Book picks similar to
Phoenix by John Connor


thriller
mystery
mysteries
crime

If Snow Hadn't Fallen


Sharon J. Bolton - 2012
    Long-smouldering feelings come to a head in a burst of shocking violence. A young Muslim man is brutally murdered by a masked gang.There is just one witness to the horrific crime: DC Lacey Flint. Or at least that's what she thinks...

An Ace and A Pair


Blake Banner - 2017
    But he’s a dinosaur who belongs to another age. Detective Carmen Dehan has such a bad attitude that nobody at the precinct can stomach her. Captain Jennifer Cuevas wants them both out of the way and thinks they make a perfect pair. So she gives them the Cold Cases file – the cases nobody gives a damn about.She has no idea just how hot a cold case can get.Ten years back Nelson Hernandez and his four cousins were playing poker in a dive at Hunts Point. Somebody came in, blew them away and beheaded and castrated Nelson, leaving his head and his balls on the table. There was no shortage of suspects, the Jersey Mob, the Triads from Manhattan, or the 43rds own bent cop, Mick Harragan. But nobody was ever charged, and the night of the murder Mick Harragan went missing with Nelson’s wife, Maria.Now Stone and Dehan plan to find him – whatever the consequences…

Unknown Remains: A Novel


Peter Leonard - 2016
    Outside his office window, Jack hears a booming sound, and then the worst thing imaginable. He works in the World Trade Center, and it is September 11, 2001.His wife in Connecticut, Diane, is visited the next day by a grief counselor, and then the mob, where she learns her husband owes them $750,000. Their personal bank accounts have been emptied. She’s totally and utterly broke. Lost in grief and now shock, Diane soon learns her husband was not the loving spouse he appeared to be. But neither is she, owing to that Beretta she keeps tucked into her handbag.The perfect summer read, Unknown Remains boasts an exciting crime story, inventive plot twists, and a cast of rogues, who just might be using a national tragedy to cover up their own deep transgressions and greed.

Western Approaches


Graham Hurley - 2012
    Surely a job in Major Crimes in the West Country will offer some respite? He finds a remote cottage nestled in a fold of Dartmoor and, with his wife and two year old daughter, heads West for what he is sure will be a saner existence. How wrong could he be? Soon he is investigating the murder of a long-distance rower in the small town of Exmouth. The man rowed in the same 5-man boat as a man who, two years before, dodged a murder charge when his wife went missing during a cross atlantic rowing challange. There had been tensions between the two. Has a killer killed again? As the job takes over, Lizzie, Suttle's wife, is increasingly unhappy about the move. Trying to juggle family life with her own new job on a local paper, isolated in a lonely cottage with a demanding toddler and struggling to make new friends, Lizzie thought the whole point of the move was that she and Suttle could at least see more of each other. As his marriage frays at the edges and his first investigation becomes mired Suttle begins to feel the hills around their cottage crowding in, the wind over the moors above ever chillier, the waters ever greyer. He really has reached land's end ...

Dead Simple


Peter James - 2005
    While out celebrating with a group of friends a few nights before the wedding, Michael suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself enclosed in a coffin equipped only with a flashlight, a dirty magazine, a walkie-talkie, and a tiny breathing tube. It's all in good fun — payback for the grief his mates suffered due to his own penchant for tomfoolery — that is until the four are killed in a drunk driving accident just moments after leaving Michael completely alone and buried alive.Detective Superintendent Grace—himself dealing with the pain of losing his wife—is brought on to the case when Ashley reports Michael missing. Suspicions are raised when Michael's only friend not at the bachelor party refuses to cooperate, and Ashley's faithfulness—not to mention her increasingly mysterious past—are suddenly thrown in to question. As Superintendent Grace soon discovers, one man's disaster is another man's fortune.

Flesh and Blood


Mark Peterson - 2012
    But the investigation is in more trouble than either Detective Sergeant Minter or his boss, Tom Beckett, could ever imagine.

Broadchurch


Erin Kelly - 2014
    He, escaping the spectacular failure of his last case, is having trouble finding his way into this tight-knit community wary of new faces. But professional rivalry aside, both detectives are about to receive some terrible news: 11-year-old Danny Latimer has been found murdered on the beach.For Ellie it's a personal blow; Danny was her older son's best friend. She can't believe anyone in Broadchurch would ever have harmed him. But Alec considers everyone, even Danny's parents, suspect in his death. It's a living nightmare for everyone involved…even before the press arrive and start stirring up the secrets every town member keeps hidden behind closed doors.An intimate portrait of a town and the ordinary grievances that have slowly simmered for years before boiling over in an unthinkable crime, this remarkable adaptation of the hit television show Broadchurch tells the story of a shattered family, a reeling town, and the two imperfect detectives trying to bring them answers.

Tic Tac Toe


Emmy Ellis - 2020
    Noughts and crosses should be innocent enough, but the American title brings a sinister slant… The state of the bodies is nothing but macabre, sickening. What do the clues mean? Forehead carvings. Drawing pins. A body part snipped off. The game grid has nine boxes for nine bodies, but someone else ruins Zac’s plan, meaning he has a spare box to fill. Who does he choose? And can Bethany ever get over the discovery of that victim? With some corpses discovered en masse, it might be time to call in DI Tracy Collier from Serious Crimes but, as usual, Bethany is determined her team will solve this, and she’ll do everything she can to make it happen.

