Book picks similar to
Live to Air (Ethan Benson) by Jeffrey L. Diamond
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The Cabin
Natasha Preston - 2016
But when they wake to find two of their own dead and covered in blood, it's clear there's a killer among them.As the police try to unravel the case, Mackenzie launches her own investigation. Before long secrets start to emerge, revealing a sinister web of sins among the original seven friends. The killer is still free. Every one of them is a suspect. And Mackenzie starts to realize that no one is innocent…
The One-Eyed Judge
Michael Ponsor - 2017
Cranmer insists the illicit material found by the agents isn't his, but the charge against him appears airtight, and his academic specialty--the life and work of controversial author Lewis Carroll, creator of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland--convinces investigators he's lying.Presiding over the case against Professor Cranmer, U.S. District Judge David Norcross fears his daily confrontation with evil has made him too jaded to become a husband and father. His girlfriend, Claire Lindemann, teaches in the same department as the defendant and is convinced of his innocence. Soon, she will take matters into her own hands. Meanwhile--with his love life in turmoil and his plans for the future on hold--a personal tragedy leaves Norcross responsible for his two young nieces. Unbeknownst to him, a vengeful child predator hovers over his new family, preparing to strike.Michael Ponsor's debut novel, The Hanging Judge, was praised by retired Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens for reminding readers "that the judicial process is not infallible" and by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder for bearing "the heft of authenticity." The One-Eyed Judge again draws on Ponsor's thirty years as a US district judge, offering readers an insider's view of one of the most harrowing kinds of cases faced by the courts. Fast-paced, thrilling, and thought-provoking, this is legal fiction at its most realistic and compelling.The One-Eyed Judge is the 2nd book in the Judge Norcross Novels, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Everything You Want Me to Be
Mindy Mejia - 2017
But Hattie wants something more, something bigger, and ultimately something that turns out to be exceedingly dangerous. When she’s found brutally stabbed to death, the tragedy rips right through the fabric of her small-town community.It soon comes to light that Hattie was engaged in a highly compromising and potentially explosive secret online relationship. The question is: Did anyone else know? And to what lengths might they have gone to end it? Hattie’s boyfriend seems distraught over her death, but had he fallen so deeply in love with her that she had become an obsession? Or did Hattie’s impulsive, daredevil nature simply put her in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading her to a violent death at the hands of a stranger?Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront…and she inches closer and closer to death.Evocative and razor-sharp, Everything You Want Me to Be challenges you to test the lines between innocence and culpability, identity and deception. Does love lead to self-discovery—or destruction?
Into the Sound
Cara Reinard - 2021
The line goes dead. The mystery begins.During a superstorm, Holly Boswell receives a panicked call from her sister, Vivian: Come get me…There’s somebody coming. But when Holly arrives at a Long Island marina, there’s only her sister’s abandoned car. Vivian is gone.It’s all eerily familiar. Holly and Vivian used to play hide-and-seek as children. It was a reprieve from the mental abuses of their parents, psychology professors who raised the siblings as if it were research. Decades later, Holly is reminded of their childhood games.In her relentless search for the answers, Holly is reading between the lines in Vivian’s journals. She’s untangling clues in their mother’s diary and discovering secrets from her sister’s private world that are casting a dangerous shadow. Maybe Vivian has reasons for wanting to disappear from her well-to-do life. Or is it something more sinister? As Holly follows Vivian’s trail, she can’t shake the feeling that someone might be following her.
Beach Lawyer
Avery Duff - 2017
When a client confides in him that senior partner Jack Pierce sexually assaulted her, Robert breaks two of his mentor’s cardinal rules: Never let yourself get emotional about clients. And never make an enemy of Jack Pierce.Robert crosses Pierce and is fired on the spot, losing not only his job but also his reputation. Advised to go quietly, Robert vows revenge against the ruthless man who betrayed him. But his investigation uncovers a twisted shadow world of sex, infidelity, and deception, where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. Only one thing is clear: Pierce will go the limit to keep his secrets.This straight shooter will need to use every angle if he hopes to win. But could victory come at too high a price?
