The Burning


S.O. Esposito - 2018
    She’s happily married, has two beautiful children, a close knit group of friends, and a cause she cares deeply about. But beneath the surface, her world of safety and comfort is unraveling. The periods of lost time she’s kept secret—even from her husband—are happening more frequently. She certainly doesn’t remember leaving her Sarasota home at three-thirty in the morning to burn someone alive. Now she sits in a Florida state mental institution, awaiting judgement on whether she’s fit to stand trial on charges of murder and arson. While a psychologist works to help Alice face her past, her future depends on the answer to one question: How far did she go for justice?*This book is recommended for mature audiences. While there are no explicit scenes of graphic or explicit violence, it does touch on themes of trafficking and sexual assault.

The Expansion


Christoph Martin - 2017
    The only person Max can trust is his new-found love, beautiful Karis Deen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Except Karis herself holds a dangerous secret that could not only destroy Max, but could change the entire balance of world power.

The Organ Takers (The McBride Trilogy #1)


Richard Van Anderson - 2014
    Down but not out, he perseveres and is given a second chance to establish a career in surgery. But, as McBride stands on the threshold of a new life, the malignant underside of his fellow man intervenes. Under the threat of violence, David is forced to perform illegal organ harvests in a makeshift operating room hidden in a dilapidated meatpacking warehouse in lower Manhattan. Unable to resolve the excruciating moral dilemma faced each time he invades the body of an unwilling victim, David McBride fights to free himself from the situation and in the process, loses everything. When he finally loses the last shred of his humanity, he seeks revenge with surgical precision ... and instrumentation.

Hot Flash


Carrie H. Johnson - 2016
    Johnson, one woman with a dangerous job and a volatile past is feeling the heat from all sides…READY, AIM…She sweats every detail as a forensic firearms specialist—and as a forty-something single mother. She’s got more responsibilities than she can count, more baggage than she wants to claim, and way too many regrets. But Muriel Mabley will do whatever it takes to put Philadelphia’s most vicious killer in lockdown for good…BURN…Until her troubled younger sister in witness protection receives a terrifying warning—and Muriel’s long-time partner, Laughton, reveals he knows more than he should about her and Muriel’s shattered past. And when Laughton’s ex-wife and her new husband turn up dead, his own secrets will send Muriel down a twisted trail of lethal leads, disappeared witnesses, and the ultimate wrenching betrayal… “A lively and clever novel that will dare you to put it down. The reader will leave fingerprints pressed into the cover of this one. Top of the ‘must read’ list.” —John Lutz, New York Times bestselling author “Muriel Mabley has hot flashes, a hot new love, and a heap of deadly cold secrets that will destroy everyone she loves. A gripping, fast-paced debut novel.” —Valerie Wilson Wesley, author of The Tamara Hayle Mysteries“A heartfelt, well-crafted read! Muriel is the perfect combination of vulnerability and intelligence.” —Anika Nailah, author of Free & Other Stories“Hot Flash left me breathless and blown away from page one!”  —Karen Holmes Ward, Director of Public Affairs/Host of CityLine, WCVB Channel 5 Boston

Injustice


Lee Goodman - 2015
    Investigators see it as either a case of mistaken identity or the work of a jealous fiancé. As a federal prosecutor, Nick tries shepherding the case to a swift conclusion, but it keeps slipping away.Meanwhile, Nick’s relationship with his wife, Tina, hangs by the thinnest of threads. She is also a lawyer, working to vindicate a young man convicted of killing a child eight years previously. When old DNA evidence is uncovered in the murder case, its analysis hurls Nick’s universe into upheaval—his most basic assumptions about his life, the law, and the people he loves most are thrown into question.“Compelling” with “language that sings,” Lee Goodman’s latest novel is a truly “outstanding” page-turner (William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author).

Monsoon Rising


David Lee Corley - 2017
    Now, Billy Gamble, a drifter turned fugitive, will stop at nothing to find and exact his revenge on the sadistic serial killer traveling the world and sowing chaos wherever he goes. His search for the nomad will take Billy to the exotic islands of Thailand, the old colonial towns of Malaysia and into the darkest jungles of Borneo. But the real question is… who is hunting whom and why? To find the answers, Billy must delve into the mind of a madman and question his own sanity.

Finding Amanda


Robin Patchen - 2015
    Her estranged husband, contractor and veteran soldier Mark Johnson, tries to talk her out of it, fearing the psychiatrist who seduced her when she was a teen might return to silence her. But Amanda doesn’t need advice, certainly not from her judgmental soon-to-be ex-husband. Her overconfidence makes her vulnerable when she travels out of town and runs into the abuser from her past. A kind stranger comes to her rescue and offers her protection. Now Mark must safeguard his wife both from the fiend who threatens her life and from the stranger who threatens their marriage.

