Book picks similar to
The Bloodbath Ritual by Andrew Downs
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Stark Warning
James Raven - 2012
But one deranged viewer is out to destroy her career. He demands that her programme be scrapped and tells her to stop appearing on TV. To prove he means business he claims his first victim – a young woman who is found dead with her throat cut.Jessica and her bosses face an agonizing dilemma: take the show off the air or risk more murders. They decide to defy the killer, for fear of setting a dangerous precedent. But there are dire consequences.
Cloud Crash: A Technothriller
Phil Edwards - 2011
He won’t stop until the “cloud computing” that powers the internet is destroyed. But he’s not acting alone—he’s part of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of power. His only obstacle? A team of professionals with serious flaws: a corporate investigator who’s too brash to stay out of trouble, a hermit-like blogger with crippling paranoia, and a beautiful public relations expert with her own fair share of secrets. They’ll have to work together to discover the true source of the attacks—before it’s too late. Along the way, they’ll come in contact with modern technology’s greatest risks. The chase takes them from Silicon Valley to New York City, with stops at Napa and Area 51 in between. They’ll have to move quickly—there’s only one chance to keep the cloud from crashing. The print edition is 385 pages. If you love taut, puzzle-based thrillers with big ideas, you'll want to start Cloud Crash immediately.
The Patriot Paradox
William Esmont - 2010
With Amanda’s help, he uncovers a rogue CIA plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in Moscow. Meanwhile, the assassins who killed his brother launch an all-out hunt to silence him and anyone else who may thwart their plans.In a frantic sprint across Europe, Kurt and Amanda must stay one step ahead of the killers while racing against the clock to prevent the bomb from incinerating millions of innocent people.
Family Money
Chad Zunker - 2022
They have two daughters and a beautiful home, and Alex’s startup business is about to explode thanks to massive private funding from his compassionate and supportive father-in-law, Joe. With millions more to come, all is perfect—until Joe is abducted and murdered during a family trip in Mexico.Alex’s world is about to be turned upside down. He can’t bear to tell his grieving wife why. The man they’ve both idolized has been keeping secrets. The pledged millions are nowhere to be found. The source of the original investment is a mystery, even to Joe’s financial adviser. No one, it seems, has any idea who the man they knew, loved, and trusted really was.As Alex digs deeper into Joe’s shadowy life, the most shocking surprises are yet to come. Deadly ones, too, because every lie that Alex uncovers in Joe’s dark past puts his family in more danger.
Hard Rain
Irma Venter - 2012
It starts when he meets Ranna, a beautiful photographer with something to hide. Alex stopped believing in love a long time ago, yet here in the middle of East Africa, it’s found him again.Alex knows a thing or two about chaos—wherever he goes, it follows. When an IT billionaire washes up onshore after seasonal flooding, he finds himself at the center of an investigation with Ranna as the main suspect. It turns out she may have a good reason for hiding her past.Wherever she goes, murder follows.Alex should be used to these cat-and-mouse games, but this time it’s different. Should he listen to his heart and help Ranna hide the bloody trail leading to her? Or should he use his head and run for his life?
Dead Man's Hand
Luke Murphy - 2012
…and the cards don't fall your way? When the brutal slaying of a prominent casino owner is followed by the murder of a well-known bookie, Detective Dale Dayton is thrown into the middle of a highly political case and leads the largest homicide investigation in Vegas in the last twelve years. What if you're dealt a Dead Man's Hand? Against his superiors and better judgment, Dayton is willing to give Calvin one last chance. To redeem himself, Calvin must prove his innocence by finding the real killer, while avoiding the LVMPD, as well as protect the woman he loves from a professional assassin hired to silence them.
Amid the Shadows
Michael C. Grumley - 2013
Yet when Christine Rose discovers something very special about Sarah, she also learns a terrifying secret that few would ever dream possible.But it's more than just possible...it's imminent.For over a century, in countries around the globe, a dark and meticulous plan has been set. But now an immensely powerful group must find and eliminate Sarah, the one person who can change the outcome. With unlimited resources and the unwitting support of a powerful government, they will stop at nothing to see their plan through. A strike at the very heart of faith itself.From New York City, to the Vatican, to the hidden Nazi bunkers of Argentina, Christine must dig deep within herself and find the strength to keep Sarah alive.Because if Sarah doesn't survive...no one will.
Come What May
Larry Darter - 2016
Or so he thought until he is caught up in a run of bad luck and his life starts falling apart. The worst of it, his unfortunate entanglement in a spate of fatal on-duty shootings at a time when activists are protesting the use of deadly force by police and rioting all over the country. On edge and questioning his judgment, Malone's LAPD superiors speculate that he may be too quick to use deadly force.Relieved from street duty, Malone is sequestered in Robbery-Homicide Division's Cold Case Homicide Section to keep him under wraps while he undergoes department-mandated psychiatric evaluation. His work-related problems compounded by a vindictive ex-wife intent on bleeding him dry financially sends Malone into a spiral of depression that soon has him drinking too much in the attempt to cope.Initially resentful over his reassignment to the cold case section, Malone's attitude starts to change when he and new partner, Detective Jaime Reyes, come across the files of a cold as ice, 23-year-old unsolved murder case. The more they study the case, the more certain they become that the theory pursued by the original investigators was completely wrong.Since the decades-old murder does not fit the unit's criteria for reopening a cold case for active investigation, Malone and Reyes embark on an "off-the-books" investigation. Predictably, that creates some problems, especially for Malone. It quickly becomes clear that there are powerful forces at work both inside and outside the LAPD determined to keep the truth behind the murder buried along with the corpse.The more resistance he encounters, the more unwavering Malone becomes in his unwillingness to let sleeping dogs lie, even when things start to get increasingly personal. His persistence in digging up bones from the past begins to threaten his very career with the LAPD. Even when the investigation sends him hurtling into more trouble than he ever dreamed possible, Malone is unrelenting. He is determined to solve the mystery and to uncover the truth behind the brutal 23-year-old unsolved murder, come what may.
