Book picks similar to
An Uncertain Sound by Roy Lewis


contemporary
reserve-me
crime
detective

Too Close to Home: The Samantha Zaldivar Case


Laurinda Wallace - 2017
    This is one of them. Seven-year-old Samantha Zaldivar is reported missing in February 1997. Despite the best efforts of the community and law enforcement to find her, it seems the first grader has disappeared without a trace until the forensic evidence leads a multi-agency task force to an ugly possibility. Months later, an unlikely turn of events reveals the young girl’s fate, which rocks the rural county in Western New York. Dedicated and meticulous police work brings a murderer to justice, but not without a cost to those involved. Stephen C. Tarbell, a retired Wyoming County Sheriff’s investigator shares his personal account of the investigation into the disappearance and murder of Samantha Zaldivar.

Buried By Debt (A Suburban Noir Novel)


Cathryn Grant - 2011
    Their friends say he's obsessed with her. Maybe he is. He wants to give her the world. Counting on a lucrative promotion, he bought a multi-million dollar home in Silicon Valley for her. It's all good because Jenna adores him. He's a lucky guy.Jenna loves Devon, loves her job, and loves nice things.Now, the economy's gone south, the promotion is delayed, and Devon and Jenna are desperate to hide their sky-rocketing debt.When a childhood friend confronts them about the money they owe, jealousy and secrets erupt in violence.Buried By Debt - A Suburban Noir love story.

Wildcat


David Achord - 2016
    A prime suspect in his wife's murder, Thomas spends his days working as a private investigator, all the while waiting on the inevitable knock on the door. Now he is about to investigate the most important case of his life. A case that will drag him into a world of corruption, blackmail and murder. In this high octane thriller, Ironcutter will need all his years of experience as he faces off against drug traffickers, the FBI and possibly his wife’s killer.

Always, 'Twas You


Jennifer Moore - 2018
    But they lost touch and her dreams of a lasting love died. Now that she's back, Kaitlyn won't risk her heart again. But fate has other plans. She and Connor reconnect and he realizes the pendant makes her a target. As a government agent, Connor is conflicted between his duty protecting Kaitlyn and feelings he never got over. As the two race to find a centuries' old treasure, they discover first loves aren't easily forgotten.

Sealfinger


Heide Goody - 2021
    She's got bigger things to worry about - keeping on top of her job at DefCon4 Security Services isn't easy - particularly since her manager is a cactus and no one will tell her what her job actually is.But when the ghost-spotting client goes missing and only Sam suspects foul play, she is compelled to dig deeper.Aided by her retired stage magician father and the owner of the most outlandish junk shop on the sea front, Sam dives into a mystery involving psychotic seals, unexploded air force munitions, DIY foot surgery and a corpse that just won't quit.

Feelers


Brian M. Wiprud - 2009
    Morty Martinez is known in the industry of estate liquidation as a "feeler."  If you were to look him up in the Brooklyn yellow pages, he would be listed under "home content removal," but his real job is looking for stashes of cash crammed into tin cans that have been left out of wills, kept out of banks, and hidden away for decades by the frugal elderly suspicious of ATMs and the IRS.  When Morty hits upon the biggest score of his life, over $800,000.00, he knows that news travels fast and he must operate quickly and carefully to safeguard his booty, his life and his destiny as patrician of a seaside Mexican village.  But what he doesn't know is that there are others after the same buried treasure, including the recently paroled prison assassin Danny Kessel.

Sophie's Search (Search the North Country Book 1)


