Open House


Katie Sise - 2020
    A town still held in the grip of an unsolved mystery. A breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by the bestselling author of We Were Mothers.A decade ago in upstate New York, art student Emma McCullough walked into the woods and was never seen again. It’s a mystery that still haunts her bucolic university town and her broken family, especially her sister Haley, whose need for closure has become an obsession. But now, finally, the first piece of evidence in the vanishing has been found: Emma’s bracelet, lodged in a frozen piece of earth at the bottom of a gorge. For Emma’s three best college friends, for a beloved former teacher, and for Haley, the chilling trinket is more than a clue in a resurrected cold case. It’s a trigger.Then a woman is attacked during an open house, and the connections between the two crimes, ten winters apart, begin to surface. So do the secrets that run as deep and dark as the currents in this quiet river town.

Eyes of the Predator


Glenn Trust - 2012
    His next victim is only feet away. Within hours a backwater south Georgia county will be rocked by two seemingly unrelated murders that signal the arrival of a serial killer in the rural southland.Hunting the killer and preventing the next brutal murder falls to a plainspoken country deputy and two agents of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). The chase leads north from the swamps along the Florida line to the foothills of the Appalachians.GBI agents Bob Shaklee and Sharon Price know that Deputy George Mackey is a natural hunter and if anyone can find the sadistic killer, Mackey can. But Mackey, haunted by his own demons can only wonder if he will be late again. It is his greatest fear.

The Sins of the Fathers


Lawrence Block - 1976
    Her alleged murderer—a minister's son—hanged himself in his jail cell. The case is closed. But the dead girl's father has come to Matthew Scudder for answers, sending the unlicensed private investigator in search of terrible truths about a life that was lived and lost in a sordid world of perversion and pleasures.

Tin God


Stacy Green - 2013
    Trapped by poverty and without many allies, Jaymee nearly gives up hope of getting her daughter back after her best friend is murdered. Now, four years later, a wealthy woman with legal connections hires her as a housekeeper, and Jaymee gathers the courage to seek her help. But Jaymee’s last chance ends up in a puddle of blood in one of the historic antebellum mansions in Roselea, Mississippi.I just murdered your wife...again.An unsigned letter consisting of six horrifying words turns Nick Samuels stagnant life upside down. Stuck in emotional purgatory since his wife’s unsolved murder four years ago, Nick is about to self-destruct. The arrival of the letter claiming credit for his wife’s murder and boasting of a new kill sends Nick to Roselea, where he and Jaymee’s worlds collide.Jaymee and Nick realize exposing the truth about her daughter’s adoption is the only way to solve the murders. Up against years of deception, they rush to identify the killer before the evidence–and Jaymee’s daughter–are lost.But the truth doesn’t always set the guilt-ridden free. Sometimes, it destroys them.

The Hundredth Man


Jack Kerley - 2004
    They're also launching Detective Carson Ryder into a nightmare with only one weapon-his own terrifying past.

The Three Beths


Jeff Abbott - 2018
    Her compass. Her belief. So when she glimpses her mother--who's been missing and presumed dead for the past two years--on the other side of a crowded food court, Mariah's conviction becomes stronger than ever. Or is she losing her mind?Her mother disappeared without a trace and--even without a body or any physical evidence--suspicion for her murder immediately fell upon Mariah's father, leaving both father and daughter ostracized from their close-knit community.Until one day, Mariah stumbles upon the fact that two other women have also disappeared recently from Lakehaven. And all three women had the same name: Beth.Is it merely an unlikely coincidence? Or is there a deeper, sinister connection between the three Beths?Mariah would give anything to find out what happened to her mother. But the truth may be worse than she could have imagined...

Broken Places


Tracy Clark - 2018
    But when she stumbles across the dead body of a respected member of the community, it’s up to her to prove a murderer is on the loose . . . Cops can make mistakes, even when they’re not rookies. If anyone knows that it’s Cass Raines, who took a bullet two years ago after an incompetent colleague screwed up a tense confrontation with an armed suspect. Deeply traumatized by the incident, Cass resigned from the Chicago PD, leaving one less female African-American on the force. Now she’s the head of a one-woman private investigation agency, taking on just enough work to pay the bills. She spends the rest of her time keeping an eye on the tenants in her little Hyde Park apartment building, biking along the lakefront, and playing chess with the only father figure she’s ever known, Father Ray Heaton. When Father Ray asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she readily agrees to handle the case. But only hours later she’s horrified to discover his murdered body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby. She knew Pop, as she called him, had ticked off plenty of people, from slumlords to drug dealers and even some parishioners and politicians, with his uncompromising defense of the downtrodden. But a late-night random theft doesn’t seem like much of a motive at a cash-strapped parish like Saint Brendan’s. The lead detective assigned to the case is all too ready to dismiss it as an interrupted burglary gone awry, just another statistic in a violent city. But Cass’s instincts tell her otherwise, and badge or no badge, she intends to see justice done . . .

Sanibel Flats


Randy Wayne White - 1990
    Its dark undercurrents threatened to destroy him.After ten years of living life on the edge, it was hard for Doc Ford to get that addiction to danger out of his system. But spending each day watching the sun melt into Dinkins Bay and the moon rise over the mangrove trees, cooking dinner for his beautiful neighbor, and dispensing advice to the locals over a cold beer lulled him into letting his guard down.Then Rafe Hollins appeared.How could he refuse his old friend's request-even if it would put him back on the firing line? Even if it would change forever the life he'd built here on Sanibel Island?

