Book picks similar to
Secrets by S.L. Pierce


thriller
suspense
mystery
mystery-suspense-thriller

Shadow Kill


David Caris - 2021
    Betrayed by his employer and left for dead, Kovac decides to lie low in Tokyo.His plan? Revenge...But when a young woman asks him to protect her from the yakuza, Kovac feels duty-bound to help. She’s a victim of abuse, and long experience tells him if he doesn’t step in tonight she’ll be a corpse before dawn.As Kovac works to uncover the truth of his last job, he finds himself drawn into a conspiracy which goes well beyond the yakuza to a new and terrifying multinational cartel. One that will stop at nothing to control the global drug trade.The kingpins are certain they’ve covered all bases. They're well-funded and utterly ruthless. But they’ve failed to account for one man – John Kovac.SHADOW KILL is the first in a fast-paced, unflinching thriller series that won't in any way shortchange you on action. Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Mark Greaney and Mark Dawson.

Her Honor's Bodyguard


Johnny Ray - 2012
    When his dad died, leaving him and his mother penniless, he dropped out of law school and ended his relationship with Noella, but in doing so, he stopped a scandal that could have ruined her family. These secrets he would never let her know. Ironically, years later, he would have never guessed she would be instrumental in ruining his career with the Tampa police force. After Noella finished law school and started pursuing her goal of working up the ranks in judgeships, she never considered inviting another guy into her life. As such, when someone attempts to threaten her into vacating her seat on the bench, and by force if necessary, she knows of no one else she really trust as much as Vance, who now has a successful bodyguard and private detective business.She knows that Vance might hate her for her part in having him dismissed from the police force, but what he will never know is that she actually saved him from going to prison. Additionally, she now thinks he was framed, and perhaps by the same people who are threatening her. She had to talk him into taking her on as a client . . . but would he agree to her request?As the number of attacks on her life increases, Vance soon has no choice but to offer her his protection, and in spite of everything, when they see each other again their old attraction for each other returns. She wants the truth. He wants the truth. However, making the ultimate sacrifice is not always easy to understand, whether given or received. Ultimately . . . could they now trust each other with these secrets? While their lives depend on discovering the truth to their past, these truths are locked in deep secrets that could also destroy them.This novel is available also in paperback, hardback, and audio.

Blizzard Ball


Dennis Kelly - 2011
    The jackpot has run up to a red-hot $750 million, the world's richest prize. A bungled convenience store heist triggers a happenstance theft of winning lottery tickets and trips up an insider's scheme to rig the results.Agent Kirchner, an old-school cop reluctantly teams up with a young tech-savvy analyst on an investigation that propels them into the world of numerical probability, conspiratorial politics, international ticket scalpers, counterfeiters, disgruntled players, and illegal immigrants looking to grab the brass ring. Caught in the crosscurrents of those in deadly pursuit of the winning ticket, the investigators are buffeted by unsolved murders, a bomb blast-and the curious giveaway of winning lottery tickets: acts of charity or criminal subterfuge?The whereabouts and redemption of the $750 million jackpot lottery ticket remains a mystery throughout, stirring anger and resentment among the lottery-playing public. The winning ticket, finally, surfaces but before the prize can be claimed a Faustian bargain puts Kirchner's job on the line.

4 Gigs of Trouble


Stella Baker - 2011
    She is also a wise-cracking high school history teacher, supervising a class visit to Washington. When a student bolts off the path near the Lincoln Memorial, Toni chases him into the foliage, where she finds more than her wayward student. A man has been shot, left for dead in the bushes. He appears homeless and drunk, jabbers craziness and dies in her arms. The police say it is typical street violence. Toni knows better. Crime scene details don’t add up and when she begins receiving threats, Toni knows someone wants her to shut up. The teacher she has become wants to skedaddle back to the safety of her Marin classroom. The cop she used to be won’t let her. Before he died, the man in her arms hid a 4 gig flash drive in her jacket. Once Toni discovers what’s on it, there’s no turning back. Fortunately Toni isn’t in this alone. Her father’s brother, Lester, is a gay introvert who works as a civilian number-cruncher at the Pentagon. Her mother’s brother, Gino, claims to run a cleaning business, though the family suspects the only thing Gino launders is money. Unfortunately for Toni, her uncles aren’t exactly The A Team. Toni Teitelbaum’s got 4 gigs of explosive truth in her Anne Klein jacket. And though it’s been said that the truth will make you free, in Toni’s case, it just may make her dead.