Watch Your Back
James Scott Bell - 2011
A secure job, a fiancée who loves him and the prospect of a steady life ahead. But then he sees her. The new woman at work. And like watching a car crash in slow motion, Cam knows he can't turn away and is powerless to stop what happens next. A tale of lust and greed and corporate America––and what happens to dreams that become all too real."Fore Play" is the story of the world's top golfer and the trouble that follows his off the course activities. Let's put it this way: his game will never be the same.In "Rage Road," a nice young couple thinks they're out for a smooth ride through some lovely country. The truck behind them has a different idea. Married man Frank Dabney has learned to listen to his wife, Susie. But in "Heed the Wife" he finds out he may have listened one too many times. "Compulsively readable, Bell takes his place at the top of the crowded suspense genre." – Sheldon Siegel, New York Times bestselling author"One of the best writers out there, bar none." – In the Library Review
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.
These Toxic Things
Rachel Howzell Hall - 2021
When her latest client, Nadia Denham, a curio shop owner, dies from an apparent suicide, Mickie honors the old woman’s last wish and begins curating her peculiar objets d’art. A music box, a hair clip, a key chain―twelve mementos in all that must have meant so much to Nadia, who collected them on her flea market scavenges across the country.But these tokens mean a lot to someone else, too. Mickie has been receiving threatening messages to leave Nadia’s past alone.It’s becoming a mystery Mickie is driven to solve. Who once owned these odd treasures? How did Nadia really come to possess them? Discovering the truth means crossing paths with a long-dormant serial killer and navigating the secrets of a sinister past. One that might, Mickie fears, be inescapably entwined with her own.
Mandarin Yellow
Steven M. Roth - 2009
Roth's intricate murder mystery - Mandarin Yellow - as Socrates investigates the burglary and attempts to recover the pen, all in an effort to curry favor with his lover's estranged father who is the leader of a Washington and Shanghai based criminal Triad. In a search that takes him from Georgetown to Chinatown and elsewhere in Washington, Socrates finds himself threatened, physically assaulted, suspected of having committed murder, jailed for a time, and constantly confronted by conflicts arising out of his three disparate cultures. Yet he is neither daunted nor deterred by these obstacles. Instead, Socrates draws upon his deep knowledge of vintage fountain pens, Chinese history, and the Mandarin language to puzzle out the complex motives behind the burglary and murders, until he finally uncovers the identities of the criminals and makes a discovery that forever changes his life and the lives of everyone else involved.
Bone Music
Christopher Rice - 2018
If only the nightmare had ended when she was rescued. Instead, her real father exploited her tabloid-ready story for fame and profit—until Charlotte finally broke free from her ghoulish past and fled. Just when she thinks she has buried her personal hell forever, Charlotte is swept into a frightening new ordeal. Secretly dosed with an experimental drug, she’s endowed with a shocking new power—but pursued by a treacherous corporation desperate to control her.Except from now on, if anybody is going to control Charlotte, it’s going to be Charlotte herself. She’s determined to use the extraordinary ability she now possesses to fight the kind of evil that shattered her life—by drawing a serial killer out from the shadows to face the righteous fury of a victim turned avenger.
Cicada Spring
Christian Galacar - 2015
. .On a warm May evening in the spring of 1979, the people of Heartsridge, Massachusetts, are living the American dream. Families are gathered for barbecues. Kids are playing in front yards. Gardens are being kept. Meanwhile, Kara Price stumbles home through the woods, raped and beaten, her life shattered by a wicked act of violence, perpetrated by one of the town’s most beloved and public figures. Surrounding Kara is a cast of compelling and nefarious characters—a violent-tempered mayor who can do no wrong in the eyes of the town, a sheriff bound by the rules and plagued by a guilty conscience, a father bent on revenge, a serial killer in the midst of an identity crisis. And at the center of it all there's Kara, who just wants to move on with her life and forget everything that happened to her. But how can she do that when everyone thinks she is a liar who is only out for attention? With plot and emotion braided together by a careful hand, this haunted group of people all acting on behalf of their own interests begs the question: How far would you go to protect your own?
Irrefutable
Dale Roberts - 2011
Now he is raising his teenage daughter alone. The demands of his job and the fact that his wife’s case remains unsolved have been a strain on both of them, but now a new case threatens not only what’s left of their fragile relationship, but their very lives. When three local women are brutally raped, the case consumes Alex. His daughter, feeling abandoned, unknowingly befriends a looming shadow from Alex’s past. DNA evidence found on the first two victims leads Alex to his suspect. It looks like an open and shut case until DNA from the third victim is matched to Alex. Now, to clear his name he must face the demons from his past and reveal a long kept secret that could disprove the evidence against him, but doing so would not only devastate his daughter, it could destroy them both.