Book picks similar to
Lights Out by Peter Abrahams


mystery
fiction
thriller
mystery-thriller

Caught Stealing


Charlie Huston - 2004
    But now Hank is here, working as a bartender and taking care of a cat named Bud who is surely going to get him killed.It begins when Hank’s neighbor, Russ, has to leave town in a rush and hands over Bud in a carrier. But it isn’t until two Russians in tracksuits drag Hank over the bar at the joint where he works and beat him to a pulp that he starts to get the idea: Someone wants something from him. He just doesn’t know what it is, where it is, or how to make them understand he doesn’t have it.Within twenty-four hours Hank is running over rooftops, swinging his old aluminum bat for the sweet spot of a guy’s head, playing hide and seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor.All because of two cowboys, two Russian mafia men, and some of the weirdest goons ever assembled in one place. All because of Bud. All because once, in another life, in another world, the only thing Hank wanted was to take third base—without getting caught.

Zeke and Ned


Larry McMurtry - 1997
    Zeke and Ned is the story of Ezekiel Proctor and Ned Christie, the last Cherokee warriors—two proud, passionate men whose remarkable quest to carve a future out of Indian Territory east of the Arkansas River after the Civil War is not only history, but legend. Played out against an American West governed by a brutal brand of frontier justice, this intensely moving saga brims with a rich cast of indomitable and utterly unforgettable characters such as Becca, Zeke's gallant Cherokee wife, and Jewel Sixkiller Proctor, whose love for Ned makes her a tragic heroine. At once exuberant and poignant, bittersweet and brilliant, Zeke and Ned takes us deep into the hearts of two extraordinary men who were willing to go the distance for the bold vision they shared—and for the women they loved.

Painting the Darkness


Robert Goddard - 1989
    When the creak of the garden gate heralds the arrival of an unexpected stranger, he is puzzled but not alarmed. He cannot know the destruction this man will wreak on all he holds most dear.The stranger announces himself as James Norton, but claims he is in reality Sir James Davenall, the man to whom Trenchard's wife Constance had been engaged, and who had committed suicide eleven years ago. Sir Hugo, James's younger brother, and his mother, Lady Catherine, refuse to recognise Norton and force Trenchard - who fears the loss of his wife's affections - into an uneasy alliance against him. But Trenchard must plumb the depths of his own despair before the dark secrets of the Davenall family can finally, shockingly, be revealed...

The Hellfire Club


Peter Straub - 1996
    Their murderer remains at large. Nora Chancel, wife of publishing scion Davey Chancel, fears she may be next. After all, her past has branded her a victim. . . . Then Davey tells Nora a surreal story about the Hellfire Club, where, years before, he met an obsessed fan of Chancel House’s most successful book, Night Journey—a book that has a strange history of its own. . . . Suddenly terror engulfs Nora: She must defend herself against fantastic accusations even as a madman lies in wait. And when he springs, Nora will embark on a night journey that will put her fears to rest forever, dead or alive. . . .From the Paperback edition.

Werewolves in Their Youth


Michael Chabon - 1999
    Caught at moments of change, Chabon's men and women, children and husbands and wives, all face small but momentous decisions. They are caught in events that will crystallize and define their lives forever, and with each, Michael Chabon brings his unique vision and uncanny understanding of our deepest mysteries and our greatest fears.

The Garden of Last Days


Andre Dubus III - 2008
    April, a stripper, has brought her daughter to work at the Puma Club for Men. There she encounters Bassam, a foreign client both remote and too personal and free with his money. Meanwhile, another man, AJ, has been thrown out of the club, and he’s drunk, angry, and lonely. From these explosive elements comes a relentless, raw, and page-turning narrative that seizes the reader by the throat with psychological tension, depth, and realism.

