Book picks similar to
Waterkill by Mark Donovan


thriller
action-adventure
mystery
atw

The Taste of Fear


Jeremy Bates - 2012
    When robbed of their money and passports, they seek help from the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam on the very day Al Qaeda chooses to bomb it. In an eyeblink they are taken hostage and whisked across the border deep into the Congo, one of the last truly wild places left on earth.Battling terrorists, deadly wildlife, and cannibalistic rebels, Scarlett and Sal must find a way to survive in a violent, primeval world. And the only person who may be able to save them is the assassin sent to kill them.

Stark Warning


James Raven - 2012
    But one deranged viewer is out to destroy her career. He demands that her programme be scrapped and tells her to stop appearing on TV. To prove he means business he claims his first victim – a young woman who is found dead with her throat cut.Jessica and her bosses face an agonizing dilemma: take the show off the air or risk more murders. They decide to defy the killer, for fear of setting a dangerous precedent. But there are dire consequences.

Seven Unholy Days


Jerry Hatchett - 2013
    Written in a staccato style that will leave readers breathless and flipping pages long into the night, Hatchett's...novel, SEVEN UNHOLY DAYS, is a thriller not to be missed!" NYT & international bestselling author James RollinsMatt Decker is a celebrity geek, designer of the nation’s futuristic new power grid and a hero for lowering electric bills across the land. He’s a talk show favorite, rich, and living the American dream. Until the power fails, everywhere, throwing the techno-dependent United States into chaos.Decker’s “impenetrable” systems have been breached in the worst way, and it’s just the beginning. The country is under attack from Abraham Hart, an eccentric and unstable man with nearly unlimited resources, a man who believes himself to be a bizarre hybrid of Christ and Antichrist. Hart delivers a new attack each day as he works his way through his own personal version of Revelation’s famed seven seals, and he makes it personal between him and Decker.

Fava


John Hazen - 2014
    Francine is a rising TV news reporter in New York City. Despite her brains, beauty and a growing following, she is stuck covering local interest stories. That is until her career literally hits the jackpot when the winner of a $450 million dollar lottery tells Francine that he is committed to using his new fortune to avenge his brother's killing at the Pentagon on 9/11. His seemingly crazy plan is backed by more than just money-he is in league with a ruthless and powerful Army Colonel gone rogue, religious extremists and co-conspirators in the highest levels of government. Francine teams with FBI Special Agent Will Allen, one of the few people who believe the threat is real, in a desperate race across three continents to stop the plot before it's too late.

Kiss the Girls


Pete Brassett - 2014
    And although he quickly builds up a semblance of normality around himself, his underlying inability to cope with the trauma of battle finally triggers a series of violent events that will become another man’s life-long obsession to reveal.

Blood Money: A Lucky Dey Thriller


Doug Richardson - 2013
    Yet even the most deliberate plans can go sideways. On his campaign south, the Marine’s “inner idiot” takes charge, leaving a smattering of dead bodies in his wake.In the dark before dawn, a telephone rings. Kern County Sheriff’s detective Lucas “Lucky” Dey, no stranger to being awakened with bad news, answers the call. But this time, the voice on the phone tells Lucky that his ill-fated younger brother has been gunned down on a blackened desolate highway.As Lucky chases the former Marine and his black semi-rig into the bowels of Los Angeles, he’s thrust into a landscape of competing agendas. Conrad Ellis, the multi-millionaire entertainment mogul, demands justice for the murder of his starlet daughter. Ambitious federal attorney Lilly Zoller is determined to turn any opportunity into her personal spotlight. Rey Palomino, the morally challenged contractor, colludes with the former Marine hoping to crawl out from under a crushing debt. LAPD detective and dedicated single mom Lydia "Gonzo" Gonzales, reluctantly accepts her assignment to "babysit" the unrestrained Kern County detective hell-bent on avenging his brother's death at any cost.A knee-breaking private detective, some unwitting feds, and a coterie of gang-busting L.A. Sheriffs deputies further complicate the scenario and round out the cast of characters in this explosive and unpredictable thrill ride.

The Moonlight Child


Karen McQuestion - 2020
    Through her neighbor's kitchen window, she sees what appears to be a little girl washing dishes late at night. But the Fleming family doesn't have a child that age, and even if they did, why would she be doing housework at this late hour?It would be easy for Sharon to just let this go, but when eighteen-year-old Niki, a former foster child, comes to live with Sharon, she notices suspicious activity at the Flemings' house as well. When calling social services doesn't result in swift action, the two decide to investigate on their own.

Ice


Kevin Tinto - 2015
    While twisting through one of the narrow underground passageways, Leah’s flashlight illuminates the remains of a violent massacre. Ancient human remains—all slaughtered in a long-ago massacre—cover the cavern floor, along with a number of brilliantly colored, granite crystals. The rare crystals are native to only one place on earth: a frozen mountain range in central Antarctica. Could Native Americans have traveled to the frozen continent of Antarctica 800 years prior to the first known human exploration? If so how? And why? There’s only one person who can get Leah to those mountains in Antarctica: her estranged husband and climbing guide Jack Hobson. At their destination they make a stunning discovery that will change history and science forever. But Leah’s team is far from the only interested party. As her secret makes its way to the highest levels of government, a race to seize the Russian-claimed Antarctic territory brings the world to the brink of nuclear conflict.

