Book picks similar to
The Man in the Green Chevy by Susan Rogers Cooper
fiction
mysteries-modern
crime
cooper-susan-rogers
A Cruise to Murder
Dawn Brookes - 2018
.....come aboard the fictional Coral Queen and prepare yourself for murder and mayhem with plenty of red herrings. Rachel is twenty-five years old, and appears to have everything. Beautiful, bright and recently qualified as a police woman - what else does she need? .....Her fiancé has ditched her for another woman! Now what? Rachel needs rest and relaxation. Her best friend Sarah is a nurse on board a cruise ship, and offers the solution. Surely a Mediterranean cruise will help? Well it couldn't hurt.... Or could it? When Rachel befriends an elderly woman in her eighties, the titled, Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe appears concerned about something. Danger and menace seem to be closing in on her..... Meanwhile, Rachel finds herself falling under the spell of the charming and attractive Carlos. Who is he and why is he so secretive? What could he be up to? One of the passengers meets with a tragic accident while onshore with Lady Snellthorpe, and the tension builds. With danger threatening at every turn, Rachel needs to get to the bottom of this mystery before someone else is killed. She is putting herself in danger. Could she be the next victim? This cozy/thriller has suspense and intrigue. A good, clean murder mystery with lots of red herrings. You don't have to like cruising to enjoy this book but if you do you might get a double dollop of pleasure. A great debut novel by an emerging talent. What readers are saying about A CRUISE TO MURDER Can't wait for the next book It's the kind of book you keep turning the pages I was totally hooked from the first page Absolutely brilliant! Liz A perfect vacation read - like a Mary Higgins Clark book A well researched, well written, very entertaining read It would make a great tv series or film The story kept me guessing Brigitta Brilliant! Loved the medical insights on a cruise ship too. Best book I've read in a long time! Had to keep reading to see who the killer was.
Desert Places
Blake Crouch - 2004
Novelist Andrew Thomas finds his peaceful life transformed into a nightmare by a mysterious killer who has framed him for the murder of a young woman whose body is buried on his property, covered in Andrew's blood, and who threatens to turn Andrew over to the police unless he does what his unknown adversary wants.
Murder at the Lighthouse
Frances Evesham - 2015
The body on the beach throws Libby Forest's new life into turmoil. Everyone in town knows the dead woman under the lighthouse, but no one seems to care how or why she died. Only Libby believes someone murdered the ageing rock-star. A woman talks to Libby. Then she, too, dies... Discover how Exham on Sea's first female sleuth, helped by an enormous dog called Bear and an aloof marmalade cat, unpicks the clues to solve the mystery. Amateur female sleuth Libby Forest arrives in the small town after years in a disastrous marriage, determined to build a new life making cakes and chocolates in Exham on Sea. She joins forces with the attractive but secretive Max Ramshore and risks the wrath of the townspeople as she pieces together the jigsaw to solve the mystery of Susie Bennett's death. The first short read in the series, set in the coastal resort of Exham on Sea, Murder at the Lighthouse introduces a cast of colourful local characters, including Mandy the teenage Goth, Frank the baker and Detective Sergeant Joe Ramshore, Max's estranged son. The green fields, rolling hills and sandy beaches of the West Country provide a perfect setting for crime, intrigue and mystery. For lovers of Agatha Christie novels, Midsomer Murders, lovable pets and cake, the series offers a continuing supply of quick crime stories to read in one sitting, as Libby solves a mixture of intriguing mysteries and uncovers the secrets of the small town's past.
The Gray and Guilty Sea
Scott William Carter - 2010
An iconoclast. A loner. That's how people describe Garrison Gage, and that's when they're being charitable. After his wife's brutal murder in New York, and Gage himself is beaten nearly to death, the crippled private investigator retreats three thousand miles to the quaint coastal town of Barnacle Bluffs, Oregon. He spends the next five years in a convalescent stupor, content to bide his time filling out crossword puzzles and trying to forget that his wife's death is his fault. But all that changes when he discovers the body of a young woman washed up on the beach, and his conscience draws him back into his old occupation – forcing him to confront the demons of his own guilt before he can hope to solve the girl's murder.