False Impressions
Sandra Nikolai - 2012
In what a Quebec detective calls a crime of passion, startling evidence surfaces to implicate Michael Elliott, a young investigative reporter who'd rather rub elbows with scumbags than live the posh lifestyle he inherited.Clutched out of her comfort zone, Megan is flung into Michael's dark world of criminal investigation. As they make a last-ditch attempt to prove their innocence, an elusive enemy closes in and threatens their lives. Who wants them out of the way and why?
The Night Before
Wendy Walker - 2019
Riveting and compulsive, national bestselling author Wendy Walker’s The Night Before “takes you to deep, dark places few thrillers dare to go” as two sisters uncover long-buried secrets when an internet date spirals out of control. Laura Lochner has never been lucky in love. She falls too hard and too fast, always choosing the wrong men. Devastated by the end of her last relationship, she fled her Wall Street job and New York City apartment for her sister’s home in the Connecticut suburb where they both grew up. Though still haunted by the tragedy that’s defined her entire life, Laura is determined to take one more chance on love with a man she’s met on an Internet dating site.Rosie Ferro has spent most of her life worrying about her troubled sister. Fearless but fragile, Laura has always walked an emotional tightrope, and Rosie has always been there to catch her. Laura’s return, under mysterious circumstances, has cast a shadow over Rosie’s peaceful life with her husband and young son – a shadow that grows darker as Laura leaves the house for her blind date. When Laura does not return home the following morning, Rosie fears the worst. She’s not responding to calls or texts, and she’s left no information about the man she planned to meet. As Rosie begins a desperate search to find her sister, she is not just worried about what this man might have done to Laura. She’s worried about what Laura may have done to him…
Find Me
J.S. Monroe - 2017
Sometimes what we see changes the way we look at everything.Jarlath "Jar" Costello's girlfriend, Rosa, committed suicide when they were both students at Cambridge, and Jar has thought about her every day since. It's been five years, yet Jar is still obsessed with the idea that Rosa, the one true love of his life, is alive. He's tormented by visions of her and has disturbingly real sightings of her in unexpected places experiences the psychologist treating him describes as "post-bereavement hallucinations."When Jar receives a message from Rosa's aunt telling him that she's just found Rosa's diary, he embarks on a frantic quest to finally make sense of the highly suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. But the deeper he digs, the more confused he becomes as he is pressed into a dark underworld where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. When a startling discovery convinces him more than ever that these are not just hallucinations that Rosa really is alive Jar is thrust into the heart of a larger intrigue that may finally shed some light on Rosa's death even as it dangerously threatens his own."
The Searcher
Ray Dacolias - 2012
He and his family live there peacefully for ten years, and then tragedy strikes. His wife and daughter are killed in a confrontation with bank robbers, and he blames himself. He quits the police force and begins a wandering, aimless life around town, walking wherever he goes—silent, brooding, filthy. He exists like this for five years. The majority of people in town see him as a man who is mentally disabled. Few people dare bother him. Then one day, John Slaughter, the man who was responsible for the death of Joaquin’s family, comes back to this town. After robbing the bank with his fellow criminals, he kidnaps a young girl as he gets away. Joaquin recognizes the man, and gives chase. Thus, the tale begins.
Until You're Mine
Samantha Hayes - 2013
You're vulnerable. And you have something that someone else wants. At any cost... Claudia Morgan-Brown finally has it all. Pregnant with a much-wanted first baby of her own, she has a happily established family of two small step-sons and a loving husband with a great career. But she is also committed to her full-time job as a social worker, and her husband travels often. So when Claudia hires Zoe to help her around the house in anticipation of the baby’s arrival, it seems like the answer to her prayers. But despite Zoe's glowing recommendations and instant rapport with the children, there's something about her that Claudia cannot trust. Moreover, there has been a series of violent attacks on pregnant women in the area, and Claudia becomes acutely aware of her vulnerability. With her husband out of town for work and her family far away, who will be there to protect her? And why does she feel unsettled about Zoe? Realizing appearances can be deceiving even in her seemingly perfect world, Claudia digs deeper into Zoe’s blurry past and begins to wonder – how far would someone go to have a child of her own? Riveting from its very first pages, Until You’re Mine is a multilayered masterwork of twisted, psychological suspense. Readers of Before I Go to Sleep and Turn of Mind will be enthralled by this multilayered novel, featuring a twisted plot that ends in a breathtaking and shocking finale.
