Book picks similar to
In a Small Motel by John D. MacDonald
audio-wanted
short-stories
mystery
hardboiled-noir
I Believe You
Jeanne Grunert - 2016
Now he struggles to raise his three sons alone and run the financial empire founded by his outlandish father. One night, a mysterious stranger appears to be watching his home. The next day, $100,000 is missing from his bank account. As David untangles the knot of lies, deception and intrigue surrounding his wife's death, he threatens to shatter his close-knit family forever.
The Angel's Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery
Justin Richards - 2012
It was featured in the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan", with The Doctor reading it.The story of "The Angels Take Manhattan" is formed in The Angel's Kiss: A Melody Malone Story.Synopsis:On some days, New York is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.This was one of the other days…Melody Malone, owner and sole employee of the Angel Detective Agency, has an unexpected caller. It’s movie star Rock Railton, and he thinks someone is out to kill him. When he mentions the ‘kiss of the Angel’, she takes the case. Angels are Melody’s business…At the press party for Railton’s latest movie, studio owner Max Kliener invites Melody to the film set of their next blockbuster. He’s obviously spotted her potential, and Melody is flattered when Kliener asks her to become a star. But the cost of fame, she’ll soon discover, is greater than anyone could possibly imagine.Will Melody be able to escape Kliener’s dastardly plan – before the Angels take Manhattan?
Killing Kind
Gregg Dunnett - 2018
A detective has the chance to solve cases that have baffled her colleagues for decades. But only if she can work out who he is, before he gets to her. Because - in a story where not everything is what it seems - not even murder is black and white. Killing Kind is a tense novella with a twist that will stay with you. From UK and US bestselling author Gregg Dunnett.
Death Served Cold
Sourabh Mukherjee - 2021
A teenager poisons her family for the love of her tutor. A woman driven by greed ruthlessly bludgeons eight members of her family.A beautician gangs up with her lover to rob a house, killing innocent women from three generations of a family. A practising lawyer strangles her lawyer husband with the cord of a mobile charger. A friendly and jovial teacher commits at least six murders over fourteen years in a sleepy town down south.DEATH SERVED COLD is a painstakingly researched collection of true, blood-curdling accounts of gruesome murders committed by India’s most dangerous women over the last three decades.These stories explore the dark recesses of the female psyche and challenge popular stereotypes by revealing shocking excesses of sadism and aggression rarely associated with women.
My Wolfy Wedding: In Between
Renee George - 2018
To celebrate (survive) their union on Friday, the Twenty-First of December, Two Thousand Eighteen at Four-Twenty-Three p.m. Destination: Peculiar, Missouri. The only thing Chavvah wants more than to marry Billy Bob is to have his baby, but since that ship has sailed thanks to prior trauma, she's happy just to get down the aisle with him and make their life together official. The date is set for the Winter Solstice, marking the longest night of year, but a challenge from an unexpected guest, is turning her special day into a fight-club nightmare. And after having postponed the wedding twice already, Chav is starting to think fate hates her guts. On top of that, there are almost forty werewolves camped out on Billy Bob's property, claiming that Chav and Billy Bob are their new leaders. But when Chav tries to get her spirit guide, Brother Wolf, to cough up answers, he ignores her. Worst, the silent deity is sending her BFF Sunny visions that are taking a physical toll on her human friend's all too frail body. Throw in Billy Bob's manipulative father, Chav's pushy mother, and other surprise guests, these two furry lovebirds may never make it to "I do!" Peculiar Mysteries series from USA Today bestselling author Renee George are laugh-out-loud, grip the edge of your seat, and swoon as you fall in love tales of mystery, humor, and romance that take place in the small (fictional-not the actual) Ozark shifter town of Peculiar, Missouri.
Skinner's Elves: A Bob Skinner Christmas Story
Quintin Jardine - 2017
Two pillars made them and supported them through their lives; now one is gone and the other is near to collapse. Can he be renewed, or has he been conquered at last? Major James Andrew Skinner, AKA Jazz Morgan, takes up the story. Quintin Jardine's 6,000 word short story is a glance into the future that was born from a joke, when he used its title as a throwaway line to a friend. 'A great title for a children's book,' she observed. This isn't a children's book, but in a real sense it's a take about children and the power they have to help us overcome, and emerge from, the deepest despair.
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...
