Book picks similar to
Stealing Venice by Anna Erikssön Bendewald
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The Friday Edition
Betta Ferrendelli - 2012
She pursues her sister’s killers, maneuvering through a minefield of intrigue deliberately set out to divert her from the truth. She invariably stumbles when confronted by the inescapable specter of a greater enemy: the alcohol dependency that has already cost her the respect of her peers, and, worse, custody of her daughter.Samantha must summon the courage to face not only a cartel of criminals, but also her own demons. Physically threatened and betrayed, she nearly defeats herself through her own insecurities and fears. She not only must summon the courage to get beyond her own shortcomings, but she must work quickly to beat her nemesis – a reporter at the major metropolitan daily newspaper, who is also in close pursuit of the developing story.Can Samantha ultimately prevail, write the biggest story of her career, and finally begin to change her life before it is too late?
By the Light of Embers
Shaylin Gandhi - 2019
While sock hops and poodle skirts occupy her classmates, she dreams of bacteria and broken bones—and the day she’ll finally fix them.After graduation, a letter arrives, and Lucia reads the words she’s labored a lifetime to earn—"we are pleased to offer you a position at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine." But in the midst of her triumph, her fiancé delivers a crushing ultimatum: forego medical school, or forego marriage.With fractured hopes, she returns home to Louisiana, expecting nothing of the summer of '54 but sweet tea and gumbo while she agonizes over her impending choice. There, she unexpectedly befriends Nicholas, a dark-skinned poet whose dignity and intellect are a salve to her aching heart. Their bond, initially forged from a shared love of literature, soon blossoms into something as bewitching as it is forbidden.Yet her predicament deepens when a trivial misunderstanding between a local white woman and a black man results in a brutal lynching, and the peril of love across the color lines becomes chillingly real. Now, fulfilling her lifelong dream means relinquishing her heart—and escaping Louisiana alive.
A Perfect Eye
Stephanie Kane - 2019
Lily Sparks was born with a perfect eye. As Conservator of Paintings at the Denver Art Museum, she uses her keen visual powers to restore masterpieces and detect what's authentic and what is not. When the museum's billionaire benefactor is brutally murdered and Lily is dragged into the case, the grisly tableau stuns her: it's the human embodiment of the museum's prized landscape by famed Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte. Lily comes to believe the Caillebotte was forged and the killer is a painter the art world spurned. But this knowledge comes at a terrible cost. As she confronts where art ends and fraud begins, she must face the deceptions in her own past.
The Thin Wall
R. Cyril West - 2014
Without warning, Russian tanks have crossed the frontier and are pouring into the city. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia has begun. Arriving with the troops is Colonel Grigori Dal, a seasoned KGB officer and coldblooded killer. While the country slips into chaos, Dal uses the fighting as cover to apprehend an American prisoner of war from a military prison in Prague. Within days, only a cursed woman and a troubled war hero will stand between him and protecting the Cold War’s darkest secret: proof U.S. servicemen were secretly transferred to the Soviet Union.R. Cyril West’s award winning novel of tragic love, suspense, intrigue, and the dangerous machinations of the human heart—The Thin Wall.*BRAG Medallion Award
The Unspoken
Ian K. Smith - 2020
After refusing to participate in a police department cover-up involving the death of a young black man, Cayne is pushed out of the force. But he won’t sit quietly on the sidelines: he’s compelled to fight for justice as a private investigator…even if it means putting himself in jeopardy.When a young woman, Tinsley Gerrigan, goes missing, her wealthy parents from the North Shore hire Cayne to find her. As Cayne looks into her life and past, he uncovers secrets Tinsley’s been hiding from her family. Cayne fears he may never find Tinsley alive.His worries spike when Tinsley’s boyfriend is found dead—another black man murdered on the tough Chicago streets. Cayne must navigate his complicated relationships within the Chicago PD, leveraging his contacts and police skills to find the missing young woman, see justice done, and earn his redemption.
