Book picks similar to
On Call by Michael Palmer


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medical-fiction
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short-stories

Code Blue (The Connection Trilogy)


Anita Waller - 2021
    . .Five years ago, John and Caroline Coates were happily expecting the birth of twin girls, until an intruder ended their hopes and dreams.Now, John has come to the Connection Agency, asking for their help in tracking down the man who caused them such grief.Back then, Tessa's involvement was cut short when the cold case department quickly took over. This is the chance for her and Luke to follow the facts and finally lay this case to rest. With the rest of the Connection team busy with other jobs, Tessa and Luke, alongside DI Eileen Haughton, an old colleague of Tessa's from her police days, steadily follow the clues to an ending they could never have imagined--revealing a truth that could either bring the Coateses the peace they crave or take them to further depths of despair . . .

Crime Wave: Reportage and Fiction from the Underside of L.A.


James Ellroy - 1999
    Los Angeles.  In no other city do sex, celebrity, money, and crime exert such an irresistible magnetic field.  And no writer has mapped that field with greater savagery and savvy than James Ellroy.  With this fever-hot collection of reportage and short fiction, he returns to his native habitat and portrays it as a smog-shrouded netherworld where"every third person is a peeper, prowler, pederast, or pimp."From the scandal sheets of the 1950s to this morning's police blotter, Ellroy reopens true crimes and restores human dimensions to their victims.  Sublimely, he resurrects the rag Hush-Hush magazine.  And in a baroquely plotted novella of slaughter and corruption he enlists the forgotten luminaries of a lost Hollywood.  Shocking, mesmerizing, and written in prose as wounding as an ice pick, Crime Wave is Ellroy at his best.

Busted


Karin Slaughter - 2013
    This electrifying eBook novella featuring Will Trent is a prequel to Slaughter’s upcoming novel, Unseen.   Detective Will Trent is standing in a Georgia convenience store, waiting on an obstinate Icee frozen drink machine. To the surveillance cameras and bored staff of the Lil’ Dixie Gas-n-Go, however, Will appears to be someone very different—the menacing ex-con Bill Black. Going undercover as Bill, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent is about to infiltrate the most corrupt town in the most corrupt county in the new American South. But first: his Icee.   Everything changes in one horrific instant, as all hell breaks loose at the Lil’ Dixie. A cop is shot. A bag of cash goes flying across the floor. A young woman disappears while a killer takes off in a battered pick-up truck. Within seconds, Will is in pursuit.  Includes an exclusive preview of Karin Slaughter’s thrilling new novel of suspense, Unseen.

A Season for the Dead


David Hewson - 2003
    Moments later, two bodies are found in a nearby church, each with a gruesome calling card from their killer. Detective Nic Costa is one of the first on the scene. A cop who barely looks his twenty-seven years, Nic soon meets a woman who will dominate both his thoughts—and his investigation. A cool, beautiful professor of early Christianity, Sara Farnese was in the Vatican Library on that fateful day, a witness to her colleague’s outburst and grotesque death. And as more bodies are found, her role becomes even more baffling…because each victim had intimately known Sara, a woman whose history becomes more lurid and unfathomable with each revelation. Until the case takes a sudden, strange turn—and the secrets of a woman, a killer, and a city begin to unravel…with devastating consequences….

Boston Noir


Dennis LehaneItabari Njeri - 2009
    Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, The Given Day) has proven himself to be a master of both crime fiction and literary fiction. Here, he extends his literary prowess to that of master curator. In keeping with the Akashic Noir series tradition, each story in Boston Noir is set in a different neighborhood of the city—the impressively diverse collection extends from Roxbury to Cambridge, from Southie to the Boston Harbor, and all stops in between. Lehane’s own contribution—the longest story in the volume—is set in his beloved home neighborhood of Dorchester and showcases his phenomenal ability to grip the heart, soul, and throat of the reader. In 2003, Lehane’s novel Mystic River was adapted into film and quickly garnered six Academy Award nominations (with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins each winning Academy Awards). Boston Noir launches in November 2009 just as Shutter Island, the film based on Lehane’s best-selling 2003 novel of the same title, hits the big screen. Dennis Lehane is the author of The New York Times bestseller Mystic River (also an Academy Award–winning major motion picture); Prayers for Rain; Gone, Baby, Gone (also a major motion picture); Sacred; Darkness, Take My Hand; A Drink Before the War, which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel; and, most recently, The Given Day. A native of Dorchester, Massachusetts, he splits his time between the Boston area and Florida.PART I: FEAR & LOATHINGLYNNE HEITMANExit InterviewFinancial DistrictDENNIS LEHANEAnimal RescueDorchesterJIM FUSILLIThe Place Where He BelongsBeacon HillPATRICIA POWELLDark WatersWatertownPART II: SKELETONS IN THE CLOSETDANA CAMERONFemme SoleNorth EndBRENDAN DUBOISThe Dark IslandBoston HarborSTEWART O'NANThe RewardBrooklineJOHN DUFRESNEThe Cross-Eyed BearSouthiePART III: VEILS OF DECEITDON LEEThe Oriental Hair PoetsCambridgeITABARI NJERIThe CollarRoxburyRUSS ABORNTurn SpeedNorth Quincy

After Jessica


Morgen Bailey - 2016
    As well as identifying her body, her brother Simon then has to wind up her affairs but gets more than he bargains for. Who is Alexis, and why are Veronica and Daniel searching for her? Why is there a roll of cash in Jessica’s house, and what’s the connection between his sister and Alexis?

