Book picks similar to
Acts of Revision by Martyn Bedford


fiction
crime-fiction
not-worth-the-time
thriller

Pretty Corpse


Linda Berry - 2019
    The startling revelation hits the news and sends a shockwave through the city. A serial rapist with a “death” fetish is at large in San Francisco. The attack is intensely personal to Lauren. Not only did she find the victim, but the girl is a close friend of her daughter, Courtney. Lauren feels compelled to do some off-duty investigation. The perpetrator is keenly intelligent and methodical, and essentially, invisible. But Lauren has uncanny skills for detection, and routinely finds evidence missed by the detectives. She earns official trouble for her effort, but the warnings from her superiors don’t keep her from tugging at elusive clues. As she gets closer to the predator, he takes notice. Taunting Lauren, he demonstrates that he can get close to her, and to Courtney, without a trace. Lauren has put her daughter right in his crosshairs, and put herself on a collision course. Stressed and sleep-deprived, she is determined to find him and bring him down. But can she succeed before her daughter becomes his next victim?

Deadly Illusions


Robert Brown - 2017
    But when his dinner date with the stunning Kelly is interrupted, by the discovery of part of a murdered woman’s torso, he doesn’t at first realize that his skills will be tested to their limits. Called to remote corner of Epping Forest by his friend and Metropolitan Police veteran Tyler Easton, Cael is shocked at what he finds. But worse follows, when it becomes apparent that the murder is just the beginning of something much bigger and that a pitiless serial killer is at large. As the two men begin to unravel the horrific crimes they close in on the predator and his ruthless agenda. But all is not as it seems, and the case soon becomes more personal for Tyler, when his wife becomes the next target of the madman. Lured to a theater on the pretext of attending a show, Samantha Easton comes face to face with the killer and it’s up to Cael and Tyler to stop him. But will they solve the clues fast enough to save her from a horrific end?

A Circumstance of Blood


Jeannette Batz Cooperman - 2015
     With fifty students, the majority fee paying, he looks forward to being able to offer places to another fifty students whose parents are unable to pay. Working on his staff is University friend Jimmy Cadigan, also a priest, and Father Francis Charron, an elderly priest, who had taught Colin at seminary school. Charron’s brilliant, but he assisted at an exorcism as a young priest and has never recovered from the experience. One of the academy’s students, 17-year-old Philip Grant, dresses like Oscar Wilde and hasn’t troubled to define his sexual orientation. Irreverent and rebellious, he’s researching the private lives of the faculty for a video mashup. He asks to borrow the Matteo Ricci map, a sixteenth century map which has been donated to the school. Philip’s enough of a handful, but then Auxiliary Bishop Matthew Ehrlich arrives at the school to tell Colin that he has a new pupil for him. The son of a local lawyer and psychologist, Graham Dennison has been accused of trying to kill his mother. Colin tries to refuse; Ehrlich, conscious of the fundraising prospects, insists. Miserable, Colin contacts his university friend Sarah Markham, a journalist who has just returned from Haiti. Sarah moves in and starts to develop a profile of the young man. She’s not convinced he’s violent at all. And then one of the boys is found dead from a possible drugs overdose. With her old friend panicking and other faculty members behaving strangely, Sarah starts to call in favours to get to bottom of the murder. Was she wrong about Graham? Can she unravel the mystery swiftly enough to save Colin’s school? Jeannette Cooperman spent a decade as an award-winning investigative reporter, then went on to teach, write, and work as editor-in-chief of St. Louis Magazine. She loathed being in charge and cheerfully sank to staff writer, her current full-time gig. On the side, she has written several non-fiction books. This is her first fiction book for Endeavour. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

The Killing Doll


Ruth Rendell - 1984
    But for Pup's older sister Dolly, the magic is more than dabbling. Deformed by a facial birthmark, Dolly desperately wants to be cured, and her obsession with Pup's magic sends her on a dangerous downward spiral into confusion, madness, and possibly murder. And meanwhile, in a squalid boardinghouse not far away, a young Irishman sharpens a set of butcher knives . . .

