Book picks similar to
Scratch a Woman by Laura Lippman


laura-lippman
scribd
audio_wanted
lippman-laura

Skinny-dipping


Claire Matturro - 2004
    Representing wealthy doctors in malpractice cases, Sarasota attorney Lilly is attacked in her office after a kayak whiplash case, a situation that prompts her to employ an unorthodox method for finding out who is trying to get her.

Side Man


Warren Leight - 1999
    Alternating between their New York City apartment and a smoke-filled music club, Clifford narrates the story of his broken family and the decline of jazz as popular entertainment. Clifford recalls the key moments in his life, such as the day when he, fresh out of college, picked up his first unemployment check and was congratulated by Gene and his band mates. Gene's music career on the big band circuit ultimately crumbles with the advent of Elvis and rock-n-roll. Terry begs him to get a nine-to-five job to support the family, but Gene refuses to enter the "straight world" of regular paychecks, mortgages and security. For Gene, who knows jazz better than his own son, music is not just a job; it's his life. Their marriage slowly dissolves and young Clifford is witness to it all. As things worsen, Clifford assumes the role of parent and throws the hopeless Gene out of his mother's apartment. When an adult Clifford visits Gene in a rundown jazz club after years of separation, he requests that the old man play his mother's favorite song, the old standard "Why was I Born?" Clifford then asks, "Dad, why was I born?" It becomes Clifford's last, heart-breaking plea for his father's love.

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...

Schrödinger's Kitten


George Alec Effinger - 1988
    In this Hugo & Nebula Award-winning story, an Arab woman confronts the uncertainty principle in both practice and theory as she stands accused of killing a man who might do her harm in the future.

Murder in Paradise: Thirteen Mysteries from the Travels of Hercule Poirot


Agatha Christie - 2020
    Even on vacation, tensions can bubble beneath the surface, and when the end of the line leads to murder, everyone’s a suspect.Stories in this collection:"The Plymouth Express""The Submarine Plans""Problem at Sea""How Does Your Garden Grow?""The Market Basing Mystery""The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan""The Million Dollar Bond Robbery""The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb""The Affair at the Victory Ball""The King of Clubs""The Lemesurier Inheritance""The Cornish Mystery""The Adventure of the Clapham Cook"

His Last Bow (single story)


Arthur Conan Doyle - 2012
    Holmes is lured away from retirement to help his country on the eve of World War I and employs one of his most successful disguises to penetrate a German spy ring.

A Suitable Job for a Woman


Val McDermid - 1994
    But what if the private eye is a woman? And what if she is not a character in a novel but a real, working investigator testing not only the meanness but the absurdity of life on seamy streets? Who will tell her story? Enter Manchester's Val McDermid, herself a skilled writer of the P.I. novel but for years a professional journalist. In an effort to plumb the real world of working women--and throw new light on her own craft--she has interviewed women private eyes from both sides of the Atlantic and assembled their stories with an eye for the absurd and a keen grasp of the gritty nuts and bolts of the profession.As fascinating as fiction, A Suitable Job for a Woman is, in the words of Edgar-winning author Nevada Barr, "a concise and eye-opening trek through the competence, humor, and humanity of women."

Not a Monster of a Chance


Denise Swanson - 2012
    It is set during her summer vacation where she has taken a job as a lifeguard to supplement her income and a drowning victim disappears. What happened to the woman? Is she a victim of the Scumble River Monster?Originally published June 2001 from the anthology "...And the Dying is Easy"

The Sequel


Jeffery Deaver - 2012
    Though the author of only one novel, that book has gone on to sell hundreds of millions of copies, keeping Lowell comfortable, as well as Goodwin’s ne’er-do-well and feckless children. Then word comes that a sequel to the novel may in fact exist, and Lowell becomes a detective, navigating a series of startling twists that take him from a Hamptons retreat to a state penitentiary, from a Westchester homestead to a decaying Southern hotel. “The Sequel” is Jeffrey Deaver at his finest, diabolically plotted and filled with rich characterizations.“The Sequel” by Jeffrey Deaver is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books’s Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the biggest names in mystery from the Strand Magazine archives.Originally published in The Strand Magazine, 2012

