Book picks similar to
True Blue Detective by Vito Zuppardo


mystery
crime-in-fiction
elderly-grandparents
humor

Snake Skin


C.J. Lyons - 2010
    A woman of many identities. Lucille to her doting mother, Lulu to her devoted husband, Mom to her pre-teen daughter, Lucy to her friends, LT to her co-workers, and Supervisory Special Agent Guardino to the criminals she captures for the FBI's Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement squad.A loving mom and wife, dutiful daughter, consummate professional, and kick-ass federal agent, Lucy is living the perfect life.Until the day she comes up against a predator more vicious and cunning than any she's ever tackled before, one who forces Lucy to choose between the life of the young victim she is fighting to save and her own daughter's....and Lucy's dream life is shattered.

Millie's Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery Novels: Books 1-10 (Millie's Cruise Ship Mysteries Deluxe Box Set Book 1)


Hope Callaghan - 2021
    

The Coroner


Jennifer Graeser Dornbush - 2018
    Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack and Emily is needed urgently to help with his recovery. Not sure what to expect, Emily races home, blowing the only stoplight at the center of town and getting pulled over by her former high school love, now Sheriff, Nick Larson. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a Senator’s teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town. Reluctantly agreeing to help her father and Nick, Emily gets down to work, only to discover that the girl was murdered. The autopsy reminds her of her many hours in the morgue with her father when she was a young teen—a time which inspired her love of medicine. Before she knows it, she’s pulled deeper into the case and closer to her father and to Nick—much to the dismay of her big city fiance. When a threat is made to Emily herself, she must race to catch the killer before he strikes again in The Coroner, expertly written and sharply plotted, perfect for fans of Patricia Cornwell and Julia Spencer Fleming.

Glen & Tyler's Honeymoon Adventure


J.B. Sanders - 2011
    and when Glen proposes, hijinks ensue. Follow the guys on their world-spanning adventure as they defeat mobsters, an evil step-mother, a rakish brother-in-law and pirates. No, really -- pirates! Plus there's an underground super-base. And hockey. Come for the romance, stay for the hockey.

Finding Kate Huntley


Theresa Ragan - 2011
    scientist, is murdered before her eyes. For the next ten years Kate grows up alone in Haiti, one of the most dangerous and poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Not a day goes by that she doesn't think of her father. Kate pushes herself to become stronger, mentally and physically. Every day is a struggle for survival. And yet she lives for only one reason...revenge.While looking for a drug lord via satellite in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, Jack Coffey, rookie FBI agent, spots Kate Huntley. Jack is sent by the agency to find Ms. Huntley and bring her back to the States. They have many unanswered questions about her father's death. A professional and responsible man, Jack is confused by Kate's lack of cooperation. He wants to help her return to the States where he believes she'll be safe, but she treats him like the enemy and refuses to go. Everything about her is a contradiction. She looks fragile and innocent, but every time he turns around she's putting another thug in his place. In the beginning Jack wonders if Kate's distrust of his superiors is warranted or just simple paranoia. In the end, Jack realizes nothing is as it seems.

Louisiana Longshot


Jana Deleon - 2012
    Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small, bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she's determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out of play.Unfortunately, she hasn't even unpacked a suitcase before her newly-inherited dog digs up a human bone in her backyard. Thrust into the middle of a bayou murder mystery, Fortune teams up with a couple of seemingly-sweet old ladies whose looks completely belie their hold on the little town. To top things off, the handsome local deputy is asking her too many questions. If she's not careful, this investigation may blow her cover and get her killed.Armed with her considerable skills and a group of old ladies referred to by locals as The Geritol Mafia, Fortune has no choice but to solve the murder before it's too late.

Witch of a Godmother


Belinda White - 2020
    The natural order of things is for a mother to raise her children. Not the other way around.My new housemate Kimberly doesn't know yet what (or who) her newborn daughter is, but I do. I was there when she was born and shared a short soul-gaze with my own mother. Someday, I'll have to break the news to Kimberly, but not today.Or this week, it looks like. Not with all the shenanigans going on in Wind's Crossing.Who would have thought buying a simple desk at an estate auction would lead to so much trouble for my little shop? The break-ins ticked me off, but I could live with them. I had my own way of handling things like that.But when the last break-in yielded a dead body? Well, a witch has to draw the line somewhere.Besides, I'm a Ravenswind Witch and head priestess of the Gemstone Coven. We don't rest until justice is served. One way or another. Witch of a Godmother is the first book in the Witch Reborn Series, a Paranormal Witch Cozy Mystery starring none other than Opal Ravenswind, witch extraordinaire. This series is the second series featuring the Gemstone Coven's witches. If you want to start at the very beginning, check out the Accidental Familiar Series.

