Book picks similar to
Deep Background by Rick Treon


thriller
mystery
ebook
mystery-thriller

Follow Me Down


Gordon Mackinney - 2017
    Six years earlier, Drax Enterprises’ negligence killed his father and left his mother strung out on Valium. Lucas longs to punish the corrupt behemoth of Cincinnati real estate development, but what can one man do? "Plenty," says old Mr. Blumenfeld, Lucas's boss and a former photojournalist with too many secrets. Evidence to bury Drax exists, he claims, but to find it, Lucas must breach the city's welded-shut subway system. Lucas takes the plunge, aided by his best friend and moral compass, Reuben Klein. The deeper the duo infiltrates the dangerous underground, the further back they turn the clock. They learn that Drax's corruption intertwined with fascism's rise in Germany. That campfire tales of a subway crypt were true. That no one can be trusted, not even Lucas's boss.

With Wanton Disregard


Gwen Banta - 2018
     Tim is at a crossroads in his life when he meets Lauren: the beautiful wife of a prominent Long Beach physician who has been brutally murdered. In spite of the mounting evidence against Lauren, Tim fights to prove that she is not involved. But when Lauren suddenly goes into hiding, more savage murders occur in the exclusive Long Beach enclave of Belmont Shore. As Mulrooney pieces together the evidence proving that the murders are connected to the Connolly case, he makes a startling discovery about the next intended victim, and must risk his reputation, his shield, and his life to solve the case - and stay alive.

Irons in the Fire


Bowen Greenwood - 2020
    The prime suspect got out of prison way too easily; reporter Sherman Iron needs to know why. But he breaks the law in his quest for answers, and Iron stumbles on the dead body of a corrupt judge with a million in cash in a briefcase in front of him.Then the cops show up.Framed for a murder he didn’t commit, Sherman Iron must clear his name and find the killer who ordered the shooting. But everyone in Hunter has a secret, and learning them might take Iron from the frying pan to the fire.

The Wrong Abraham (Boston Law #3)


David S. Brody - 2006
    Then she receives a baffling letter from her rich Uncle Abraham, a Holocaust survivor: Only she, he mysteriously proclaims, can prevent a major terrorist attack on Boston. Working with Homeland Security, Shelby and her fiancé, Bruce Arrujo, race through the streets of Boston, first attempting to stop a Hiroshima-sized Liquified Natural Gas tanker explosion in Boston Harbor, then fighting to prevent a deadly release of anthrax powder at Fenway Park. Yet the terrorists always seem to be one step ahead of them. Through it all, a question haunts Shelby: Why does Uncle Abraham always seem to be one step ahead of the terrorists?

The Man from Murmansk


Trevor Scott - 2017
    On a cold February night, while flying a drone, he takes video of a missile on a transporter erector launcher being loaded aboard a merchant ship. This could be a violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by Reagan and Gorbachev. Karl is recalled to America, but not for long. The Agency wants him to continue with his mission, which brings him to a tumultuous South American country. As the U.S. Navy tracks the Russian ship across the Atlantic, it soon becomes clear that a new Cold War could turn hot, bringing the two superpowers to the brink of war. With Karl being the son of legendary CIA officers Jake Adams and Toni Contardo, he definitely has the DNA to complete this mission. But in the cat and mouse spy game, nobody is safe.

