Book picks similar to
A King's Ransom by James Grippando


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Beach Road


James Patterson - 2006
    But his job barely keeps him in paper clips. His clients make a living serving the rich. The billionaires and celebrities swarming the beaches already have lawyers on their payroll.Very ExpensiveThen a friend of Tom's is arrested for a triple murder near a movie star's mansion. Tom knows in his gut that Dante Halleyville is innocent. Dante asks him to represent him in what could be the Trial of the Century.Very ExclusiveTom recruits Manhattan superlawyer Kate Costello to help. She's a tough hire, because Kate is his ex-girlfriend, but she agrees. In their search to find who really executed three locals, Tom orchestrates a series of revelations to expose the killer, and what emerges is staggering.Very ExplosiveThe final scenes of this audiobook unveil a truth that will leave readers gasping in shock. Written with the precision that has made James Patterson "a master of his genre" (USA Today), Beach Road is his wildest, most thrilling novel ever.

The Summons


John Grisham - 2002
    He's forty-three, newly single, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother, Forrest, who redefines the notion of a family's black sheep.And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. He is known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official who has towered over local law and politics for forty years. No longer on the bench, the Judge has withdrawn to the Atlee mansion and become a recluse.With the end in sight, Judge Atlee issues a summons for both sons to return home to Clanton, to discuss the details of his estate. It is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study.Ray reluctantly heads south, to his hometown, to the place where he grew up, which he prefers now to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray.And perhaps someone else.

Little Boy Lost


J.D. Trafford - 2017
    But when eight-year-old Tanisha Walker offers him a jar full of change to find her missing brother, he doesn’t have the heart to turn her away.Justin had hoped to find the boy alive and well. But all that was found of Devon Walker was his brutally murdered body—and the bodies of twelve other African American teenagers, all discarded like trash in a mass grave. Each had been reported missing. And none had been investigated.As simmering racial tensions explode into violence, Justin finds himself caught in the tide. And as he gives voice to the discontent plaguing the city’s forgotten and ignored, he vows to search for the killer who preys upon them.

Low Pressure


Sandra Brown - 2012
    Bellamy's fear of storms is a legacy of the tornado that destroyed the crime scene as well as her memory of one vital fact that still eludes her... Now, 18 years later, Bellamy has written a novel based on Susan's murder. It's her first book, and it's an instant sensation. But because the novel is based on the most traumatic event of her life, she's published it under a pseudonym to protect herself and her family.But when a sleazy reporter for a tabloid newspaper discovers that the book is based on a real crime, Bellamy's identity - and dark family secrets -- are exposed. Suddenly, she finds herself embroiled in a personal conflict and at the mercy of her sister's killer, who for almost two decades has gotten away with murder...and will stop at nothing to keep it that way.

Devil's Corner


Lisa Scottoline - 2005
    Attorney Vicki Allegretti goes to meet a confidential informant and finds herself facing a loaded 9 mm Glock semiautomatic weapon, wielded by a panicky teenager. Violence is the last thing this neophyte lawyer expects. The case is easy, the kind given to new ADAs to help them cut their teeth. Yet almost before she has time to react, her partner is dead, shot in the chest.From that high-octane introduction to her job, Vicki vows to continue with the case, protect her informant, and find the shadowy figure behind the death of her partner. This decision will take her to the depths of the federal detention center’s “bowl,” to a row house on the street where she grew up, and to the posh suburbs where her parents now live. Set against the gritty backdrop of a modern American city and imbued with Lisa Scottoline’s trademark style and wit, Cater Street is the story of a determined young lawyer seeking justice.

Sleeping Beauty


Phillip Margolin - 2004
    Tonight the audience waits to hear Miles discuss recent developments in his sister's case -- unaware that pieces of this complex puzzle of violence, unknown even to the author, are about to be revealed.Six years earlier, life was much simpler for everyone involved, especially seventeen-year-old Ashley Spencer, a popular high school soccer star. Then one night an intruder entered Ashley's home and murdered her father and her best friend. Traumatized and suffering from a crippling sense of survivor guilt, Ashley is ready to give up on both soccer and life until help comes from an unexpected source -- a scholarship to an elite private school is extended to her by school dean Casey Van Meter. The school quickly becomes a haven for both Ashley and her mother, Terri. As Ashley regains her sense of self through the school's soccer program, Terri joins a writing group for adults led by Joshua Maxfield, a former literary wunderkind who has disappeared from the bestseller lists since his second book was panned by both critics and fans.Then tragedy strikes again and Ashley has to run for her life, unaware that the key to her survival is in the one book she's afraid to read -- Sleeping Beauty.

The Night Crew


John Sandford - 1997
    Small, dark-haired, shy but tough, a Wisconsin farm girl on the streets of Los Angeles, she roams the city with her small band of video free-lancers in their truck from ten to dawn, looking for news: accidents, robberies, murders, demonstrations — anything they can shoot and sell to the local stations or the networks. It's an exhilarating life . . . until the day two deaths shake their world.The first is the jumper. Five stories up, perched on the ledge of a hotel window, dark pants, white shirt, just standing there — and then he's gone, falling through the air towards the cameras. The second is Jason, one of Anna's cameramen. Strangely affected by the jumper, he quits the scene early that night, not to be seen again until his body turns up on the beach several hours later, shot in the head. The police wonder if it's drug-related, but Anna isn't so sure, and the more she looks into it on her own, the more the ghosts of the past — hers, Jason's, and finally the jumper's — begin to emerge, until her whole world turns as dark and dangerous as the night itself.