Under a Dark Sky


Lori Rader-Day - 2018
    . . Since her husband died, Eden Wallace's life has diminished down to a tiny pinprick, like a far-off star in the night sky. She doesn't work, has given up on her love of photography, and is so plagued by night terrors that she can't sleep without the lights on. Everyone, including her family, has grown weary of her grief. So when she finds paperwork in her husband's effects indicating that he reserved a week at a dark sky park, she goes. She's ready to shed her fear and return to the living, even if it means facing her paralyzing phobia of the dark. But when she arrives at the park, the guest suite she thought was a private retreat is teeming with a group of twenty-somethings, all stuck in the orbit of their old college friendships. Horrified that her get-away has been taken over, Eden decides to head home the next day. But then a scream wakes the house in the middle of the night. One of the friends has been murdered. Now everyone—including Eden—is a suspect. Everyone is keeping secrets, but only one is a murderer. As mishaps continue to befall the group, Eden must make sense of the chaos and lies to evade a ruthless killer—and she'll have to do it before dark falls…

One Kick


Chelsea Cain - 2014
    Abducted at age six in broad daylight, the police, the public, perhaps even her family assumed the worst had occurred. And then Kathleen Lannigan was found, alive, six years later. In the early months following her freedom, as Kick struggled with PTSD, her parents put her through a litany of therapies, but nothing helped until the detective who rescued her suggested Kick learn to fight. Before she was thirteen, Kick learned marksmanship, martial arts, boxing, archery, and knife throwing. She excelled at every one, vowing she would never be victimized again. But when two children in the Portland area go missing in the same month, Kick goes into a tailspin. Then an enigmatic man Bishop approaches her with a proposition: he is convinced Kick's experiences and expertise can be used to help rescue the abductees. Little does Kick know the case will lead directly into her terrifying past…

Carved in Bone


Jefferson Bass - 2006
    The real-life scientist who founded the "Body Farm" has broken cold cases and revolutionized forensics . . . and now he spins an astonishing tale inspired by his own experiences.Renowned anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton has spent his career surrounded by death at the Body Farm. Now he's being called upon to help solve a baffling puzzle in a remote mountain community. The mummified corpse of a young woman dead for thirty years has been discovered in a cave, the body bizarrely preserved and transformed by the environment's unique chemistry. But Brockton's investigation is threatening to open old wounds among an insular people who won't forget or forgive. And a long-buried secret prematurely exposed could inflame Brockton's own guilt—and the dangerous hostility of bitter enemies determined to see him fail . . . by any means necessary.With Fascinating Insider Information on the Body Farm!

From the Cradle


Louise Voss - 2014
    The third from her own bedroom...When Helen and Sean Philips go out for the evening, leaving their teenage daughter babysitting little Frankie, they have no idea that they are about to face every parent's greatest fear. Detective Inspector Patrick Lennon is hopeful that the three children who have been abducted in this patch of south-west London will be returned safe and well. But when a body is found in a local park, Lennon realizes that time is running out—and that nothing in this case is as it seems...Blending police procedural with psychological thriller, From the Cradle will have every parent checking that their children are safe in their beds...then checking again.

Famished


Meghan O'Flynn - 2016
    At least, it feels that way until a serial killer starts dicing up women from the shelter where she volunteers. Despite the ever-present tingling at the nape of her neck, Hannah manages to convince herself that the killings have nothing to do with her brutal past—until her boyfriend is murdered in the same ruthless manner as the others. It doesn’t help that the police think she might have done it. But the cops are right about one thing: Hannah is responsible. Because she knows who the killer is. Now she must face the fact that she brought a monster with her to Ash Park—and his appetite for blood is insatiable. Everyone's hungry for something. Some are more famished than others.

What She Saw


Sheila Lowe - 2013
    Claudia Rose and other characters from the Forensic Handwriting Mysteries series play an important role in unraveling the web of mystery and uncover what she saw that erased her memory.

Black In White


J.C. Andrijeski - 2015
    Quentin Black."Gifted with an uncanny sense about people, psychologist Miri Fox works as an off and on profiler for the police. So when they think they've finally nailed the "Wedding Killer," she agrees to check him out, using her gift to discover the truth.But the suspect, Quentin Black, isn't anything like Miri expects. He claims to be hunting the killer too and the longer Miri talks to him, the more determined she becomes to uncover his secrets. When he confronts her about the nature of her peculiar "insight," Miri gets pulled into Black's bizarre world and embroiled in a game of cat and mouse with a deadly killer--who still might be Black himself. Worse, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Black, a complication she doesn't need with a best friend who's a homicide cop and a boyfriend in intelligence. Can Miriam see a way out or is her future covered in Black?Standalone novel. No cliffhanger.*Warning: this book contains graphic language, sex, and violence. Mature readers only. Not intended for young readers.*BLACK IN WHITE is book 1 in the Quentin Black Mystery series - a series set in the Quentin Black World. It is also a spinoff from the Bridge & Sword (Allie's War) series, and takes place in the wider history/world of the seers.Next in the Quentin Black Mystery series: Black As Night, Black On Black, Black Is Back.THE QUENTIN BLACK WORLD encompasses a number of dark, gritty paranormal mystery arcs with science fiction elements, starring brilliant and mysterious Quentin Black and forensic psychologist Miriam Fox. For fans of realistic paranormal mysteries with romantic elements, the series spans continents and dimensions as Black solves crimes, takes on other races and tries to keep his and Miri's true identities secret to keep them both alive.QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY SERIESBlack In White (Quentin Black Mystery #1)Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2)Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3)Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4)