Dead Game


Gerald Hammond - 1980
    He is also a rascal with a total disregard for the law, a skilled and dedicated poacher of birds of both varieties. Calder is a guest at a shoot in the Scottish Borders when one of the syndicate members dies—apparently by accident, but a bullet is found in his body. Calder has a personal interest in the case, which deepens when the brother of his current girlfriend is arrested and charged with the murder. Calder begins to makes his own enquiries but he and Molly find themselves in danger . . . Praise for Gerald Hammond ‘A gruesome, lightheartedly complex caper in the Scottish lowlands… the whole tangled romp has a what-ho!, outdoorsy energy that's undeniably appealing.’ – Kirkus Reviews ‘With his expert knowledge of guns and his love of the Scottish countryside, Gerald created marvelous backgrounds against which he set puzzling, credible, and thoroughly entertaining whodunits. His books were not long tedious, padded, thrillers. Instead they are almost of another age, ingenious plots, characters with whom you want to spend time, and a world to which you eagerly anticipate returning.’ – Paul Bishop, author of Deep Water and A Bucketful of Bullets. Born in 1926, Gerald Hammond lived in Scotland, where he retired from his profession as an architect in 1982 to pursue his love of shooting and fishing and to write full time. After his first novel, Fred in Situ, was published in 1965, Gerald became a prolific author with over 70 published novels. His last title, The Unkindest Cut, was published in 2012. Most of his novels were published under his own name, but he also wrote under the pseudonyms Arthur Douglas and Dalby Holden.

Past Due (Det. Thomas Clipper Mysteries Book 1)


Richard Stockford - 2014
     A local businessman stabbed to death in his bed. An estranged wife. A slightly obsessive reporter. When a string of murders rocks the relatively quiet city of Bangor, Maine, Detective Lieutenant Thomas Clipper must look to the pages of history to bring the killer to justice. What do all the victims have to do with the legend of the Edgewink gang, cut down in a bloody gunfight in 1937? Why did the FBI agent in charge of the Edgewink case disappear on a return trip to Bangor? Where is the stolen loot that Lester Edgewink supposedly hid away before his death? And why do people keep turning up missing—and dead? Past is present, as they say. And as Bangor gears up for a Founders' Day re-enactment of the shootout, an old bill is about to come violently due.

The Prison


Joe Edd Morris - 2019
    Cal must rely on his grandfather to uncover the suspicious circumstances of the blaze, as clues unfold to establish his innocence. Compelling revelations link the fire and Cal’s innocence with domestic terrorism. From plots to blow up Mississippi River bridges to threats on their lives, grandfather and grandson take a series of risks, including Cal’s daring prison escape, to save the remnants of their family and southern community so disturbingly infiltrated. A surprise addition to their efforts is Cal’s six-year-old daughter (thought to have died in the fire), who was kidnapped by the terrorists and escaped from their camp. The trio, in a race against time, help the FBI and Coast Guard thwart the nefarious plot.

White Oaks


Jill Hand - 2019
    Also on hand are her two brothers, wily Marsh and ne’er-do-well Trainor. With a forty-billion-dollar inheritance at stake, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the old man happy.To their shock they learn that what their father wants for his birthday is to kill someone. He doesn’t care who it is. He just wants to know what it’s like to commit murder.Betrayal, double-dealing, and fast-paced action set the Trapnells on a collision course with an unexpected villain. Their journey takes them from the swamps of Georgia, to Italy’s glittering Amalfi coast, to rugged Yellowstone National Park.

Girl, Kidnapped


Peter R. Stone - 2020
    Wearing a threadbare knee-length dress and with her badly-bruised ankles encased in leg irons, she's filthy, malnourished and covered in burn scars. She has no memory of how she got there, where she has been or even who she is. A doctor's examination reveals that her memory has been deliberately erased by repeated electric shock therapy.Desperate to find out who did this to her and why, and displeased with the police superintendent's plodding pace, Caitlyn launches an investigation of her own. However, she is unnerved by her brother's insistence that she talk to him first when her memories start returning because he suspects that their father is the one who did this to her...

Coming Home


Laurèn Lee - 2020
    . . Former police officer Elle Dahlia is a magnet for death. Still grieving the murder of her fiance, Dahlia travels home to attend the funeral for her stepmother. Haunted by the ghosts of her past, she finds herself staring at the bottom of the bottle.When a young woman is brutally murdered in her home, Dahlia discovers the victim was a young girl she watched over for many years. On a desperate path to avenge the girl’s death, she opens her own, unofficial investigation into the crime. Surrounded by secrets, Dahlia must connect the dots and find the murderer before he finds her.Heart wrenching and suspenseful, Coming Home is a journey into one woman’s soul as she hunts for truth, justice, and the man with evil rooted in his soul.

