Book picks similar to
Hard Man by Allan Guthrie
crime
tartan-noir
noir
fiction
Across the Broken Line
Zoë Sharp - 2011
Never before published, it features her ex-Special Forces soldier turned self-defence expert and bodyguard, Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox.In Across The Broken Line, we follow Charlie through a fragmented timescale of cross and double-cross as she fights to keep her principal alive – whoever that might be.
Catch as Catch Can (Merseyside Crime, #1)
Malcolm Hollingdrake - 2021
Together with new colleague Skeeter Warlock, Decent quickly discovers there’s a sinister link between them all, one that will bring them face-to-face with some uncomfortable home truths.Catch as Catch Can is the first in the Merseyside Crime Series from Malcolm Hollingdrake – bestselling author of the Harrogate Crime Series.
Blood City
Douglas Skelton - 2013
Can Davie McCall survive?"Meet Davie McCall - not your average henchman. Abused and tormented by his father for fifteen years, there is a darkness in him searching for a way out. Under the wing of Glasgow's Godfather, Joe "the Tailor" Klein, he flourishes.Joe the Tailor may be a killer, but there are some lines he won't cross, and Davie agrees with his strict moral code. He doesn't like drugs. He won't condone foul language. He abhors violence against women. When the Tailor refuses to be part of Glasgow's new drug trade, the hits start rolling. It's every man for himself as the entire criminal underworld turns on itself, and Davie is well and truly caught up in the action.But an attractive young reporter makes him wonder if he can leave his life of crime behind and Davie must learn the hard way that you cannot change what you are. Blood City is a novel set in Glasgow's underworld at a time when it was undergoing a seismic shift. A tale of violence, corruption and betrayal, loyalties will be tested and friendships torn apart.
The Price
Kerry Kaya - 2020
Together they work for notorious East End gangster Billy King. Across the water in South London is Billy’s rival George Bannerman and the two firms are locked in a bitter turf war.Amid murder, drug deals, and rival firms, Fletch is harbouring his own secrets and it’s only a matter of time until those secrets are revealed, and when you break the rules you have to pay the price.
A Cold Dark Place
Gregg Olsen - 2007
Single mother and cop, Emily Kenyon spearheads a dark hunt for a killer. But Emily’s teenage daughter Jenna is one step ahead of her. Then another family is butchered, and another. As Emily fits the puzzle pieces together, she makes a chilling discovery: the killer is coming after her and her daughter . . .
She's Not There
Marla Madison - 2011
. . Is the rising number of abused women who've gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a serial killer targeting this vulnerable group of women? When the Milwaukee Police Department refuses to investigate because no bodies have been discovered, Lisa Rayburn, the clinical psychologist who discovers the anomaly, is drawn into an investigation to discover the cause after one of her own clients goes missing. She finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, TJ Peacock, and the husbands of two of the missing women who may themselves be murderers. When TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is found murdered, they know . . . someone is willing to kill to protect his secret. Can they reveal the killer before he gets to them?
All the Hidden Truths
Claire Askew - 2018
They know when.No one can say why.For three women the lack of answers is unbearable: DI Helen Birch, the detective charged with solving the case. Ishbel, the mother of the first victim, struggling to cope with her grief. And Moira, mother of the killer, who needs to understand what happened to her son.But as people search for someone to blame, the truth seems to vanish...
Afraid of the Shadows
Victoria SelmanPhoebe Morgan - 2021
Craven. A psychopath takes Trick or Treating a step too far. And a woman's dream of a quiet life is shattered by a knock on the door.Afraid Of The Shadows is a collection of gripping- sometimes funny, always spooky- short stories from some of the biggest names in crime fiction.From possessed sweaters to creepy wardrobes and disco shape shifters, there’s something for everyone in this Halloween bucket of short story goodies making it the perfect companion to snuggle up with as the nights draw in. Though be warned, you might want to leave the lights on...****************************************************************CONTRIBUTORSAfraid Of The Shadows is brought to you by twenty bestselling crime and thriller writers who between them have topped the Sunday Times and Amazon charts, won the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger Award, Gold Dagger Award and New Blood Dagger Award, the Bath Novel Award, the UK National Book Awards and the WHSmith Best Crime Author of All Time Award.Special guests:M.W. CravenPeter JamesT.M. LoganMatt WesolowskiTrevor WoodRachael BlokElle Croft (Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger Award)Heather CritchlowJames Delargy (Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger Award)Clare EmpsonJo FurnissT.E. KinseyN.J. MackayS.R. MastersPhoebe MorganDominic Nolan (Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger Award)Robert Scragg (Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger Award)Victoria Selman (Shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger Award)Kate SimantsAdam Southward (Longlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger Award)****************************************************************Profits from the sale of Afraid Of The Shadows will be donated to the Barnardo's Children in Crisis Covid AppealThis delivers practical and emotional support to vulnerable children caught in a downward spiral of deprivation as a result of the coronavirus crisis.Children and families across the UK are increasingly in or on the brink of poverty as a result of coronavirus.The impact of the second wave is pushing a generation of the most vulnerable children into a downward spiral of deprivation. With your support Barnardo’s can deliver the practical and emotional support families in crisis need.