Sherri Gallagher - 2017
    If only he didn't hate her. Widowed and buried in debt, Sophie Stearns is not going to pin her dreams on a man again - even if Patrick O'Brien is the man of her dreams. Making her environmental engineering company a financial success is her only hope for a secure future. Patrick O'Brien learned the hard way city girls will rip a man's heart out to get what they want. After his ex-wife's betrayal, he bolted to the Adirondacks to lick his wounds and forge a new life protecting the fragile mountain ecosystem from development. The best way to stop the newest threat, Shopsmart is to shutdown their environmental engineering contractor, Sophie Stearns. When a saboteur destroys Sophie's project and threatens her life, only Patrick's intervention can save her business. But Patrick must decide which is more important: his principles or his need to protect the Adirondacks. With the project deadline looming, Sophie must choose between using Belle to rescue a special needs child or saving her fledgling business. Will their choices lead to love or loneliness? About the Author: Sherri Gallagher is passionate about canine search and rescue, delighting readers with her keen understanding of the singular trust between dog and handler. Her teen novels, Turn, Go Find, and Bark Alert have hit the Amazon bestsellers list for multiple weeks. Her unique experiences as a woman engineer, business owner, and canine handler come alive on the pages of her latest series, Search the North Country. Sophie's Search is the first of a four-book series.

Detective Nikki Galena Books 1–5


Joy Ellis - 2021
    A talented young student goes missing on the marsh. Nikki and Joseph find themselves joining forces with a master criminal to save her. They need to look behind the masks, but when they do, they find something more sinister than they ever expected.Book 2: SHADOW OVER THE FENSA man is found executed on a piece of wasteland. The cold-blooded murder triggers terrible memories for Detective Joseph Easter. Just when things seemed to be going better, he realizes that the nightmare is coming back, threatening his career, his sanity, and maybe even his life.Book 3: HUNTED ON THE FENSA vicious criminal is targeting Detective Nikki Galena and her team. One by one he will hunt them down and destroy their lives — unless Nikki can stop him first. Can she save her team and herself from her most determined adversary yet?Book 4: KILLER ON THE FENSDetective Nikki Galena’s dying father has one final request: “Find Eve.” But tracing the mysterious Eve is a challenge that will stretch DI Galena to the limit. Meanwhile a dead drug dealer is found on an abandoned airfield that the locals say is haunted. The trail of both mysteries will lead to the most shocking discovery of Nikki’s career and put her whole team in mortal danger.Book 5: STALKER ON THE FENSDI Nikki Galena’s friend Helen Brook is involved in a serious accident where she is trapped in a collapsed cellar. Weeks on, Helen is still getting flashbacks to a man she says was down there with her and who confessed to a murder.No trace of this man can be found. Then Helen tells Nikki that someone is watching her.Perfect for fans of LJ Ross, Peter May, JD Kirk, Angela Marsons, JM Dalgliesh, Elly Griffiths or Ann Cleeves.

The First Time Ever


L.M. Krier - 2017
    With a promising career in front of him. Then he meets someone who could change everything but who can’t live with his police role. Ted’s wanted to be a copper since he was nine. Can he find a new opening within the force which is his surrogate family? Despite being trained to shoot to kill, Ted’s good with people. They like him, they trust him, so they talk to him. His skills get him noticed and he’s seconded to help with a big CID operation. It isn’t long before he’s facing his first murder case. Has he made the right choice in switching jobs? Or is he, as his Firearms boss warns him, about to commit career suicide?

Creepy Crawly (DI Jake Sawyer, #1)


Andrew Lowe - 2018
    Sharp, tough and pathologically fearless.Now he’s quit the capital and returned to his home town in England’s Peak District, to investigate the savage murder of his mother, thirty years earlier.When the body of a teenage boy is found in a shallow grave, close to woodland where Sawyer used to play as a child, he’s called in to help decode the killer’s nightmarish methods.But as the victims stack up and the case takes an unexpected turn, Sawyer must risk his own life to hunt the hunter and save an innocent. Creepy Crawly is Book One in the DI Jake Sawyer series. Dive in now and discover a new breed of detective, with stories that reveal the dark side of one of England's brightest beauty spots. Praise for Andrew Lowe:"Prose that gets under your flesh and into your bones.""Taut and compelling. Not a wasted word.""Plot and character perfectly intertwined.""Keeps you reading through the night.""Poetic and utterly gripping."(Amazon reviews).