Rough Cider


Peter Lovesey - 1986
    in World War II England.“When I was nine, I fell in love with a girl of twenty called Barbara, who killed herself.”Theo, a university lecturer, has his early life brought uncomfortably back when, in 1964 he is approached by an American girl called Alice. She wants to be told about her father, a GI hanged for murder in Somerset during World War II. As a boy, Theo had been a principal witness for the prosecution.Alice persuades him to revisit the farm where Theo was evacuated. She is too young to have known her father, but is staunchly determined to discover the true facts. The horrors of the past take on a frightening immediacy when another murder is committed.

The House Husband


James Patterson - 2017
    Detective Teaghan Beaumont is getting closer and closer to discovering the truth about Harry Posehn. But there's a twist that she--and you, dear reader--will never see coming.BookShotsLIGHTNING-FAST STORIES BY JAMES PATTERSONNovels you can devour in a few hoursImpossible to stop readingAll original content from James Patterson

The Collected Short Stories


Dana Stabenow - 2013
    This genre-spanning collection of 16 short stories features familiar characters like Kate and Jim, Liam and Wy, and Bill and Moses, but also ranges farther afield than many readers will expect, leaping from modern-day Anchorage to 22nd-century Mars to the fantasy kingdom of Mnemosynea. Remarkably disparate, but indisputably Stabenow, whose fertile imagination is anything but predictable.Titles in this collection: "Nooses Give," "Conspiracy," "Under the Influence," "Wreck Rights," "Cherchez la Femme," "Siren Song," "The Eyak Interpreter," "Any Taint of Vice," "On the Evidence," "Missing, Presumed…," "The Perfect Gift," "Gold Fever," "Cheechako," "No Place Like Home," "Justice is a Two-edged Sword," and "A Woman’s Work."

Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir


Duane SwierczynskiAllan Guthrie - 2006
    Megan Abbott’s “Policy” was nominated for the Anthony Award and became the basis for her novel Queenpin, which won the 2008 Edgar Award.

Chronicles of Elantra Vol 2


Michelle Sagara - 2016
    And since the missing box is ancient, has no keyhole and holds tremendous darkness inside, Kaylin knows unknown forces are once again playing with her destiny—and her life.CAST IN FURYWhen a minority race of telepaths is suspected of causing a near-devastating tidal wave, Private Kaylin Neya is again drawn into a world of politics…and murder. To make matters worse, Marcus, her trusted sergeant, gets stripped of his command, leaving Kaylin vulnerable. Now she's juggling two troubling cases, and her dreaded magic lessons are starting to look good by comparison…CAST IN SILENCEPrivate Kaylin Neya has sacrificed much to earn the respect of the winged Aerians and immortal Barrani she works alongside. But when the city's oracles warn of brewing unrest in the outer fiefdoms, a mysterious visitor from Kaylin's past casts her under a cloud of suspicion.

Mistress of Justice


Jeffery Wilds Deaver - 1992
    But the rhythm of her life is disrupted when attorney Mitchell Reece requests her help in locating a stolen document that could cost him not only the multimillion-dollar case he's defending but his career as well. Eager to get closer to this handsome, brilliant, and very private man, Taylor signs on . . . only to find that as she delves deeper and deeper into what goes on behind closed doors at Hubbard, White & Willis, she uncovers more than she wants to kno--including a plentitude of secrets damaging enough to smash careers and dangerous enough to push someone to commit murder. Yet who is capable of going to that extreme? With her life on the line, Taylor is about to learn the lethal answer. . . ."The characters are well drawn, the plot is fast paced, and the writing avoids totally the usual trappings of blockbusterdom. . . . An intelligently written thriller."--Booklist