Smoke Screen


Sandra Brown - 2008
    The blaze left seven people dead, but the death toll would have been much higher if not for the bravery of Jay and three other city officials who risked their lives to lead others to safety.Firefighter Raley Gannon, Jay's lifelong friend, was off-duty that day. Though he might not have been a front-line hero, he was assigned to lead the investigation into the cause of the fire. It was an investigation he never got to complete. Because on one calamitous night, Raley's world was shattered.Scandalized, wronged by the people he trusted most, Raley was forced to surrender the woman he loved and the work to which he'd dedicated his life. For five years his resentment against the men who exploited their hero status to further their careers -- and ruin his -- had festered, but he was helpless to set things right.That changes when he learns of Jay Burgess's shocking death and Britt Shelley's claim that she has no memory of her night with him. As the investigation into Jay's death intensifies, and suspicion against Britt Shelley mounts, Raley realizes that the newswoman, Jay's last sexual conquest, might be his only chance to get personal vindication -- and justice for the seven victims of the police station fire.But there are powerful men who don't want to address unanswered questions about the fire and who will go to any lengths to protect their reputations. As Raley and Britt discover more about what happened that fateful day, the more perilous their situation becomes, until they're not only chasing after the truth but running for their lives.Friends are exposed as foes, heroes take on the taint of criminals, and no one can be trusted completely. A tale about audacious corruption -- and those with the courage to expose it -- Smoke Screen is Sandra Brown's most searing and intense novel yet.

Kill Me If You Can


James Patterson - 2011
    Plans for a worry-free life with his stunning girlfriend Katherine fill his thoughts--until he realizes that he is being hunted, and that whoever is after him won't stop until they have reclaimed the diamonds and exacted their revenge. Trailing him is the Ghost, the world's greatest assassin, who has just pulled off his most high-profile hit: killing Walter Zelvas, a top member of the international Diamond Syndicate. There's only one small problem: the diamonds he was supposed to retrieve from Zelvas are missing. Now, the Ghost is on Bannon's trail--but so is a rival assassin who would like nothing more than to make the Ghost disappear forever. From "America's #1 storyteller" (Forbes) comes a high-speed, high-stakes, winner-take-all thrill ride of adrenaline-fueled suspense.

Code Name Camelot


David Archer - 2018
    With the help of childhood friends, he learns to watch others around him and mimic their behaviors, in order to conceal the fact that his mind operates more like a computer that he has spent years programming. That program is what allows Noah to pass himself off as normal, by establishing parameters of right and wrong that are completely inviolable to him.As a young adult, Noah finds structure in the U.S. Army, and becomes an excellent and exemplary soldier, but when his self-imposed programming is put to the test by the murderous acts of the superior officer, Noah finds himself quickly made expendable, charged with crimes he did not commit and facing the possibility of execution. Without any reasonable hope for a reprieve, Noah's logic-based mind accepts his fate.Sometimes, though, things are not all as they seem to be, and Noah is offered one chance to save himself. It was his disability, his lack of emotion, that made him the soldier he had become. Now, an ultrasecret organization known as E & E wants Noah's talents, offering him a chance to survive…As the most deadly assassin the world has ever known.

Wreckage


Emily Bleeker - 2015
    On the surface, she looks like a brave survivor of a plane crash. But she’s been lying to her family, her friends, and the whole world since rescue helicopters scooped her and her fellow survivor, Dave Hall, off a deserted island in the South Pacific. Missing for almost two years, the castaways are thrust into the spotlight after their rescue, becoming media darlings overnight. But they can’t tell the real story—so they lie.The public is fascinated by the castaways’ saga, but Lillian and Dave must return to their lives and their spouses. Genevieve Randall—a hard-nosed journalist and host of a news program—isn’t buying it. She suspects Lillian’s and Dave’s explanations about the other crash survivors aren’t true. And now, Genevieve’s determined to get the real story, no matter how many lives it destroys.In this intriguing tale of survival, secrets, and redemption, two everyday people thrown together by tragedy must finally face the truth…even if it tears them apart.