The Threat


Jonas Saul - 2011
    Things go bad fast. During the deal on the fourteenth floor of an apartment building, the dealer disappears, and Drake is stuck in the apartment with a dead woman.The police are at the door. He has nowhere to go.On the run from the police and the maniacal killers intent on framing Drake for murder, he must uncover the truth before it is too late.There is a reason behind the madness that has become his life. That information takes him back twelve years to when he was hospitalized with a concussion and his fiancée went missing.The only way out is to clean up someone else's mess. The only way out is murder.Drake Bellamy didn't want to break the law, but now he is out for blood.

Girl Jacked


Christopher Greyson - 2013
    They were old friends. He knew only one way to deal with pain. Hunt it down and kill it." Police Officer Jack Stratton is hiding. Hiding from the world. From pain. From the memories of losing his best friend, Chandler, in Iraq. Suffering from PTSD and isolated from those he cares about, the last thing Jack expects to hear is his foster sister Michelle, Chandler’s sister, is gone. The words cut straight to his core. Although the police think she just took off, he knows Michelle would never leave those she loved behind–like he did. Now he must take action, find Michelle, and bring her home or die trying. The first novel in the Jack Stratton Collection introduces us to handsome rogue, Jack Stratton. A debt of honor to his dead foster brother drives Jack into a world of deception and lies. As Jack’s walls begin to crumble, he must navigate the quirky characters that seep into the mystery of his foster sister’s disappearance. And in the sleepy community of Darrington, like so many places in this world, nothing is as it appears. The hidden mysteries that often go unnoticed begin to emerge as Jack and his new unpredictable sidekick begin to turn over the rocks. Following a trail that has grown cold, Jack must tread carefully to protect his job, his family, and his life. This stand-alone novel features rogue hero Jack Stratton. Look for other books in the Jack Stratton Collection including Jack Knifed, Jacks are Wild, and now Jack and the Giant Killer. They can be read in any order, however, they are best experienced in sequence.

Our Trespasses


Michael Cordell - 2021
    The pain is violent and immediate, and Matt knows exactly what it means… hundreds of miles away, Jake has been viciously killed. But instead of severing their connection, the murder intensifies it and Matt begins to suffer the agony of Jake’s afterlife.Hell bent on solving Jake’s murder in order to break the connection, Matt travels to his troubled hometown of Hatchett, Nebraska, where an old lover and savage new enemies expose the festering wounds that Jake left behind.Matt tries atoning for Jake’s sins, but when a demon infests the connection between the two brothers, Matt must find a way to sever their bond before his world, and ours, become engulfed in the flames of hell.Fans of Stephen King’s The Outsider, Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians, and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist will find this new paranormal thriller impossible to put down.

Chasing Fireflies


Paul Seiple - 2014
    Send them home before God cleanses the world. Homicide cop, Michael Callahan sees death everywhere. During the day, he protects the city from evil. At night — he is the evil. He hears the hopeless pleas, feels the last breath of the victims. He sees life fade away through the eyes of the killer. In his dreams, Michael is the killer. But it's just dreams. Right? The internal struggle of protector versus killer refuses to stay hidden when the dreams become reality. A serial killer, who calls himself Murmur, stalks the streets of North Carolina, searching for the "fireflies." Michael knows the victims all too well — he's killed them in his dreams. Riddled with doubt and growing suspicions from his partner, Bill, Michael is determined to put an end to the terror — even if it means an end to himself. Chasing Fireflies is the first book in the James Beamer/Michael Callahan Morning Star trilogy.

Close Calls: A Sam Archer Series Story Collection


Tom Barber - 2016
    Best series I've ever read’ ‘I have read every book in this series. Unlike so many other 'series' books, this one gets better with each book’ ‘I'd go for ten stars if I could; best of the best’ ‘Looking forward to reading more from this truly talented writer’ From the author of the best-selling Sam Archer thriller series comes a collection of three roller-coaster stories. A vigilante cage fighter, with a violent score to settle. A sniper caught in a hellacious ambush, thousands of miles from home. A young woman called in for a stand-in shift at the World Trade Center on 9/11. In these three stories from Tom Barber, familiar characters from the Sam Archer thriller series look Death right in the eye and don’t blink first. Moments that forged the people they are today. Moments they would never forget. Their close calls.

Ant Farm


James M. Jackson - 2015
     But the deadly picnic outside Chillicothe, Ohio, isn't the only treacherous investigation facing Seamus; he also worms his way into a Cincinnati murder investigation when the victim turns out to be a church friend's fiancé. While police speculate this killing may have been the mistake of a dyslexic hit man, Seamus uncovers disturbing information of financial chicanery, and by doing so, puts his son in danger and places a target on his own back. Can Seamus bring the truth to light, or will those who have already killed to keep their secrets succeed in silencing a threat once more?

Danger in Plain Sight: A Callie James Thriller


Burt Weissbourd - 2020
     Celebrated Seattle restaurateur Callie James is more than a little thrown when her ex-husband, French investigative reporter Daniel Odile-Grand, shows up after fourteen years asking for her help. Even more disturbing: as she throws him out, Daniel is deliberately hit by a car, hurled through the front window of her restaurant--broken, bloody and unconscious. He flees from the hospital and breaks into Callie's apartment, where he passes out. Reluctantly, Callie hides him. When she gets back to her restaurant, two assassins walk in, insisting that she find Daniel for them by tonight or pay the consequences. Overwhelmed and hopelessly out of her depth, Callie hires the only man she knows who can help her: Cash Logan, her former bartender, a man she had arrested for smuggling ivory through her restaurant two years earlier, and who still hasn't forgiven her. The assassins blow up her restaurant. It's Callie's nightmare. And the worst is yet to come as she and her unlikely, incompatible ally discover that the most perilous dangers are far closer to home than they'd imagined.