False Light
Eric Dezenhall - 2021
After Fuse is asked to leave his paper pending a disciplinary investigation, he has plenty of time on his hands. So when his oldest friend approaches him for advice after the man’s daughter says she was sexually assaulted by her boss, a prominent media star, Fuse agrees to help. He gives his buddy the only options he feels are available: report the incident to the police and risk a huge “he said/she said” smear campaign against the girl, or plan something even better—revenge. As a journalist, Fuse has a colorful background investigating criminals, politicians, gangsters, drug lords, and all-around shysters—and knows plenty of shady sources—so he’s the perfect person to enact a complex (and ultimately, entertaining) plan to bring the popular media mogul down in the court of public opinion . . . and make him pay.
Felony Murder
Joseph T. Klempner - 1995
Klempner's fast-paced page-turner is more than entertainment . . . He writes with power, color, and compassion. . . . Felony Murder takes you through the tawdry, real-life criminal justice system where you cannot tell the cops from the crooks." - William Kunstler On the surface, the court-appointed case that lands on young Dean Abernathy's desk is a biggie; he is slated to defend a homeless man accused of the felony murder of the popular black New York City Police commissioner during an early-morning mugging attempt. But at second look, the case promises to be a routine conviction. The evidence is overwhelming. The police have come up with an eyewitness, they have physical evidence, and Joey Spadafino has given the arresting officers a signed confession. Dean's course seems obvious: Get Joe Spadafino, an ex-con, to plead guilty, bargain for the most lenient sentence possible, and figure you can't win ‘em all. Before he can talk to his client about a plea bargain, however, he finds that the prosecutor has already offered one - which Joey refuses. Dean, not only a conscientious defense attorney but a former investigator, starts looking harder at the seemingly incontrovertible evidence. What he turns up changes a foregone conclusion into something very different. The district attorney, although outwardly cooperative, seems to be trying to keep Dean from interviewing the eyewitness - and the reason becomes apparent when Dean, challenged, digs deeper into her background. Anomalies and discrepancies in the government's case crop up. Dean realizes that he is drawing closer to a particularly nasty truth, one that not only puts his life and those of others in immediate peril but confronts him with a moral dilemma that is even more difficult to face.
Where the Hurt Is
Chris Kelsey - 2018
The social revolutions rocking America have mostly bypassed Burr, a tiny rural community in western Oklahoma. Like much of the state, Burr remains as it’s always been: Religious. Conservative. And 100% white. When an unknown young African- American woman is found murdered on the railroad tracks outside town, most of Burr would rather look the other way. The town’s police chief, troubled local hero and ex-Marine Emmett Hardy, doesn’t have that luxury. A lover of books and jazz in the land of football and country & western, Emmett is an outsider in a place he knows like the back of his hand. In his search for the killer, he’s forced to slice through layers of hate and hypocrisy to confront the ethical rot at the town’s core, while being haunted by the vision of a life and love that might have been.
Intricate Deceptions (Intricate, #1)
Jennifer Rayes - 2013
An opportune rescue by Raoul, the Prince of Kayamato, saves Gaia from a gruesome future, and she is thrown into a world of luxury and privilege. As she struggles to regain her memory, Gaia learns that her rescue was no accident and finds herself in even more danger, hunted by a powerful drug lord, targeted by a thrill seeking pirate, and betrayed by those she thought closest to her. Fighting for sanity and survival, she works to unravel the truth behind her capture, each revelation more shocking than the last. The intricate web of deceptions spun around her family will shatter her world, leaving her unsure if she will ever trust again. Through it all, she must survive to save a friend before it’s too late…
Home Truths
Tina Seskis - 2019
But can it survive the unimaginable?