In Their Footsteps


Tess Gerritsen - 1994
    Now she's decided that the only way to exorcise the ghosts of the past is to search for the truth. Beryl starts asking dangerous questions, and the answers are proving that old secrets die hard. Caught in what's become a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, her quest takes her from the rain-slick streets of Paris to the sun-drenched isles of Greece. And as she gets pulled into a world of espionage, Beryl quickly discovers that she needs help. Richard Wolf, an ex-CIA agent and a man she's only just met, is her only hope. But in a world where trust is a double-edged sword, friends become enemies, and enemies become killers . . .

Zero Day


David Baldacci - 2011
    So when a family with military connections is brutally murdered in a remote area of West Virginia, Puller is called to investigate, and soon suspects the case has wider implications. As the body count rises he teams up with local homicide detective Samantha Cole. As the web of deceit is revealed, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s much more to this case than they had first thought. It is an investigation where nothing is as it seems, and nothing can be taken at face value.

The Good Neighbor


A.J. Banner - 2015
    That’s what Sarah thinks as she settles into life with her new husband, Dr. Johnny McDonald. But all too soon she discovers an undercurrent of deception. And one October evening when Johnny is away, sudden tragedy destroys Sarah’s happiness.Dazed and stricken with grief, she and Johnny begin to rebuild their shattered lives. As she picks up the pieces of her broken home, Sarah discovers a shocking secret that forces her to doubt everything she thought was true—about her neighbors, her friends, and even her marriage. With each stunning revelation, Sarah must ask herself, Can we ever really know the ones we love?

Flash Bang


Kellen Burden - 2013
    Dishonorably discharged from the Army, he’s wracked with night terrors and an anger that he can't abate. Unemployable and uninterested in anything resembling a normal job, Parks makes his living in fugitive apprehension, finding wanted felons on Facebook and thumping them into custody with his ex-military buddies John Harkin and Eric "Etch" Echevarria. When the body of a teenage Muslim boy is found in front of a downtown Denver nightclub Parks, Harkin and Etch are called on to do what they do best: Find bad men and make them pay.First-time author Kellen Burden serves up edgy humor, brutal action and characters you can’t get enough of. Flash Bang will keep you turning pages until the end.

Watched


Cindy M. Hogan - 2011
    to change fifteen-year-old Christy's life. It takes murder.A witness to the brutal slaying of a Senator's aide, Christy finds herself watched not only by the killers and the FBI, but also by two hot boys.She discovers that if she can't help the FBI, who want to protect her, it will cost her and her new friends their lives.Young Adults, teens, and adults will love this exciting suspenseful adventure with a dash of romance. You won't want to put it down

Lethal People


John Locke - 2009
    While pursuing a budding romance with the beautiful Kathleen Gray, Creed stumbles upon a plucky, but horribly burned, little girl named Addie Dawes. Creed's suspicion about the fire that killed Addie's family puts him on a collision course with crime boss Joe DeMeo, in what soon becomes an issue of kill or be killed. DeMeo, a relentless killer who will stop at nothing to protect his empire, targets Creed and his loved ones for death. But Creed has plans of his own. Employing a bizarre cast of characters including a giant, a rival crime lord, an angry midget bent on world conquest, and a team of circus clowns, Creed goes on the attack, with hilarious results.

Highwater


T.J. Brearton - 2014
    He needs a blood transfusion and only one person matches. But first Milliner must solve the mystery at the Kingston house, where Liz Goldfine may have committed a heinous crime, and the dark depths of the lake harbor teenage secrets.Groups of strange young men are gathering on the roads, the old house holds many mysteries, and the waters are rising fast. What lurks deep in the lake and can anyone stop it?