Fifteen Digits


Nick Santora - 2012
    Five walks of life. Every day they come together at the white shoe law firm Olmstead & Taft. But they’re not lawyers. They’re “Printers”: blue-collar guys consigned to the dark basement of the firm charged with copying, collating and delivering the mountains of paperwork that document millions of dollars of sensitive legal secrets.Until the five are approached by an ambitious young attorney who teaches them what they have: insider information. Together they make a plan: take the classified documents that pass through their hands every day and use them to get rich. They create a joint account to deposit the spoils. An account with a safeguard-each one only knows one section of the access code.Which means that for all five conspirators, there’s no way out. But as too much money piles up to go unnoticed, the Printers will discover there’s one thing even worse than being an outsider: being in too deep.“FIFTEEN DIGITS is a taut, gripping thrill-ride that appeals to the white collar criminal in all of us. I couldn’t put it down.”–Terence Winter, Creator and Executive Producer of Boardwalk Empire, Executive Producer and Writer of The Sopranos“FIFTEEN DIGITS reads like John Grisham and Martin Scorsese’s nasty love child. Brimming with unique, indelible characters, it’s a cautionary tale of greed, jealousy and vice.”–Shawn Ryan, Creator and Executive Producer of The Shield

Slice


David Hodges - 2010
     THERE’S A KILLER INSIDE THE POLICE STATION. A police station should be a safe place. But not when there’s a psychotic serial killer working there. THE FIRST VICTIM IS FOUND GRUESOMELY MUTILATED IN HIS MOST SENSITIVE AREA. HE IS DRESSED IN A JUDGE’S WIG. Detective Superintendent Jack Fulton takes on the grisly murder enquiry and discovers that his murderer might actually be one of the police station staff. MORE EMINENT VICTIMS FOLLOW. KILLED IN THE SAME SADISTIC MANNER. The press nickname the razor-wielding assassin “The Slicer.” With the killer stalking the shadowy Victorian building, Fulton has to contend not only with press harassment and police who will stop at nothing to get a result, but also with other problems much closer to home. As the killer leads him on a grim game of cat and mouse, Fulton has little idea of just how personal that game is about to become . . . YOU WON’T WANT TO PUT THIS ONE DOWN Perfect for fans of Rachel Abbott, Robert Bryndza, Mel Sherratt, Angela Marsons, Colin Dexter, or Ruth Rendell. THE AUTHOR A former police superintendent, with thirty years’ service. Since ‘turning to crime’, he has received critical media acclaim, including a welcome accolade from Inspector Morse’s creator, the late great, Colin Dexter, and he is now a prolific novelist with eleven published crime novels and an autobiography on his police career to his credit. His previous police experience has enabled him to provide a gritty realism to his thrillers and his Somerset Murder Series, featuring feisty female detective, Kate, and her partner, Hayden, has gone from strength to strength, attracting interest in the United States as well as in the UK. DETECTIVE KATE HAMBLIN MYSTERY SERIES Book 1: MURDER ON THE LEVELS Book 2: REVENGE ON THE LEVELS Book 3: FEAR ON THE LEVELS Book 4: KILLER ON THE LEVELS Book 5: SECRETS ON THE LEVELS Book 6: DEATH ON THE LEVELS STANDALONES SLICE

Worst Case (Charley Gallagher Mystery)


Jack Parker - 2014
    So he is completely unprepared for when he is assigned the case of a murdered high school gym teacher who was found beaten to death and wrapped up in a volleyball net. Encountering the likes of a compulsive overeater, a female gym teacher with an attitude, and an advice-giving dog, Charley's life gets a little crazy.

Mallory's Oracle


Carol O'Connell - 1994
    Adopted off the streets as a little girl by a police inspector and his wife, she is still not altogether civilized now that she is a sergeant in the Special Crimes section. With her ferocious intelligence and green gunslinger eyes, Mallory (never Kathleen, never Kathy) operates by her own inner compass of right and wrong, a sense of justice that drives her in unpredictable ways. She is a thing apart.And today, she is a thing possessed. Although more at home in the company of computers than in the company of men, Mallory is propelled onto the street when the body of her adoptive father, Louis Markowitz, is found stabbed in a tenement next to the body of a wealthy Gramercy Park woman. The murders are clearly linked to two other Gramercy Park homicides Markowitz had been investigating, and now his cases become Mallory's, his death her cause. Prowling the streets, sifting through his clues, drawing on his circle of friends and colleagues, she plunges into a netherworld of light and shadow, where people are not what they seem and truth shifts without warning. And a murderer waits who is every bit as wild and unpredictable as she....Filled with deep, seductive atmosphere and razor-sharp prose, Mallory's Oracle is gripping, resonant suspense of tantalizing complexity—a genuinely unforgettable novel.

