The Russian Renaissance


Ian Kharitonov - 2010
     Constantine can no longer hide in Europe. As he discovers a century-old secret, he must flee back to Moscow, chased by assassins. Only one man can save him. Eugene Sokolov: an officer in the world's most elite rescue unit, a martial arts legend… and Constantine's brother. They face an enemy unlike any other. In a game run by a KGB spymaster, the fate of Russia will depend on their survival.

The Woman


David Bishop - 2011
    This is a story of just one woman. As the story unfolds Linda gradually learns that some people do deserve to die, but that she is not one of those people. Linda Darby is a seven-year divorcee, living quietly in a small let-the-world-go-by beach town on the coast of Oregon, who day trades for a living. Her only close friend is a widowed elderly woman who manages a small consulting company, which, as is later discovered, never has visitors, sends and receives its business correspondence only by courier, and is not listed in any phone directory. No one in town knows what kind of consulting the company does, but the rumor is that whatever they do is done for the government. Linda doesn’t date local men. When her celibacy grows intolerable, she visits nearby towns to frequent the watering holes of successful men. Her motto: No relationships. No second dates. No use of her real name during one-night stands. Then one evening, Linda goes for a walk and nothing for her is ever the same. She is dragged into an alley by two men, but saved by a third, a stranger who disappears as suddenly as he appeared. The next day she finds out the two men in the alley had been killed, the town’s first murders ever. The following day she learns that hours before she had been dragged into the alley, her close friend was tortured and killed.

The Penal Colony


Richard Herley - 1987
    There are no warders. Satellite technology is used to keep the convicts under watch. New arrivals are dumped by helicopter and must learn to survive as best they can. To Sert, one afternoon in July, is brought Anthony John Routledge, sentenced for a sex-murder he did not commit. Routledge knows he is here for ever. And he knows he must quickly forget the rules of civilized life. But not all the islanders are savages. Under the charismatic leadership of one man a community has evolved. A community with harsh and unyielding rules, peopled by resourceful men for whom the hopeless dream of escape may not be so hopeless after all ...

Quinn Checks In


L.H. Thomson - 2012
    A missing Dutch master. A thrilling whodunit...Liam Quinn has a second chance. Released after four years in prison for art forgery, a connection helps him get a job as an expert insurance investigator. But a gallery robbery is about to throw his new plans for a loop...Quinn is a good man who has made mistakes. His large Irish American family are leery of his past, and having two police officers in the family doesn't help. The entire department mistrusts him, and half the town wants his head.His chance for retribution rests on recovering a multi-million-dollar missing painting... if the local mob doesn't kill him first.Wit, action and backstory... what more could you want?" -- J. Michael Orenduff, author of "The Pot Thief" mysteries.More than 500,000 readers have already discovered the entire series of Liam Quinn mysteries!

The Enigma Strain


Nick Thacker - 2014
    It's a race against time as Ben teams up with a woman from the CDC to figure who's behind the attacks, and how to stop the next one.

Teacher Beware


Charlotte Raine - 2014
    Two years later, she moves to Murray, Virginia to get a new lease on life. On her first day of substitute teaching, her new life is nearly cut short when she finds herself in the middle of a shooting that leaves a married couple dead. Luckily, she is saved by Sam Meadows, a cardiologist, but the shooter has disappeared by the time the police come around. When the shooter tries to kill Grace again, Sam and Grace realize that the killer won’t stop until she is dead. With a killer who has nothing to lose, the question isn’t if the killer will attack again, but when and who will be in the crosshairs. A romance/murder-mystery wrapped in the aspects of life: love, family, forgiveness, danger, and death.

Flash


Tim Tigner - 2013
    Aside from raging headaches and no idea what's happened, they appear to have nothing in common. Troy thinks it's 2001 and he's still a combat surgeon fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. Emmy believes it's 2002 and she's still grifting a living from the streets of L.A.Are they archenemies or coconspirators? Lovers or friends? What are they doing in the Caribbean, and why is a Croatian assassin determined to kill them? The only thing they know for certain is that they'll be spending the rest of their lives in prison if the police catch them before they learn the truth.

Border Crossings: A Catherine James Thriller


Michael Weems - 2010
    Taylor Woodall, a sophomore at the University of Texas, has been kidnapped in Cancun while on spring break. Private investigator Catherine James is on the case, but when the evidence begins pointing to a violent drug gang and the cartel puts out a hit on our heroine, she turns to the only man she knows she can trust... her former flame Matt, a war veteran with whom Catherine shares a complicated past. Meanwhile, Yesenia Flores is a young, adventurous woman from Mexico who seeks a better life across the border. But no sooner does she set out on her trek than she becomes entangled in a web of violence and crime. Escaping the cartel's clutches but a witness to a murder, Yesenia is running for her life. North and South, their stories run parallel until their dramatic collision and conclusion. Caution: Book contains adult content (violence and language).

Punishment


Scott J. Holliday - 2018
    Thanks to a technologically advanced machine, detectives have access to the memories of the living, the dying, and the recently dead. But extracting victims’ experiences firsthand and personally reliving everything up to the final, brutal moments of their lives—the sights, the sounds, the scents, the pain—is also the punishment reserved for the criminals themselves.Barnes has had enough. Enough of the memories that aren’t his. Enough of the horror. Enough of the voices inside his head that were never meant to take root…until a masked serial killer known as Calavera strikes a little too close to home.Now, with Calavera on the loose, Barnes is ready to reconnect, risking his life—and his sanity. Because in the mind of this serial killer, there is one secret even Barnes has yet to see…

All the Little Children


Jo Furniss - 2017
    Overnight, all communication with the outside world is lost.Knowing something terrible has happened, Marlene suspects that the isolation of the remote campsite is all that’s protecting her family. But the arrival of a lost boy reveals they are not alone in the woods, and as the unfolding disaster ravages the land, more youngsters seek refuge under her wing. The lives of her own children aren’t the only ones at stake.When their sanctuary is threatened, Marlene faces the mother of all dilemmas: Should she save her own kids or try to save them all?