American nanny Eleanor was never meant to meet Alex. But when she walks into his London police station to report a stalker, everything changes for them both. He’s convinced he can protect her from anything and anyone. She hopes her darkest days are behind her.As they settle into their life together, two hundred miles away another young couple faces an uncertain future. Christie knows Paul is a decent man, but she can’t shake a clairvoyant’s warning: ‘Never trust your husband . . .’ When a work trip tests their bond, will she overcome her fears for the sake of her family?Ten years later, both couples are still together, for better or worse. But as doubts and resentments begin bubbling steadily to the surface, all four of them start to question the choices they’ve made.At least the secrets they all brought into their marriages are still well hidden.For now.
Turning Back Time: Sweet and Wholesome with a Fun Matchmaking Twist (Crestfield Inn, #1)
Elsie Davis - 2020
He’s intent on filling in the missing links on his family tree. When they both end up researching the early 1800s, will history get in the way of the future?All Sarah’s life, stories had been told—handed down from generation to generation. Captain Tremont had gone to his watery grave committing a crime…bootlegging. But a message discovered in her grandmother’s trunk addressed to her great-grandfather six times removed, leads Sarah to believe there is another explanation.Blake is delivering a load of antiques to the local B&B when a gorgeous woman just about knocks him off his feet—literally and figuratively. An antique lamp gets broken and the air is rife with tension, but when they meet again at the library, Blake offers to team up in their research efforts by way of apology. Strictly business of course.But as they wind their way through history, it would seem there are some strange things happening when the resident spirit gets involved. Will the truth bring them happiness or drive them apart forever?
The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator
Joakim Palmkvist - 2017
When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on—except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime—and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden. But not for Therese Tang. For two years, this case was her obsession.A hard-working ex-model, mother of three, and Missing People investigator, Therese was willing to put her own safety at risk in order to uncover the truth. What she found was a nest of depraved secrets, lies, and betrayal. All she had to do now, in her relentless and dangerous pursuit of justice, was prove that it led to murder.
Devil in the Hole
Charles Salzberg - 2013
In an upstairs bedroom: an elderly woman and the family dog, both of them shot as well. The only person missing is the husband, father, son, and prime suspect, John Hartman, who's got a three-week jump on the police. Through the eyes of almost two dozen characters, including the neighbor who reports the crime, Hartman’s mistress, a dogged state investigator, the family minister, and some of the characters Hartman meets on his escape route, we piece together not only what happened and how these shocking murders affect the community, but how John Hartman evades capture, where he’s headed, and maybe even why he committed this gruesome crime in the first place. Based on the notorious John List murders and already compared to works by Norman Mailer and Russell Banks, Devil in the Hole is gripping, literate, and haunting.
Blood for Blood
Victoria Selman - 2019
Now one is profiling her.Rush hour, London. A packed commuter train is torn apart in a collision. Picking through the carnage, ex-special forces profiler Ziba MacKenzie helps a dying woman who passes on a cryptic message: He did it. You have to tell someone.When a corpse is found bearing the gruesome signature of a serial killer dormant for twenty-five years, Ziba is pulled into the hunt for the perpetrator. As the body count rises it becomes clear he’s on a new spree. But what’s brought the London Lacerator back after such a long hiatus? And does his sudden return have anything to do with the woman on the train?Ziba scrambles to profile the killer in the hope of predicting his next move. But time is running out. And the closer she gets to uncovering his identity, the closer he gets to destroying hers.
A Criminal Defense
William L. Myers Jr. - 2017
The defendant, David Hanson, was Mick’s close friend in law school, and the victim, a TV news reporter, had reached out to Mick for legal help only hours before her death.Mick’s played both sides of Philadelphia’s courtrooms. As a top-shelf defense attorney and former prosecutor, he knows all the tricks of the trade. And he’ll need every one of them to win.But as the trial progresses, he’s disturbed by developments that confirm his deepest fears. This trial, one that already hits too close to home, may jeopardize his firm, his family—everything. Now Mick’s only way out is to mastermind the most brilliant defense he’s ever spun, one that will cross every legal and moral boundary.