The Deadly Art of Deception
Linda Crowder - 2016
Caribou King, owner of The Broken Antler Gallery, is hip-deep in tourists when her old college pal Taylor shows up asking for refuge, saying she has no place else to go. Cara is cautious; Taylor was the wife of one of Alaska's most renowned artists––Jonathan Snow, who was mauled to death by a bear the previous year. Why would his widow want to return to the location of her tragic loss? Something about Taylor's story just doesn't ring true. Of course, she may not be the only liar in town. Taylor's former father-in-law accuses her of killing his son in front of a diner full of people, except he may have had a stronger motive. A handsome boat captain seems to fancy both Cara and Taylor but he can't make up his mind between them ––or between lying and telling the truth. The local constable mistrusts everyone, but may have a reason to be mistrusted himself. Will Cara help her old friend Taylor, or will doing so get her into a heap of trouble? When a headless body is discovered in the bay, Cara wonders just who she can trust in this tiny town.
Too Many Crooks Spoil the Plot
Sarah Osborne - 2018
So when a childhood friend asks Ditie to babysit her kids for a few days, she jumps at the chance. She never imagined she’d be solving a murder too . . . Despite growing up together, Ditie hasn’t seen Ellie Winston in two years, and she didn’t even know Ellie was living in Atlanta. But when Ellie asks her to take care of Lucie and Jason for the weekend, she thinks nothing of it. They’ll bake cookies together, play with her dog—it’ll be fun! Until the police call with terrible news . . . Ellie may not have been the best friend, but who would want her dead? Could it have something to do with the vague get-rich-quick scheme she mentioned to Ditie? Or the men in a black truck following her and breaking into her home? Not sure who to trust other than her best friend, Lurleen, Ditie’s buried maternal instincts kick in to protect the kids and find their mother’s killer—before they’re orphaned again . . . Includes Family-Friendly Recipes!
This Doesn't Happen In The Movies
Renee Pawlish - 2011
A rich, attractive femme fatale. A missing husband. A rollicking ride to a dark and daring ending. Reed Ferguson’s first case is a daring adventure, complete with a dose of film noir, and a lot of humor. With a great supporting cast of the Goofball Brothers, Reed’s not too bright neighbors, and Cal, Reed’s computer geek friend, This Doesn’t Happen In The Movies is detective noir at its best. Follow Reed as he solves crime akin to his cinematic hero, Humphrey Bogart. Great for fans who love a fast-paced, humorous read, without a lot of swearing or sex.
Gone to Dust
Matt Goldman - 2017
The ultimate cover-up. How do you solve a murder with no useable evidence?Private detective Nils Shapiro is focused on forgetting his ex-wife and keeping warm during another Minneapolis winter when a former colleague, neighboring Edina Police Detective Anders Ellegaard, calls with the impossible.Suburban divorcee Maggie Somerville was found murdered in her bedroom, her body covered with the dust from hundreds of emptied vacuum cleaner bags, all potential DNA evidence obscured by the calculating killer.Digging into Maggie’s cell phone records, Nils finds that the most frequently called number belongs to a mysterious young woman whose true identity could shatter the Somerville family--but could she be guilty of murder?After the FBI demands that Nils drop the case, Nils and Ellegaard are forced to take their investigation underground, where the case grows as murky as the contents of the vacuum cleaner bags. Is this a strange case of domestic violence or something with far reaching, sinister implications?
Runner
Patrick Lee - 2014
While out on a run in the middle of the night, a young girl runs into him on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she’s running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal—to kill the fleeing child. After Dryden helps her evade her pursuers, he learns that the eleven year old, for as long as she can remember, has been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. But she doesn’t know much beyond her own name, Rachel. She only remembers the past two months of her life—and that she has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these men and the hidden men in charge.Dryden, who lost his wife and young daughter in an accident five years ago, agrees to help her try to unravel her own past and make sense of it, to protect her from the people who are moving heaven and earth to find them both. Although Dryden is only one man, he’s a man with the extraordinary skills and experience—as a Ranger, a Delta, and five years doing off-the-book black ops with an elite team. But, as he slowly begins to discover, the highly trained paramilitary forces on their heels is the only part of the danger they must face. Will Rachel’s own unremembered past be the most deadly of them all?
Absolution
Caro Ramsay - 2007
Daily, he'd watched over her, and they had begun to communicate with each other, she by moving her wounded fingers. Her fingers could not tell the sad, unseasoned police cadet her name, however, or name for him the father of her newborn baby girl or identify the assailants who had flung the acid in her once incomparably beautiful face. Or tell him how she'd smuggled a cache of uncut diamonds into Scotland.Now McAlpine is back in Partickhill, where he's been summoned to head up the investigation of a disturbing murder case. Two women-their arms outstretched, their legs together and feet crossed at the ankle-have already died at the hands of a man the press has tagged the Crucifixion Killer. More gruesomely, the third victim will also have been violently disfigured when her body turns up in Whistler's Lane, coincidentally (perhaps) the scene of an equally brutal murder four years earlier.The face of another woman, though-a strikingly beautiful young woman, blonde-has taken hold of McAlpine's consciousness, and soon the consequences of a case cold for two decades are commanding-and dangerously thwarting-the course of his team's current, already desperate investigation.As crimes in the present intersect with iniquities committed in the past, the mystery in this steely, piercing, psychological thriller is as gripping as its twists are surprising. And absolution proves to be extreme.