Natural Causes
James Oswald - 2012
So the murderer has killed himself; that just saves the time and cost of a trial. But a second murder days later bears haunting similarities to the first, even though once more the murderer swiftly confesses and kills himself.Detective Inspector Anthony McLean is investigating the discovery of a dead girl, walled up in the basement of an old Edinburgh mansion. She has been brutally murdered, her internal organs removed and placed around her in six preserving jars. The evidence suggests this all happened over sixty years ago, an attempt to re-enact an ancient ceremony that by trapping a demon in the dead girl’s body would supposedly confer immortality on the six men who took one of her organs each.McLean’s grandmother – the woman who raised him after his parents were killed when he was a young boy – dies after months in a coma following a stroke. On top of this he has to investigate a series of unusual, violent suicides and a cat-burglar who targets the homes of the recently dead. But as another prominent Edinburgh businessman is killed, he begins to suspect that there may be a connection between the murders, the suicides and the ritual killing of the girl found in the basement. The same names keep cropping up. He just can’t find a rational explanation as to how that connection works.As he digs deeper, and as the coincidences stack up, McLean is forced to consider an irrational explanation. Could there really be something evil stalking the city he has sworn to protect? And if so, how on earth can he hope to stop it?
Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett - 1929
"Red Harvest" is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.The Op was in Personville, derogatory nickname aside, as the result of a letter to the Continental Detective Agency in San Francisco from Donald Willsson, publisher of the local paper, asking for an agent to visit. No other information. As soon as the OP arrives, the body count begins. It starts with his client!
Complicity
Iain Banks - 1993
The source is pretty thin, but Cameron senses a scoop and checks out a series of bizarre deaths from a few years ago - only to find that the police are checking out a series of bizarre deaths that are happening right now. And Cameron just might know more about it that he'd care to admit...
The Silent Daughter
Emma Christie - 2020
His son Mikey answers the call, but his daughter Ruth doesn't. She's always been distant, often working abroad for long stretches and communicating via social media.As Chris gets increasingly frustrated by Ruth's lack of response, police investigations into May's fall force him to answer some challenging questions. Why wasn't May on the race route when she fell? Was she running after someone, or running from them?A few uncomfortable certainties emerge: May and Mikey have been keeping things from Chris – and Ruth appears to have been lying to them all. But how many secrets can one family keep?When Chris realises nobody has had direct contact with his daughter in nine months, he faces every parent's nightmare – is Ruth missing, or worse? And with his wife in a coma and his daughter missing, suspicions fall on the family – and Chris himself.Having built a newspaper career investigating incidents and reporting the facts, Chris is well-versed in these kinds of situations. He knows what the outcome might be. But nothing could prepare him for what he finds when searching for traces of his daughter.
I'll Keep You Safe
Peter May - 2018
On a business trip to Paris to promote their luxury brand, Niamh learns of Ruairidh's affair, and then looks on as he and his lover are killed by a car bomb. She returns home to Lewis, bereft.I'LL ALWAYS BE THERE FOR YOUNiamh begins to look back on her life with Ruairidh, desperate to identify anyone who may have held a grudge against him. The French police, meanwhile, have ruled out terrorism, and ruled in murder - and sent Detective Sylvie Braque to shadow their prime suspect: Niamh.I'LL KEEP YOU SAFE, NO MATTER WHATAs one woman works back through her memories, and the other moves forward with her investigation, the two draw ever closer to a deadly enemy with their own, murderous, designs.
Cyberstrike: London
James Barrington - 2020
7/7/2005: Ben Morgan, a cybersecurity specialist with the Metropolitan police, starts another day at work. It will be the last normal day he ever has.The Present: In Hong Kong, a crime overlord is offered a deal by shadowy agents from Beijing: his life for a new kind of operation in London. Morgan, now a part of an off the books cyber-terrorism prevention unit, must do everything to stop its spread.This is a new kind of war: different goals, tactics, rules, stakes. And Morgan is caught right in the centre...
A pulse-pounding thriller rooted in reality, perfect for fans of Frederick Forsyth, Andy McNab and James Deegan.
Eyes Wide Open
Andrew Gross - 2011
. .A past encounter with an infamous killer turns deadly today . . .An ordinary man must risk his own family to find the truth.Jay Erlich's nephew has been found at the bottom of a cliff at Morrow Bay. It's all just a tragic suicide, until secrets from the past begin to rear up again. Did a notorious killer, jailed for many decades, have his hand in this?Years ago, Jay Erlich's older brother, Charlie, a wayward child of the sixties, set out for California, where he fell under the sway of a charismatic but deeply disturbed cultlike figure. Tragedy ensued and lives were destroyed, but as the decades passed, Charlie married and raised a family and lived a quiet, secluded life under the radar. Yet the demons that nearly destroyed him never completely disappeared.When Jay heads out west to help his grieving brother, he is pulled back into Charlie's past—and begins to suspect that his nephew's suicide may not have been that at all. With eyes wide open, Jay puts his own life at risk to uncover the truth, a quest that goes beyond the edge of madness and a family haunted by a secret past . . . and into the depths of evil.Drawing on two real-life experiences from his own past, Gross has crafted a richly personal, yet utterly terrifying tale of two brothers, one successful, one wayward, trying to bridge the gap of what tore them apart.