Absolution
Caro Ramsay - 2007
Daily, he'd watched over her, and they had begun to communicate with each other, she by moving her wounded fingers. Her fingers could not tell the sad, unseasoned police cadet her name, however, or name for him the father of her newborn baby girl or identify the assailants who had flung the acid in her once incomparably beautiful face. Or tell him how she'd smuggled a cache of uncut diamonds into Scotland.Now McAlpine is back in Partickhill, where he's been summoned to head up the investigation of a disturbing murder case. Two women-their arms outstretched, their legs together and feet crossed at the ankle-have already died at the hands of a man the press has tagged the Crucifixion Killer. More gruesomely, the third victim will also have been violently disfigured when her body turns up in Whistler's Lane, coincidentally (perhaps) the scene of an equally brutal murder four years earlier.The face of another woman, though-a strikingly beautiful young woman, blonde-has taken hold of McAlpine's consciousness, and soon the consequences of a case cold for two decades are commanding-and dangerously thwarting-the course of his team's current, already desperate investigation.As crimes in the present intersect with iniquities committed in the past, the mystery in this steely, piercing, psychological thriller is as gripping as its twists are surprising. And absolution proves to be extreme.
Forget Me Knot
Mary Marks - 2014
Though at forty Claire’s a tad younger than their average age, her crafty reputation could perk up their patchwork proceedings, especially as they prepare for the fancy quilt show coming to town. But when they arrive at Claire’s home and find her dead inside the front door, and her exquisite, prize-winning quilts soon missing, Martha is not one to leave a mystery unraveled. Especially if she wants to stop a killer from establishing a deadly pattern…“Mary Marks had me on pins and needles and wanting to wrap myself up in a warm quilt while reading her cozy debut!” —Lee Hollis, author of Death of a Chocoholic“Mary Marks has stitched together a very clever plot with a cast of engaging characters in this funny, fast-paced debut mystery. I loved Martha Rose and her posse of crime-solving quilters and can’t wait to read what they’re up to next!” —Laura Levine, author of Killing Cupid
Solace Island
Sara Flynn - 2017
At first, Maggie resists Eve's impassioned argument about relocating permanently so the sisters can open their own local bakery. What she definitely doesn't need on her road to recovery are Eve's efforts to fix her up with their mysterious and alluring neighbor, Luke Benson--even if he is incredibly handsome and desirable. Just as Maggie starts to get comfortable in her new surroundings, a car tries to run her down in the middle of the street. If it weren't for Luke's extremely quick reflexes, Maggie could have been killed, leading her to wonder just who exactly Luke Benson really is...Luke thought he'd left the violence of the high risk security world behind. But he can't stand by while Maggie's life is threatened. Luke will do anything to keep her safe--even moving Maggie and her sister into his house with its state-of-the-art security features. But with the secrets between them and an unknown threat stalking her heels, Luke will have to think fast to prove to Maggie that she can trust him with her life--and with her heart.
Arrowood
Mick Finlay - 2017
Everyone else goes to Arrowood.The Afghan War is over and a deal with the Irish appears to have brought an end to sectarian violence, but Britain's position in the world is uncertain and the gap between rich and poor is widening. London is a place where the wealthy party while the underclass are tempted into lives of crime, drugs and prostitution. A serial killer stalks the streets. Politicians are embroiled in financial and sexual scandals. The year is 1895.The police don't have the resources to deal with everything that goes on in the capital. The rich turn to a celebrated private detective when they need help: Sherlock Holmes. But in densely populated south London, where the crimes are sleazier and Holmes rarely visits, people turn to Arrowood, a private investigator who despises Holmes, his wealthy clientele and his showy forensic approach to crime. Arrowood understands people, not clues.
The Book Club
C.J. Cooper - 2019
Alice's.It was her way into our group. A chance to get close.I knew from the day she arrived that she couldn't be trusted.And I was right.Because Alice didn't come to the village for peace and quiet.She came for revenge.