Greed


Jay Nadal - 2016
    . . As the body count starts to mount, Detective Inspector Scott Baker and his team face a race against time to track down a serial killer who’s methodical, disturbed and unforgiving. His boss seems grateful someone else is doing their job for them and thinks it’s all down to an internal power struggle between the factions of Brighton’s criminal underworld. As the killings become increasingly more savage, can Scott track down the murderer before anyone else dies and before the criminal underworld implodes? If you love police procedurals, hard boiled mysteries, or books from Damian Boyd, Angela Marsons, Helen H Durrant, Mel Sherratt, Lisa Hartley, or Kerry Wilkinson, you’ll enjoy the debut novel in the DI Scott Baker, an exciting new crime thriller and mystery series. Greed is the first in a new series of detective police procedurals featuring D.I. Scott Baker from Brighton and Hove CID. Scott Baker is a single, thirty something Detective Inspector who thrives on the challenges that life throws at him. His personal life, however, haunts him and threatens to break him every day. He treads a fine line between sanity and self-destruction. The police procedural series is set in the coastal resort of Brighton on the South Coast of England. It’s a bustling, vibrant, cosmopolitan town with a rich mix of fun, history and intrigue.Greed is a murder mystery thriller peppered with a sprinkling of romance and humour in this fast-paced crime whodunnit.

The Asylum


Debra Meller - 2020
    Her infant son, already dead, lies on her chest still clinging to his mother.On the morning that is Patty found, she is not expected to survive but is taken to hospital where she eventually recovers. But, severely emotionally disturbed, Patty soon finds herself a patient at Hillside Asylum. There, Patty’s condition deteriorates, and the staff and doctors perform unnecessary experimental procedures on their patient.But when someone from Patty’s past learns about her incarceration, they vow to get her out. And those responsible for the abuse will be made to suffer . . .

Beyond The Rage


Michael J. Malone - 2014
    Not only has his high-class prostitute girlfriend just been attacked, but his father is reaching out to him from the past despite abandoning Kenny as a child after his mother s suicide. Kenny is now on a dual mission to hunt down his girl's attacker and find out the truth about his father... but instead he unravels disturbing family secrets and finds that revenge is not always sweet. An intelligent, violent thriller shot through with dark humour, Beyond the Rage enthralls and disturbs in equal measure. With an intricate plot, all-too-believable characters and perfectly pitched dialogue, this is a masterclass in psychological crime fiction writing.

The Magpie


Marrisse Whittaker - 2021
    A detective who is out of control. Meet DSI Wilde. Wilde by name. Wild by nature. DSI Billie Wilde is on a mission to catch the killer responsible for a horrific showcase of murders, in order to prove that she’s still at the top of her game. But when hidden skeletons come out of dark corners, she is forced to confront her past and face the truth - that she is the ultimate target, now firmly in the executioner’s sights.As Billie grapples with her past, and learns she isn’t who she thought she was, she uncovers devastating childhood links to each of the victims. The past refuses to stay buried and Billie soon finds herself wondering if she knows who’s behind the brutal murders.But can Billie solve the case and unravel the mystery of her own past before it’s too late?

Nomads and Warriors (book 1 of 3)


Solomon Carter - 2021
    Potts has been Eva’s therapist for years – and his sudden disappearance leaves plenty of questions. As the detectives uncover the old man’s secrets, Eva realises she may have never known Potts at all. When a ransom letter is printed in a local newspaper, Eva and Dan must do whatever it takes to track the kidnappers down before the villains can carry out their threat to right past wrongs.The detectives face demons old and new as they peel through the layers of history, discovering that the old man’s wealth is going missing - and many dark secrets besides.Many people have motive to wish Potts harm, but without an obvious suspect the mystery deepens... and time is running out. The case gets more dangerous by the hour…And Eva’s life is about to take a dramatic turn…

Dead Secret


Catherine Deveney - 2013
    It was the moment I watched Daddy die. Everything began to unravel then.’ When their father dies of a sudden heart attack, sisters Rebecca and Sarah Connaghan set aside their differences and return to the family home in Glasgow. Then Rebecca finds letters between her father and the mother she barely remembers that cast doubt on everything she’s been told about her family. Reeling from confusion and grief, she sets off alone for the remote Highlands village that may hold the key to the past. Above all, she is determined to prove the innocence of her father – the beloved, silent man she once thought she knew, now accused of a terrible crime.

To Live & Die in L. A.


Gerald Petievich - 1984
    For one thing, one of his dealers, Max ("the Money Man") Waxman, has just ripped him off. For another, his partner, Carmine Falcone, is in jail and threatening to cooperate with the government unless Masters gets him out fast.Then there are the Feds who have been trying to nail Masters for years. Two Treasury agents, John Vukovich and Richard Chance, are breathing down his neck. Chance is a reckless hotshot who doesn't believe in playing by the rules; he'll get evidence anyway he can. If he catches Masters and makes it stick, he's a hero. But if Chance is caught he's finished - unless he's willing to sacrifice Vukovich to save himself.