Killen


P.H. Figur - 2020
    Anyone wanting to know what it was like to live there, only had to read a small wooden sign on the outskirts of town: “Welcome to Killen…a little piece of Heaven.” Those words rang true for most of Killen’s first 200 years. But there was one exception. It was the time that Killen lived up to its name and a little piece of heaven...became...a little piece of hell. When Thomas Dalton was 13-years-old, a string of murders in a North Georgia received unwanted national attention. With the passing of time, facts got distorted, turning Killen into a macabre tourist destination. But for Thomas, it became personal when his own parents, suddenly disappeared and were subsequently declared dead. He goes to school to become an investigative reporter and gets a job at a national cable television station. Thomas then is assigned to a national case tracking down a serial killer. What Thomas doesn’t realize is the serial killer he is looking for, will not only solve a national mystery it will also solve his own mystery. Throughout Thomas’s journey he is driven to find out who killed his parents. But he also desperately wants to restore the reputation of Killen and rebuild the family business.The only question that remains is…can he make Killen a little piece of heaven once again?

Lethal Dose


Robert McCracken - 2016
    Terry Lawler had exposed the secrets of powerful people and apparently got his comeuppance.But when DI Tara Grogan digs further, she makes a startling discovery. Within the victim’s home are details about dozens of missing women. Details that might only be known to the last person who saw them.Just what was his connection to these disappearances in Belfast and Liverpool? Has Grogan stumbled upon evidence of a serial killer who someone else has got to first?In which case, exactly who is Grogan hunting for? And does she really want to find them?

Bloodline


Brian O'Connor - 2011
    Liam, a champion steeplechase jockey, is initially both witness and suspect. However, shrewd police detective Diarmuid Yeats takes a gamble on his innocence and enlists his help in the hunt for the killer. This nightmare experience exacerbates the tensions in Liam’s life. He has been falling out of love with his job, his joy in racing relentlessly worn away by the struggle to keep the weight down on his six-foot frame. Is it time to quit? But McFarlane’s stables houses the brilliant Patrician, a potential Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, and Liam wants to be the jockey to get him first past the finish post in the race that matters most. With emotions at pressure point, Liam falls in love with the exotic blonde Ukrainian stable girl, Lara, leaving him in an even more vulnerable position than before. Then the killer strikes again and the race to the finish post is replaced by a race for survival . . . and there is no second place. “A gripping murder story” - THE IRISH TIMES

Seven Years Dead


Chuck Driskell - 2016
    Allegedly. In the waning days of the Second World War, Tommy’s American unit was slaughtered by the notorious Schutzstaffel—the Waffen SS. According to the U.S. government, there were no survivors. But Tommy did survive—the sole survivor of 187 men. In the interest of his privacy, the government provided him with a new identity in a different region of the country. But, unknown to the U.S. government, Tommy spent his college years planning his revenge. And now, in 1952, Tommy is traveling back to Germany. He’s going there to find the man, the murderer, the SS commander who ordered his friends killed. Despite his deep-seeded hatred, Tommy is forced to assimilate with his German hosts. Though unwilling at first, he even finds himself yielding to the kindness of a German widow and her son. Although his hunt progresses successfully, he soon falls under the scrutiny of a dogged Berlin detective as well as a deadly legion of former SS. Inspired by the true events of the Malmedy Massacre, SEVEN YEARS DEAD begins as a tale of revenge and transforms to one of redemption. With dual plot lines of journal entries recounting the massacre, paralleled with Tommy’s hunt for the SS, SEVEN YEARS DEAD is an action/crime thriller that esteemed World War II author Kelly Durham describes as “thrilling and riveting.”