A Gun for Sale


Graham Greene - 1936
    His cold-blooded killing of a European Minister of War is an act of violence with chilling repercussions, not just for Raven himself but for the nation as a whole. The money he receives in payment for the murder is made up of stolen notes and when the first of these is traced, Raven becomes a man on the run. As he tracks down the agent who has been double-crossing him and attempts to elude the police, he becomes both hunter and hunted: an unwitting weapon of a strange kind of social justice. In doing so, he sets the stage for Greene’s next novel, Brighton Rock. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Samuel Hynes.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Shattered


Dean Koontz - 1973
    OR DIEThe van was in back of them again. Closer this time. There could be no mistake--they were being followed.RUN... OR DIEBut why? The question kept nagging at Alex and Colin as they left Philadelphia behind and sped toward their new home in San Francisco. Courtney would be waiting for the, ready to begin a wonderful new life with her husband, her brother...RUN... OR DIENow, someone else is driving cross-country to see Courtney, too. Someone whose brain is rotting inside. Someone who knows their route, their stops, even their destination.RUN... OR DIEHe's got an ax."Shattered catches you by the throat and won't let you go" --Chicago SunTimes

The Body


Robin Waterfield - 1982
    As they travel, they discover how cruel the world can be, but also how wondrous.

Pacific Vortex!


Clive Cussler - 1972
    The latest victim is the awesome superb Starbuck, America's deep-diving nuclear arsenal. Its loss poses an unthinkable threat to national defense. Pitt's job is to find it, salvage it, before the sea explodes. In a furious race against time, Pitt's mission swirls him into a battle with underwater assassins-and traps him in the arms of Summer Moran, the most stunningly exotic and dangerous toward disaster, Clive Cussler plummets his hero onto an ancient sunken island-the astonishing setting for the explosive climax of Pacific Vortex!

Don't Say a Word


Andrew Klavan - 1990
    . ."Or else . . .

Gypsy in Amber


Martin Cruz Smith - 1971
    When you are a gypsy, an antique dealer, and you've been entrusted with a very old highboy in which a dead body is discovered, you have a major problem.Sorcery and the dark sciences lie at the heart of a terrible murder that threatens to force the police into a confrontation with New York's gypsy community. However, Roman Grey decides to unearth the truth about the killing, whatever the cost.

The King of Lies


John Hart - 2006
    But does that make her capable of a vicious murder? Fearing the worst, Work launches his own investigation, crossing paths with a power-hungry detective, a string of damning evidence, and the ugly rumors that swirl within his small, moneyed Southern town.Desperate for the redemption that has eluded him for so many years and stripped of everything he once valued, he fights to save his sister and clear his name--in this poignant and thrilling anatomy of a murder and its ripple effect within a family and a community.

The Book of Fate


Brad Meltzer - 2006
    None of us knew it was coming."So says Wes Holloway, a young presidential aide, about the day he put Ron Boyle, the chief executive's oldest friend, into the president's limousine. By the trip's end, a crazed assassin would permanently disfigure Wes and kill Boyle. Now, eight years later, Boyle has been spotted alive. Trying to figure out what really happened takes Wes back into disturbing secrets buried in Freemason history, a decade-old presidential crossword puzzle, and a two-hundred-year-old code invented by Thomas Jefferson that conceals secrets worth dying for.

Into the Web


Thomas H. Cook - 2004
    Cook."-- Chicago Tribune I know you were there. . . . Roy Slater left Kingdom County forever after the shocking double homicide that rocked his hometown. But the .38-caliber echoes he left behind still haunt the hardscrabble West Virginia community. Now, twenty-five years later, he's come back to spend one last summer caring for his dying father.I know what you did. . . Only Roy knows what really happened that snowy night two decades ago when the world suddenly shattered--only Roy and old Sheriff Wallace Porterfield. And now, maybe, Porterfield's son, the new sheriff, knows too.You'll never get away from it. . . .And when a body is found in the woods and his first, last, and only love, Lila, is connected to the corpse, it's Roy who's sworn in by the sheriff to discover the truth. But what Roy uncovers is that he never escaped the past, that it's been waiting for his return, that it's ready, this time, to kill him. . . .Praise for Into the Web "Thomas Cook is an artist, a philosopher, and a magician; his story is spellbinding."--The Drood Review of Mystery"Hypnotic prose and fresh scenarios set Cook's suspenseful ficiton apart. . . . If you have not yet been haunted by a Thomas Cook novel, now is a fine time to start."--Minneapolis Star Tribune