Child of Silence
Abigail Padgett - 1993
Child abuse investigator Bo Bradley gets the case. Staff at St. Mary’s Hospital for Children assume the boy is mentally impaired because he cannot talk, but Bo remembers a little sister named Laurie. She knows that the boy, like Laurie, is deaf. Complicating things is Bo’s manic depressive disorder, a troubling but occasionally valuable problem for which she always, well sometimes, takes her meds. The prime directive in Bo's job is "Don't become emotionally involved with the child!" But the little boy is so bright inside his silence, and so alone. Bo feels the ominous first ripples of an oncoming manic episode and grabs her meds, but they won't have much effect for weeks and the child is in danger now! Risking her job and ultimately her life in a perhaps-delusional race to protect a four-year-old whose only word is his own name - "Weppo" - Bo finds herself alone with the child in a desert night fraught with terrors as she tries to reach an imagined safety among the Paiute. But political intrigue, desperate secrets and a relentless evil lurk in every shadow of a moonlit landscape in which Bo has only her own intense and uncanny perceptions as guide. She knows she's "crazy," but sometimes crazy sees what rational cannot. And "crazy" is now Weppo's only chance for a life! “A sensationally fine first novel… breathtakingly well-told…”The Los Angeles Times
Breaking Creed
Alex Kava - 2014
They’ve intercepted several major drug stashes being smuggled through Atlanta’s airport. But their newfound celebrity has also garnered some unwanted attention.When Creed and one of his dogs are called in to search a commercial fishing vessel, they discover a secret compartment. But the Colombian cartel's latest shipment isn’t drugs. This time, its cargo is human. To make matters worse, Creed helps one of the cartel’s drug mules escape—a fourteen-year-old girl who reminds him of his younger sister who disappeared fifteen years ago.Meanwhile, FBI agent Maggie O’Dell is investigating a series of murders — the victims tortured, killed, and dumped in the Potomac River. She suspects it’s the work of a cunning and brutal assassin, but her politically motivated boss has been putting up roadblocks.By the time she uncovers a hit list with Creed’s name on it, it might be too late. The cartel has already sent someone to destroy Creed and everyone close to him.But Creed and his dogs have a few surprises in store on their compound in Florida. Will it be enough to stop a ruthless cartel determined to remove the thorn in its side once and for all?
Someone Else's Skin
Sarah Hilary - 2014
Five years ago, her family home was the scene of a shocking and bloody crime that left her parents dead and her foster brother in prison. Marnie doesn’t talk much about her personal life, preferring to focus on work. Not even her partner, DS Noah Jake, knows much about Marnie’s past. Though as one of the few gay officers on the force and half Jamaican to boot, Noah’s not one to overshare about his private life either. Now Marnie and Noah are tackling a case of domestic violence, and a different brand of victim.Hope Proctor stabbed her husband in desperate self-defense. A crowd of witnesses in the domestic violence shelter where she’s staying saw it happen, but none of them are telling quite the same story, and the simple question remains: how did Leo Proctor get in to the secure shelter? Marnie and Noah shouldn’t even have been there when it happened but they were interviewing another resident, Ayana Mirza. They’re trying to get Ayana to testify against her brothers for pouring bleach on her face for bringing dishonor to the family, and blinding her in one eye. But Ayana knows that her brothers are looking for her, and she has no doubt that they’ll kill her this time.As the violence spirals, engulfing the residents of the women's shelter, Marnie finds herself drawn into familiar territory: A place where the past casts long shadows and she must tread carefully to survive.
Paper, Scissors, Death
Joanna Campbell Slan - 2008
Memories of friends, family . . . and murder? Mousy housewife Kiki Lowenstein has two great loves: scrapbooking and her young daughter, Anya. But her happy family album is ruined when her husband, George, is found naked and dead in a hotel room. As Kiki tracks down George's murderer, she discovers his sordid secret life. Cruel taunts by George's former flame compel Kiki to spout an unwise threat. When the woman is murdered, Kiki's scissor-sharp words make her the prime suspect. She could be creating scrapbook keepsakes for the rest of her life-behind bars. Supported by her loyal friends, along with a little help (and a lot of stomach flutters) from the dashing Detective Detweiler, can Kiki cut the true killer out of the picture and design a new life for herself and Anya?