Girl Jacked


Christopher Greyson - 2013
    They were old friends. He knew only one way to deal with pain. Hunt it down and kill it." Police Officer Jack Stratton is hiding. Hiding from the world. From pain. From the memories of losing his best friend, Chandler, in Iraq. Suffering from PTSD and isolated from those he cares about, the last thing Jack expects to hear is his foster sister Michelle, Chandler’s sister, is gone. The words cut straight to his core. Although the police think she just took off, he knows Michelle would never leave those she loved behind–like he did. Now he must take action, find Michelle, and bring her home or die trying. The first novel in the Jack Stratton Collection introduces us to handsome rogue, Jack Stratton. A debt of honor to his dead foster brother drives Jack into a world of deception and lies. As Jack’s walls begin to crumble, he must navigate the quirky characters that seep into the mystery of his foster sister’s disappearance. And in the sleepy community of Darrington, like so many places in this world, nothing is as it appears. The hidden mysteries that often go unnoticed begin to emerge as Jack and his new unpredictable sidekick begin to turn over the rocks. Following a trail that has grown cold, Jack must tread carefully to protect his job, his family, and his life. This stand-alone novel features rogue hero Jack Stratton. Look for other books in the Jack Stratton Collection including Jack Knifed, Jacks are Wild, and now Jack and the Giant Killer. They can be read in any order, however, they are best experienced in sequence.

The Silent Room


Mari Hannah - 2015
    It never arrives. On route it is hijacked by armed men, the prisoner sprung. Suspended from duty on suspicion of aiding and abetting the audacious escape of his former boss, Detective Sergeant Matthew Ryan is locked out of the investigation. With a manhunt underway, Ryan is warned to stay away. Keen to preserve his career and prove his innocence, he backs off. But when the official investigation falls apart, under surveillance and with his life in danger, he goes dark, enlisting others in his quest to discover the truth. When the trail leads to the suspicious death of a Norwegian national, Ryan uncovers an international conspiracy that has claimed the lives of many.

Above Suspicion


Lynda La Plante - 2004
    The murders couldn't be more gruesome. The method of killing is identical, the backgrounds of the girls very similar -- all are prostitutes. As the book opens, a seventh body is found, same modus operandi but the victim this time is a sweet young student. Anna stumbles on a vital piece of information that links one man to the killings, a well-known, much-loved actor. His protestation of innocence is convincing, and Anna might be succumbing to his flattering attention. What if he is arrested, the media erupts, and he is the wrong man?

The Drowning Ground


James Marrison - 2015
    When DCI Guillermo Downes is called to the scene he realises the victim is well known to him.Seven years earlier, Downes made a promise to the families of two missing girls that he would find their daughters. Although cleared, the dead man had been a suspect in their disappearance. And as the ripples from his death spread through the local community there appears to be fresh hope that the detective might finally make good on his promise.But as Downes, tormented by his own troubled past, pursues the case alongside a new partner, Sergeant Graves, it soon becomes clear to them both that there’s a darkness at the heart of the investigation more appalling than either could ever have imagined. As past and present connect ever more closely, Downes and Graves are forced to confront a terrible truth that lies just beneath the surface.Like hit TV series Broadchurch, James Marrison’s brilliant debut, The Drowning Ground, offers a rich, chilling, gripping immersion into of the secrets and lies within a small, damaged community, and marks the arrival of an exciting new crime writing talent.

Talking to the Dead


Harry Bingham - 2012
    . . . At first, the murder scene appears sad, but not unusual: a young woman undone by drugs and prostitution, her six-year-old daughter dead alongside her. But then detectives find a strange piece of evidence in the squalid house: the platinum credit card of a very wealthy--and long dead--steel tycoon. What is a heroin-addicted hooker doing with the credit card of a well-known and powerful man who died months ago? This is the question that the most junior member of the investigative team, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, is assigned to answer.But D.C. Griffiths is no ordinary cop. She's earned a reputation at police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, for being odd, for not picking up on social cues, for being a little overintense. And there's that gap in her past, the two-year hiatus that everyone assumes was a breakdown. But Fiona is a crack investigator, quick and intuitive. She is immediately drawn to the crime scene, and to the tragic face of the six-year-old girl, who she is certain has something to tell her . . . something that will break the case wide open.Ignoring orders and protocol, Fiona begins to explore far beyond the rich man's credit card and into the secrets of her seaside city. And when she uncovers another dead prostitute, Fiona knows that she's only begun to scratch the surface of a dark world of crime and murder. But the deeper she digs, the more danger she risks--not just from criminals and killers but from her own past . . . and the abyss that threatens to pull her back at any time.

The Estate


Liza Costello - 2020
    She's fine. Great. Settled in her single life. Until friends start peeling away, moving on to careers and family, leaving her feeling impatient and angry. When she bumps into Jason at a party, she spots the opportunity for her own fresh start - to turn her back on a reckless life of drinking and missed deadlines. She can build a new life, too...can't she? When she discovers that Jason has the opportunity to house-sit a new build out of town, she glimpses her chance. There's only one catch - Jason needs to stay in town for the sake of his new job. But Beth can keep their dreams alive on her own, can't she? As her drinking worsens, and new friends turn out to be prospective enemies, her sense of reality begins to unravel. As Beth comes to confront the mysteries of her own past, she moves closer to understanding the desperate crime at the heart of the estate. But first she must learn who is behind the strange attacks on her new home. And is Jason who she thought he was? Can she even trust him?In this taut crime novel set in the aftermath of the Irish recession, a change for the better turns into a nightmare of uncertainty. An edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller, perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Cass Green.

The Abomination


Jonathan Holt - 2013
    The victim is a woman, dressed in the sacred robes of a Catholic priest--a desecration that becomes known as the Abomination.Working her first murder case, Captain Kat Tapo embarks on a trail that proves as elusive and complicated as the city's labyrinthine backstreets. What Kat discovers will test her loyalties and remind her of a simple truth: Unless old crimes are punished, corrupt forces will continue to repeat their mortal sins.The Abomination is book one of Jonathan Holt's Carnivia Trilogy.