Cheese Wrestling
J.A. Konrath - 2013
But when a girl goes missing, it leads him from his small town to Chicago, where he teams up with a tough Homicide cop named Jack Daniels.What is the meaning of cheese wrestling? Hint: You probably don't want to know. And neither does Jack. But sometimes you have to deal with the worst of humanity to bring out the best in humanity.CHEESE WRESTLINGThere are things worse than murder...
The Titan Series: Set Three
Cristin Harber - 2019
Book 7:
BISHOP’S QUEEN
A reality star with an obsessive stalker finds herself under the protection of an ex-boyfriend from a tragic past who is her opposite in every way.Book 8:
LOCKE AND KEY
A military operative must rescue a journalist whom he blames for the murder of his teammates years ago.Book 9:
JAX
A former Navy SEAL and the daughter of a notorious motorcycle gangster partner to dismantle a drug cartel's partnership with the CIA.Each love story can be read as an action-packed, steamy standalone romance novel. No cliffhangers!
Winning
Alafair Burke - 2010
A female officer who is attacked in the line of duty must protect her own husband from his worst impulses in this short story, first published in The Blue Religion (Michael Connelly, ed.) and recognized as one of 2009's Best American Mystery Stories (Jeffery Deaver, ed.).
Regia Occulta
Dan Abnett - 2013
Aided by local officials and using arcane methods of detection, Eisenhorn must decipher the secret of the Regia Occulta and stop the bestial killer before it strikes again.The prose edition of one of the stories in the Thorn And Talon audio drama.
The Best Short Stories of All Time - Volume 1
Jack LondonEdgar Allan Poe - 2011
Ranging from the 19th to the 20th centuries, writers include James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, Richard Edward Connell, Henri Nathaniel Hawthorne, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Jack London, Henri Ringgold Wilmer Lardner, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant and Edgar Allan Poe.
The Harlem Cycle: A Rage in Harlem; The Real Cool Killers; The Crazy Kill (Harlem Cycle, #1-3)
Chester Himes - 1996
Renowned for their meanness and always armed with their legendary nickel-plated colts, they patrol the streets of Harlem and attempt to keep some semblance of law and order.
Man Found Dead in Park
Margaret Coel - 2017
I love Margaret Coel’s writing because there’s never a misplaced step. She balances two opposing cultures with little room for compromise, which is good because this chick works without a safety net. It’s human nature, or certainly the nature of writers, to analyze another’s work when reading it, in an attempt to take the story apart like an acrobatic trick—kick off your shoes and try it out. Every once in a while you second guess them and follow them out onto that tightrope just to find where they might’ve slipped up, but Margaret never does and just when you think she has she’ll turn and wink, so keep reading. Like Catherine McLeod, the reporter protagonist of Man Found Dead in Park, Margaret embraces both the mainstream and native cultures, all the while maintaining the aspect of her writing that transcends the genre with a deep understanding of human nature. When a man is found dead in an Indian section of Denver where no one is talking, McLeod finds herself in conflict with Mexican drug cartels and an investigation that leads north into Wyoming's Wind River Reservation and what turns out to be her roots. Transformative for both McLeod and the reader, the width and breath of the story is easy to miss, because Coel’s writing has a heady narrative that holds a sense of wonder and romance—a place that a lot of other writers fear to tread. I sometimes wonder if she knows how good she is, but I think probably not. The humility of a few artists is what keeps them grounded, and even when she’s out there flying high, I’m pretty sure she has her head up but is feeling every twitch of the story through the soles of her feet. Navigating with the finesse of a Flying Wallenda, Coel never misses a thing, because the devil is in the details, and like her character, Detective Nick Bustamante, Margaret knows that these indiscernible little slights of hand are the thing that makes for great drama under the Big Top. So join Margaret Coel out onto that high wire where she works without a safety net. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out there will be moments of insecurity, thoughts that will disconcert, and you might be tempted to look down, but don’t. If things get too hairy just reach out and take this daredevil performer’s hand, and she’ll grin that signature smile and make sure you make it back to safety. --Craig Johnson
Cruel and Unusual / Body of Evidence / All That Remains: Audio Collection
Patricia Cornwell - 1995
Kay Scarpetta as a feisty and engaging murder mystery heroine. Included in this collection are Cruel and Unusual, All That Remains and Body of Evidence.