Amanda Harper Paranormal Detective


Steve Higgs - 2018
    Amanda will just have to wing it then. Amanda Harper's life has changed a lot in the few weeks since she met Tempest Michaels. Working out her notice period in Kent Police, she has already taken a new job as a Paranormal Investigator to work alongside him. She could be interested in Tempest, but even after she arrested (thankfully he was innocent) Brett Barker, the single, athletic, multi-millionaire heir to the Barker family fortune he still wants to take her on a date to Paris in his helicopter. How does a girl say no to that? But Tempest has a case for her to look into: There is an elevator in a nearby shopping center that has a ghost in it. The specter has shown up on a photograph and people's belongings have gone missing from inside the lift without anyone getting on or off. The shopping center manager wants the case solved, but will she be able to bring the spook into the daylight and reveal its true nature? Or will she get stuck in the dicksand with Brett like sassy best friend and Police colleague Patience Woods predicts and just be too distracted to solve crimes? It is time to find out if she can be who she wants to be in both her professional and personal life. Time to put her big-girl knickers on.

To Die For


Linda Howard - 2004
    She’s pretty, confident, and the owner of a thriving up-scale fitness center. But in the shadow of success, a troubled member of the club develops a strange fixation on Blair, imitating her style and dress. Matters take a darker turn when the look-alike is shot dead–and Blair witnesses the horror.As the media speculates on the tawdry details of the homicide and pushes Blair into the harsh spotlight, she locks horns with police lieutenant Wyatt Bloodsworth. He wants to lead an investigation without interference, while Blair is determined to probe the dead woman’s life on her own. But when someone begins to menace Blair with mounting threats, Wyatt takes notice: Was this murder indeed a lethal case of mistaken identity–and was Blair the intended victim?

The Thursday Murder Club


Richard Osman - 2020
    Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?

Frank Sinatra in a Blender


Matthew McBride - 2011
    He’s a drunken ex-cop who lives in his shabby office, hangs out at strip clubs, and has only one real friend—Frank Sinatra. But he’s one of the best private investigators in St. Louis. So when an inept crew robs a credit union, only Valentine can figure out who made off with the millions.Sometimes solving a crime takes a hard guy who’s not afraid to work outside the law, and Valentine scrambles through the underbelly of St. Louis looking for answers. With every law he breaks, every drink he takes, and every Oxycontin he snorts, Valentine lurches closer to finding the truth. Or floating facedown in the Missouri River.Brutally funny, wild, this no-holds-barred crime novel reads like Elmore Leonard on meth. Crazy and addictive, you’ll want more.

A Grave Talent


Laurie R. King - 1993
    King into the upper tier of the genre. As "A Grave Talent" begins, the unthinkable has happened in a small community outside of San Francisco. A string of shocking murders has occurred, each victim an innocent child. For Detective Kate Martinelli, just promoted to Homicide and paired with a seasoned cop who's less than thrilled to be handed a green partner, it's going to be a difficult case. Then the detectives receive what appears to be a case-breaking lead: it seems that one of the residents of this odd, close-knit colony is Vaun Adams, arguably the century's greatest painter of women, a man, as it turns out, with a sinister secret. For behind the brushes and canvases also stands a notorious felon once convicted of strangling a little girl. What really happened on that day of savage violence eighteen years ago? To bring a murderer to justice, Kate must delve into the artist's dark past -- even if she knows it means losing everything she holds dear.

The Vanished: A Riveting Small Town Kidnapping Boxset


Robert J. Walker - 2021
    

Firebird: The Spy Thriller of the 1960s


Noel Hynd - 2018
     It is 1968, one of the most tumultuous years of the 20th Century. Frank Cooper, a former star investigative reporter now writes obituaries for a popular New York City tabloid. He hears the confession of a dying man named Leonard Rudawski, a former American diplomat, who bitterly questions the fate of Pavel Lukashenko, a would-be Soviet defector in Paris in 1965. Lukashenko promised to expose the espionage secret of a generation if he could get to the West. But the defector, code named “Firebird,” vanished. Or did he? Cooper teams with Lauren Richie, a young NY/Latina reporter from the same tabloid. They prowl into the dying man’s confession. Soon they are onto the story of their lifetimes, reviving a dangerous once-cold trail of back channel/back alley CIA and KGB intrigue and tradeoffs, all of which factor into the 3-way racially tinged American election of that year: Nixon vs. Humphry vs. the segregationist George Wallace. Murder, espionage, romance, betrayal and conspiracy intertwine. Readers will meet and recognize dozens of memorable “real life” characters: reporters, gangsters, diplomats, call girls, spy masters, politicians and assassins. The story is tough, large, sprawling and historically precise. "Russians sabotage and destabilize the west," says one experienced reporter with KGB knowledge. "It's not just what they do. It's what they do best." The story straddles the decades from World War Two to 2018, even throwing a cynical light on Russian-American relations of today. “Hynd is a solid, dependable writer with enough literary flair to move him up a few notches above the Ludlums and Clancys of the world. —Booklist

Death of a Cozy Writer


G.M. Malliet - 2008
    At an engagement dinner, he announces his secret marriage to beautiful Violet, once charged with her husband's murder. Within hours, eldest son and hated appointed heir Ruthven is found cleaved to death by a medieval mace. When Detective Chief Inspector St. Just arrives, a deadly calm goes beyond the usual English reserve. Soon Sir Adrian is found slumped over his writing desk – an ornate knife thrust into his heart. Using a Cornish brusqueness and brawn, can St. Just find the killer before another victim falls?