Murder in the Goblins Playground (DCI Arthur Ravyn Mystery, #1)


Ralph E. Vaughan - 2016
    Located deep in Red Cap Woods, it has long been the site of weird events, from pagan rites to human sacrifice by secret devil cults. When local rowdy Allan Cutter staggers into the snug bar of the Three Crowns pub and dies, old fears that have lain dormant for ages come to the fore. His death is quickly followed by the murder of a developer who planned to destroy Red Cap Woods. Villagers believe dark powers are awakening, that the murderous elves reputed to dwell in the woods will again dip their caps in human blood. Into this maelstrom of fear and emotion come DCI Arthur Ravyn and DS Leo Stark. As the bodies continue to mount, they discover it will take all their combined skills, intellect and courage to solve the mysterious deaths, keep the villagers from panicking, and not get sacked by powers even more inimical than those lurking in the eldritch depths of Red Cap Woods.

White Fire - Free Preview (first 9 chapters)


Douglas Preston - 2013
    . .WHITE FIRESpecial Agent Pendergast arrives at an exclusive Colorado ski resort to rescue his protégée, Corrie Swanson, from serious trouble with the law. His sudden appearance coincides with the first attack of a murderous arsonist who--with brutal precision--begins burning down multimillion-dollar mansions with the families locked inside. After springing Corrie from jail, Pendergast learns she made a discovery while examining the bones of several miners who were killed 150 years earlier by a rogue grizzly bear. Her finding is so astonishing that it, even more than the arsonist, threatens the resort's very existence.Drawn deeper into the investigation, Pendergast uncovers a mysterious connection between the dead miners and a fabled, long-lost Sherlock Holmes story--one that might just offer the key to the modern day killings as well.Now, with the ski resort snowed in and under savage attack--and Corrie's life suddenly in grave danger--Pendergast must solve the enigma of the past before the town of the present goes up in flames.

Sherlock Holmes and the Hilldrop Crescent Mystery


Val Andrews - 2011
     However, it seems the great detective cannot resist the lure of the game for very long. When the Crippen murder case, in which Harvey Crippen is believed to have murdered his wife, Belle Elmore, comes to a brutal end with the hanging of Crippen, Holmes returns to London. He believes there is more to the story than the papers and the jury found and is determined to get to the bottom of the matter. The plot thickens as the duo, joined by the also retired Detective Inspector Lestrade, join forces to uncover what really happened in house 39 Hilldrop Crescent. As Watson uncovers more and more clues that corroborate Holmes’ belief that Crippen was innocent, Holmes takes it upon himself to investigate the happenings of the local homeless community, where people have been disappearing for months. Though seemingly unrelated, the two intertwine in a shocking turn of events. From ghosts and cannibals to faked deaths and homeless alcoholics, Sherlock Holmes and the Hilldrop Crescent Mystery carries on the pounding crescendo until the very end. ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Hilldrop Crescent Mystery’ is a gripping thriller by Val Andrews. Val Andrews (15 February 1926 – 12 December 2006) was a music hall artist, ventriloquist and writer. Andrews was a prolific writer on magic, having published over 1000 books and booklets from 1952. He also authored Sherlock Holmes pastiches and Houdini's novels.

Zero (Detective Kate Swanson, #1)


Matt Brolly - 2016
    A zero tolerance policy results in the death penalty for all crimes, no matter how minor.When a judge is kidnapped, and a ransom note demands the release of all prisoners awaiting execution, kleptomaniac Detective Inspector Kate Swanson is put on the case.But soon her boss also disappears. Under increasing pressure from her superiors, and caught between the security services and the growing social unrest, Swanson must race to find a man whose murdered wife and daughter link the missing men.Can she find him before it’s too late?With a dystopian twist on the police procedural, Zero is an unputdownable and atmospheric thriller. The first in a powerful new series from Matt Brolly for fans of Angela Marsons and Robert Bryndza or Minority Report and Blade Runner.

Glass Tiger


Joe Gores - 2006
    Halden Corwin, legendary Vietnam sniper and mercenary, has vowed to assassinate the recently elected president of the United States, and the government’s computers have picked Thorne as the most likely person to find Corwin. Special agent Terrill Hatfield’s crack FBI team will take care of the rest. But when the plan doesn’t go as described, Thorne discovers he’s been drawn into a web of lies, ambitions, and double-crosses that will force him to stand and fight.