer — has just gone viral. Thanks to a prison guard’s error, a cell phone video of Keeling’s botched execution is quickly becoming an internet sensation. After watching her father die in all his pixelated glory, Caroline is taken off-guard when Keeling himself shows up at her front door, looking very much not dead. And he has a plan. A plan involving Caroline. A plan Caroline is going to take part in whether she wants to or not. Success means wealth beyond her dreams. Failure means death. Soon Caroline is whisked away from her bland life to face down killers, gangsters and a well-meaning cop in a hunt for long-lost fortune. Deceit, avarice and unrelenting violence collide in a coming-of-age story like none you’ve ever read.

The Term Sheet


Lucas Carlson - 2015
    _____________________________________________________ David Alexander always dreamt of starting his own company. But in the exciting world of tech startups, where venture capital rules and billion-dollar businesses are the holy grail, things can and do collapse — in the blink of an eye... David’s thrown into this world and his adventures spiral him into a dark hole of terrorist plots, government espionage and classified information. It’s not as elegant a universe as he had first thought. One wrong decision could put the country in jeopardy, collapse David’s company, or even cost him his life. _____________________________________________________ THE TERM SHEET is a fast-paced technothriller about entrepreneurship, startups, encryption, and the delicate balance between national security and individual privacy. Its complex characters explore thought-provoking questions about the role of technology in an ever-changing society. Step into the high-stakes game played by today’s technology innovators, who push the envelope and risk it all. Get ready, this thrilling book gives you a taste of what startups are really like. _____________________________________________________ David Alexander, a young programmer in Portland, Oregon, loathed his job. Computer programming had always come naturally, but being an employee never suited him. So he tried entrepreneurship instead. After making a series of embarrassing blunders, David finally hit on a startup idea that stuck: encrypted chat. Sure there were alternatives, but as Edward Snowden has shown us, most of them (willingly or unwillingly) have backdoors for spies and bad guys. A new approach made David’s app one of the most secure options out there, which caught the attention of many people, including Shawn Douglas from the Secret Service. Shawn Douglas worked with eight different presidents, preventing twenty assassination attempts, forty-three terrorist plots and two bullets. When he was promoted to a desk job overseeing and organizing travel, he picked up on a cryptic email thread that hinted at a threat to the President’s life. In a race to unravel the conspiracy, Shawn and David both have to make some difficult decisions. Will Shawn stop the terrorists in time? Will David be able to navigate his startup out of a crisis and keep his entrepreneurial dream alive? Or will fate deal them both a crushing hand? Read the book to find out.

Miramont's Ghost


Elizabeth Hall - 2015
    Only one person knows the truth: Adrienne Beauvier, granddaughter of the Comte de Challembelles and cousin to the man who built the castle.Clairvoyant from the time she could talk, Adrienne’s visions show her the secrets of those around her. When her visions begin to reveal dark mysteries of her own aristocratic French family, Adrienne is confronted by her formidable Aunt Marie, who is determined to keep the young woman silent at any cost. Marie wrenches Adrienne from her home in France and takes her to America, to Miramont Castle, where she keeps the girl isolated and imprisoned. Surrounded by eerie premonitions, Adrienne is locked in a life-or-death struggle to learn the truth and escape her torment.Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, this hauntingly atmospheric tale is inspired by historical research into the real-life Miramont Castle in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

Abra-Cadaver


Matt Drabble - 2013
    Tragedy strikes when a magic trick goes horribly wrong and a woman lies dead. A local magician Albert Trotter is railroaded during a rigged trial and locked away. Forever protesting his innocence and after a vicious assault in prison, he is eventually sent to a mental institution in a catatonic state.Now Tommy is 36 and heading home for the first time in over two decades, but he's not alone. Someone is slaughtering the residents of Denver Mills with magic-trick-themed murders and holding those involved with the Trotter trial in a steely grip of fear. Tommy will have to find the strength to bring his old friends together as secrets and lies are exposed throughout the small town of Denver Mills.Something evil is coming home, and they're bringing a whole new bag of tricks.

Forgotten Bones


Vivian Barz - 2019
    But when it comes to murder, Officer Susan Marlan never trusts a simple explanation, so she's just getting started.Meanwhile, college professor Eric Evans hallucinates a young boy in overalls: a symptom of his schizophrenia - or so he thinks. But when more bodies turn up, Eric has more visions, and they mirror details of the murder case. As the investigation continues, the police stick with their original conclusion, but Susan's instincts tell her something is off. The higher-ups keep stonewalling her, and the FBI's closing in.Desperate for answers, Susan goes rogue and turns to Eric for help. Together they take an unorthodox approach to the case as the evidence keeps getting stranger. With Eric's hallucinations intensifying and the body count rising, can the pair separate truth from illusion long enough to catch a monster?

Born Lucky


Christine Dougherty - 2012
    A reluctant psychic, JD chooses to live in the safe world of a mental institution, unable to control the things he ‘sees’…sometimes with unwelcome, and even dangerous, consequences. Join JD as he tries to help find a young couple who go missing in the forbidding Pine Barrens of South Jersey.

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?

Terrifying Tales


Edgar Allan Poe - 2014
    Here, in one volume, are his masterpieces of mystery, terror, humor, and adventure, including stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter, and The Pit and the Pendulum, to name just a few, that defined American romanticism and secured Poe as one of the most enduring literary voices of the nineteenth century.

Croaker: Kill Me Again


Paul Bishop - 1994
    Now, because of a streak of unsolved murders, she feels extra pressure to solve the murder of a mysterious woman who had multiple IDs in different names, a million dollars in cash, and only new clothing and furniture in her equally new condo at the time of her death. Fingerprints inexplicably reveal the woman had already been murdered – 18 years earlier in San Francisco. Despite this twist, the case appears to be open and shut – the woman's ex-husband, convicted of killing her the first time, was released on parole weeks before her second murder. However, the victim has many more surprises for everyone involved – especially for Fey, who finds herself becoming one of the suspects when her investigation takes a turn for the deadly.

The Thin Wall


E.M. Parker - 2016
    On the surface, the setup was perfect: cheap rent, a great location, and total anonymity.Beneath the surface, however, Corona Heights was something else entirely.Cursed with paper thin walls, the building kept few of its tenants' secrets. But one secret had remained safely buried for years until Fiona's strange encounter with her neighbor - a ten-year-old named Olivia - threatened to unearth it, and all of the unimaginable consequences inherent in its being.As she wages a personal crusade to regain the love and trust of her estranged son, Fiona must also confront the ever-tightening grip of an addiction that she has yet to overcome, a neighbor whose erratic behavior grows more dangerous by the hour, and a seemingly innocent little girl whose dark connection to Corona Heights threatens not only the child's life, but the life that Fiona is trying so desperately to reclaim.And it all begins with a foreboding message from the girl whose face Fiona cannot see, but whose voice is hauntingly clear."Don't ignore the knocking..."