She's Not There


Marla Madison - 2011
    . . Is the rising number of abused women who've gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a serial killer targeting this vulnerable group of women? When the Milwaukee Police Department refuses to investigate because no bodies have been discovered, Lisa Rayburn, the clinical psychologist who discovers the anomaly, is drawn into an investigation to discover the cause after one of her own clients goes missing. She finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, TJ Peacock, and the husbands of two of the missing women who may themselves be murderers. When TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is found murdered, they know . . . someone is willing to kill to protect his secret. Can they reveal the killer before he gets to them?

Lamb to the Slaughter


Karen Ann Hopkins - 2014
    To solve the murder, she must investigate the nearby Amish community with the help of a man who was shunned years ago. Lamb to the Slaughter is a story about the intertwining lives of three unlikely people in an Indiana Amish Community and the devastating results when a rebellious teenage girl is found shot to death in a corn field during the harvest. Serenity Adams is the newly elected young sheriff in the country town of Blood Rock and besides dealing with the threatening behavior of her predecessor, she now has a dead Amish girl on her plate. At first glance, the case seems obvious. The poor girl was probably accidentally shot during hunting season, but when the elders of the Amish community and even the girl’s parents react with uncaring subdued behavior, Serenity becomes suspicious. As she delves deeper into the secretive community that she grew up beside, she discovers a gruesome crime from the past that may very well be related to the Amish girl’s shooting. Serenity enlists the help of the handsome bad-boy building contractor, Daniel Bachman, who left the Amish when he was nineteen and has his own dark reasons to help the spunky sheriff solve the crime that the family and friends who shunned him are trying desperately to cover up. Serenity’s persistence leads her to a stunning discovery that not only threatens to destroy her blossoming romance with Daniel, but may even take her life in the end.

Brainrush


Richard Bard - 2010
     Before he slid into the MRI machine, Jake Bronson was just an ordinary guy with terminal cancer. But when an earthquake hits during the procedure, Jake staggers from the wreckage a profoundly changed man, now endowed with uncanny mental abilities. An ocean away, Luciano Battista wants a piece of Jake's talent. Posing as a pioneering scientist, the terrorist leader has been conducting cerebral-implant experiments in a sinister quest to create a breed of super jihadist agents...and Jake's altered brain may be the key to his success. But Jake refuses to play the pawn in an unholy war--and when an innocent woman and autistic child are taken hostage to force his cooperation, he embarks on a jihad of his own. Jake and his band of loyal friends are thrust into a deadly chase that leads from the canals of Venice through Monte Carlo and finally to an ancient cavern in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan--where Jake discovers that his newfound talents carry a hidden price that threatens the entire human race.

The Watcher


Jo Robertson - 2011
    Working with a single-minded tenacity, she sets out to prove it.Deputy Sheriff Ben Slater hides his personal pain behind the job, but Kate's arrival in his county knocks his world on its axis. He wants to believe her wild theory, but the idea of a serial killer with the kind of pathology she proposes is too bizarre.Together they work to find a killer whose roots began in a small town in Bigler County, but whose violence spread across the nation. A Janus-like killer, more monster than man, he fixates on Kate. The killer wants nothing more than to kill the "purple-eyed girl again."

Three Days to Die


John Avery - 2011
    but he did.HE ONLY HEARD A FEW WORDS ... but he heard too much.HE RAN ... but he was followed -- a mistake that would turn thirteen-year-old Aaron Quinn's, and his beautiful, courageous, single mother, Ashley's, worlds upside down.THE CLOCK STARTS TICKING ... when Aaron is stolen from his mother by a psychotic killer and thrust headlong into a dark underworld of armed robbery, prostitution, and death. Will Aaron lose his mind as he's forced to participate in a deadly crime spree and witness first hand the horror of cold-blooded murder?THE WALLS CLOSE IN ... on Ashley when she listens to a tape recording left on her pillow by the killer, giving her two choices:1) Call the police and risk being responsible for her only child's death ...2) Offer herself as a sacrifice in exchange for his life ...WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE HER?---A CRIME THRILLERAn ACTION MOVIEA LOVE STORYIn THREE DAYS to DIE, debut author John Avery takes you on a perilous journey unlike any suspense thriller you've read before.From the opening sequence to the smashing ending, THREE DAYS to DIE moves at lightning speed, introducing the world to an exciting new hero, a beautiful and plucky heroine, and a truly frightening villain."John Avery opens Three Days to Die with a bang and then sprints toward the finish line ... taking thriller lovers of any age on a heart-pounding, pulse- tingling ride, and he does it with style. Five Stars!" – Jill Allen, Foreword Review"I truly got lost between the pages of this wonderfully told story - though I did cringe and even cry sometimes and wanted to hit someone at other times, which is totally against my nature. It just goes to show how totally absorbed I was in the world John Avery created in Three Days to Die." - N. Budden - Amazon Top Reviewer---*** Adapted from the original screenplay, THREE DAYS to DIE, by John Avery - Shortlisted for Hollywood's prestigious 2010 - PAGE International Screenwriting Awards ***Approx 225 pagesRecommended for adults 16+