True Blue


David Baldacci - 2009
    police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything: her badge, her career, her freedom--and spent two years in prison. Now she's back on the outside and focused on one mission: to be a cop once more. Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major case on her own, and prove she has the right to wear the uniform. Even with her police chief sister on her side, she has to work in the shadows: a vindictive U.S. attorney is looking for any reason to send Mace back behind bars. Then Roy Kingman enters her life.Roy is a young lawyer who aided the poor until he took a high-paying job at a law firm in Washington. Mace and Roy meet after he discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm. As they investigate the death, they start uncovering surprising secrets.Soon, what began as a fairly routine homicide takes a terrifying and unexpected turn . . . into something complex, diabolical, and possibly lethal.

Suspicion


Joseph Finder - 2014
    In what seems like a stroke of brilliant luck, Danny meets Thomas Galvin, the father of his daughter’s new best friend, who also happens to be one of the wealthiest men in Boston. Galvin is aware of Danny’s situation and out of the blue offers a $50,000 loan to help Danny cover his daughter’s tuition. Uncomfortable but desperate, Danny takes the money, promising to pay Galvin back. What transpires is something Danny never imagined. The moment the money is wired into his account, the DEA comes knocking on his door. Danny’s impossible choice: an indictment for accepting drug money that he can’t afford to fight in court, or an unthinkably treacherous undercover assignment helping the government get close to his new family friend. As Danny begins to lie to everyone in his life, including those he loves most in the world, he must decide once and for all who the real enemy is or risk losing everything—and everyone—that matters to him.   *The Boston Globe

Fatal Tide


Iris Johansen - 2003
    Marine researcher Melis Nemid is treading dangerous water—and she’s about to be dragged under. Melis knows something that has already caused one oceanographer to disappear from the face of the earth . . . and that’s only part of a past torn by violence and betrayal. She thought she had put that past behind her when she arrived at her Caribbean island home to research dolphin behavior. But Melis’s peace—and her life—are about to be shattered by a savage killer who is cutting a path of destruction and death that leads directly to her. Only one person can save her—a man who claims to be a fellow oceanographer. But what this enigmatic stranger really wants, Melis may not discover until it’s too late. Because whoever is after her knows her fears intimately. And soon Melis will be forced to relive them all over again. Except for the final nightmare—the one she cannot possibly survive.

A Killer's Wife


Victor Methos - 2020
    She’s finally created a life with her daughter and is a well-respected attorney. She’s moving on. But when a new rash of homicides has her ex-husband, Eddie, written all over them—the nightmares of her past come back to life.The FBI asks Jessica to get involved in the hunt for this copycat killer—which means visiting her ex and collaborating with the man who tore her life apart.As the copycat’s motives become clearer, the new life Jessica created for herself gets darker. She must ask herself who she can trust and if she’s capable of stopping the killer—a man whose every crime is a bloody valentine from a twisted mastermind she’s afraid she may never escape.

The Tenth Justice


Brad Meltzer - 1997
    And now the anonymous blackmailer who made a killing with Ben's information is demanding more. Guilty of a criminal act, his golden future suddenly in jeopardy, Ben turns for help to his roommates—three close friends from childhood, each strategically placed near the seats of Washington power—and to his beautiful, whip-smart fellow clerk, Lisa Schulman.But trust is a dangerous commodity in the nation's capital. And when lives, careers, and power are at stake, loyalties can shatter like glass . . . and betrayals can be lethal.

The Two Minute Rule


Robert Crais - 2006
    Requiem unleashes his most powerful novel to date--a brilliantly plotted tale about justice, love, and the sins of a father and son.

Girl Missing


Tess Gerritsen - 1994
    She's young. She's beautiful. And her corpse, laid out in the office of Boston medical examiner Kat Novak, betrays no secrets - except for a notebook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside. The next body is a warning. When a second victim is discovered, Kat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the city streets: a shadowy madman without mercy or apparent motive. The police are skeptical. The mayor won't listen. And Kat's chief suspect is one of the city's most prominent citizens. The final body . . . might be hers. With the death toll rising, Kat races to expose a deadly conspiracy and the brutal killer at its heart - a killer who will stalk her from the dangerous streets of the inner city to the corridors of power. Because he's closer than she ever dreamt. And every move she makes could be her very last.

Mistress of Justice


Jeffery Wilds Deaver - 1992
    But the rhythm of her life is disrupted when attorney Mitchell Reece requests her help in locating a stolen document that could cost him not only the multimillion-dollar case he's defending but his career as well. Eager to get closer to this handsome, brilliant, and very private man, Taylor signs on . . . only to find that as she delves deeper and deeper into what goes on behind closed doors at Hubbard, White & Willis, she uncovers more than she wants to kno--including a plentitude of secrets damaging enough to smash careers and dangerous enough to push someone to commit murder. Yet who is capable of going to that extreme? With her life on the line, Taylor is about to learn the lethal answer. . . ."The characters are well drawn, the plot is fast paced, and the writing avoids totally the usual trappings of blockbusterdom. . . . An intelligently written thriller."--Booklist