The Colorado Kid


Stephen King - 2005
    There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues. But that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...? No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a surprising tale that explores the nature of mystery itself...

Christmas is Murder: A Traditional Christmas / A Wife in a Million


Val McDermid - 2012
    * Includes the first chapter of Val McDermid's latest Sunday Times bestselling novel, Broken Ground - out now 'A Traditional Christmas' and 'A Wife in a Million'.

The Unquiet Bones


Melvin R. Starr - 2008
    However, he feels no real calling—despite his lively faith—and he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris, and then hanging his sign in Oxford.Soon after, a local lord asks Hugh de Singleton to track the killer of a young woman whose bones have been found in the castle cesspool. Through his medical knowledge, Singleton identifies her as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith.The young man she loved—whom she had provoked very publicly—is quickly arrested and sentenced at Oxford. But this is just the beginning of the tale. The story of Singleton's adventure unfolds with realistic medical procedures, droll medieval wit, romantic distractions, and a consistent underlying sense of Christian compassion.

Someone Else's Daughter


Linsey Lanier - 2011
    Independent. Skeptical.Thirteen years ago her abusive husband stole her baby and gave it up for adoption.She comes to Atlanta to find her daughter.THE PIWade Parker.Ace detective.Wealthy owner of the Parker Investigative Agency.The most eligible forty-four-year-old bachelor in Atlanta.Still mourning the death of his socialite wife, he must solve a disturbing murder case.Before the killer strikes again.THE MURDERERA serial killer strangling young girls in a bizarre ritual.Why?She doesn't need a man.He needs to find a killer.Together, can they save a thirteen year old girl?

Easy Innocence


Libby Fischer Hellmann - 2008
    But Georgia Davis -- former cop and newly-minted PI -- is hired to look into the incident at the behest of the accused's sister, and what she finds hints at a much different, much darker answer. It seems the privileged, preppy schoolgirls on Chicago's North Shore have learned just how much their innocence is worth to hot-under-the-collar businessmen. But while these girls can pay for Prada pricetags, they don't realize that their new business venture may end up costing them more than they can afford

His Hand In the Storm


Ritu Sethi - 2018
    Daphne du Maurier Suspense Finalist. A MAN COPES ANY WAY HE CAN AFTER KILLING HIS ONLY SON. His team believes he’s calm and Zen. His boss finds him obsessive. Suspects think him gorgeous but dangerous. They’re all right. Chief Inspector Gray James is sculpting the remembered likeness of his small son when he receives the call – a faceless corpse is found hanging by the choppy river, swirls of snow and sand rolling like tumbleweeds. Montreal glitters: the cobbled streets slippery with ice, and the mighty St. Lawrence jetting eastward past the city. One by one, someone is killing the founders of a booming medical tech startup – propelling Gray into a downward spiral that shatters his hard-earned peace, that risks his very life, that threatens to force him to care and face what he has shunned all along: his hand in the storm. From the prize-winning author comes a psychological, page-turning mystery with all the elements one needs on a rainy night: a complex murder, a noble yet haunted detective, and an evocative setting to sink into. Scroll up to get to know Gray and download, His Hand In the Storm.

A Brewing Storm


Richard Castle - 2012
    He had to fake his own death. So when his former boss calls in an old favor that will bring Storm out of early retirement and back to Washington to investigate a high-profile kidnapping, he knows there must be more at stake than the life of a Senator's son. Working alongside, but not exactly with, bombshell FBI investigator April Showers, Storm must make sense of a confusing flurry of ransom notes and a complicated web of personal relationships and international politics. He'll get to the bottom of the kidnapping, but the storm is still brewing.

Two Birds (A Short Mystery)


Vicki Tyley - 2013
    Crouched next to her with his hands clamped over the knife wound in her abdomen, her husband, Daniel, screams at the couple's sister-in-law - and his ex-mistress - rooted in the doorway. Time slips away...

Snapped


C.M. Sutter - 2017
     Former sheriff’s department sergeant Jade Monroe has just graduated from the FBI’s serial crimes unit in homicide and is called to Houston with her partner, J.T. Harper, to take on her first assignment—apprehending the person responsible for these gruesome crimes. With victims piling up and the clock ticking, Jade and J.T. need to intensify their search because there’s no sign the killer is slowing down. After a late-night epiphany while she’s alone, Jade suddenly comes face to face with the killer, and now Jade is missing. The clock continues to tick—but this time it’s for her. Note: All Jade Monroe books are standalone stories but since characters carry over, they are best read in chronological order. Series One - Detective Jade Monroe Crime Thriller Series #1 Maniacal #2 Captive #3 Fallacy #4 Premonition #5 Exposed Note: The Jade Monroe FBI Thriller books follow on the heels of the conclusion of Exposed, Book 5 in the Detective Jade Monroe Crime Thriller Series. Series Two – Agent Jade Monroe FBI Thriller Series #1 Snapped #2 Justified