Raven: The Balance: Book Two


Nick Shamhart - 2012
    Why should the afterlife be any different? We are given a choice when we die to move on to the Source, stay on earth and slowly evolve into more of what we were (good people become angels and bad people become demons), or a chosen few can work to keep the Balance between them. The title character Raven is such a warrior who works to maintain that balance.Malign, the demon responsible for most of the world’s cataclysmic wars, has come to the United States with an army of vampires or, more specifically, demons she has convinced to act as those fabled creatures of the night to sow discord and social unrest. Raven and the other Balance soldiers must track Malign down and in their spare time try to convince the ancient angel Metatron that he is doing more harm than good with his participation in mortal affairs. Tagging along for the ride are a motorcycle gang of millionaire philanthropists, Raven’s fellow Balance warrior Zeus’ younger angelic brother, and the demon Lucifer with his babysitter Gabriel.The novel is written in two styles. Each chapter begins in a soliloquy from the title character Raven, where she tells pieces of her back-story intertwined with philosophical musings on her family life and dealing with loss, with the following bulk of the chapter told in a third person narrative.

Trust Me Not


Ankita Verma Datta - 2017
    The complexity of the characters and the story keeps you riveted until the unexpected end.” - Madhur Bhandarkar.Rising corporate star Reeva Rai is offered a prestigious position in a top-notch PR agency. It is the opportunity of a lifetime. But working with Enigmatic Billionaire Kunaal Kabi was not going to be easy. Even as she develops feelings for him, she is determined to prove herself.But when an activist friend turns to her for help with a real-estate scam, Reeva has to make a high-stakes choice. Can she retain the credibility of her prominent clients while helping hundreds save their homes? As she digs deeper to find solutions, a nefarious scheme unravels with unexpected connections. A no-holds-barred race ensues, blood is drawn and Reeva is trapped in the eye of a political thunderstorm. If she succeeds, powerful people will have much to answer

The Ragnarök Conspiracy


Erec Stebbins - 2012
    Both are drawn into a race against time to stop the plot of an American bin Laden and prevent a global catastrophe.

The Laptev Virus


Christy Esmahan - 2015
    This hard scifi novel, begins in the Arctic where an oil company is drilling and unwittingly discovers a megavirus which had been frozen in the permafrost for 30,000 years. It is a thousand times larger than any viruses known before and is a human pathogen. Now investigators must race against the ticking clock of the short Arctic summer to discover a way to protect workers from the virus before competitors drain the basin of its rich resources…and before anyone else dies from the hemorrhagic fever that the Laptev virus causes. (And now, Sarah Spallanzani's adventures continue in The Cobra Effect!)

Death Served Cold


Sourabh Mukherjee - 2021
    A teenager poisons her family for the love of her tutor. A woman driven by greed ruthlessly bludgeons eight members of her family.A beautician gangs up with her lover to rob a house, killing innocent women from three generations of a family. A practising lawyer strangles her lawyer husband with the cord of a mobile charger. A friendly and jovial teacher commits at least six murders over fourteen years in a sleepy town down south.DEATH SERVED COLD is a painstakingly researched collection of true, blood-curdling accounts of gruesome murders committed by India’s most dangerous women over the last three decades.These stories explore the dark recesses of the female psyche and challenge popular stereotypes by revealing shocking excesses of sadism and aggression rarely associated with women.

Drachen


Brendan Le Grange - 2015
    A psychopath with mother issues. A hitman who hates failure. A soldier with a point to prove. And a treasure that tests every allegiance.Brett Rivera has spent three years searching for the Drachen. The day she finds it is the day her life changes: there is no sign of its legendary treasure and now a cold-blooded killer is hunting her. What does he know that she doesn’t?Brett is chased in Finland, double-crossed in Tallinn, abducted in Lübeck, and shot at in Bremen as this action-packed thriller dashes across northern Europe, barely pausing for breath.A shipwreck. A lost treasure. A hell of a race from one to the other.Readers' Favorite give it 5 stars, calling it an "enthralling adventure tale filled with secret passageways, puzzles, codes and clues."

The Front Page Murders


Puja Changoiwala - 2016
    Over 21 days five murder cases were discovered that led to the unravelling of a spine-chilling tale of cold-blooded crime. Half-naked bodies; missing suspects; a desperate manhunt; connections with the underworld, police and Bollywood; and a seductress who lured victims - all led to a man named Vijay Palande.Palande, who targeted dreamers, mainly Bollywood aspirants in Mumbai, had an uncomplicated modus operandi - he would befriend the target, gauge his wealth, murder him, hack his body into pieces, and abandon the remains in the Western Ghats. Equipped with the sophistication of Charles Sobhraj, the nonchalance of serial-killer Raman Raghav and the cruelty of Jack the Ripper, Palande had the country hooked.In The Front Page Murders, Puja Changoiwala, who covered the story as it came to light, recounts in gripping detail one of the most sensational cases in India’s recent history and the personalities involved in it. In doing so, she delves into the functioning of daily crime reporting and police investigations, providing startling insights into the worlds of journalism and crime

Plague: 10th Anniversary


Jeremiah Donaldson - 2006
    A traveler that infected everyone aboard and raced across the world while those in charge of its containment denied the real danger. Few survived the carnage, fewer left any record. Moss Valley was one of them.