Book picks similar to
Without Mercy by Leonard Jordan


horror
paperbacks-from-hell
mass-market
somewhere-out-there-lit

Throat Sprockets


Tim Lucas - 1994
    Spending his lunch hours in a porno theater to relieve his boredom, a young advertising executive discovers an obscure film called Throat Sprockets and develops a fascination for women's throats that gradually consumes his life.

The Beloved


J.F. Gonzalez - 2005
    Perhaps your best friend is dating her, getting himself into debt by taking her out to fancy restaurants and buying her expensive gifts. Yet you see her for what she is... Or maybe he's the guy who has perfectly good excuses for not finding a job, so he lets his live-in girlfriend support them. She works hard to keep a roof over their head and food on the table...and in the meantime, she's running herself ragged emotionally and financially. Of course you know people like this. Everybody knows at least one. They're not who you think they are. They are charismatic, sexually attractive, and they'll completely drain you emotionally, financially, and physically. And then they'll move on to the next person. Don't let that next person be you. They're not human. They're something else...something too terrifying to imagine...

The Bone Factory


Nate Kenyon - 2009
    Until the deaths. First a farmer was found horribly mutilated in his field. Then a little girl disappeared from her home. Deep in the woods a deputy came upon a chamber of horrors straight from a nightmare. And through it all, one child is haunted by visions of the mysterious "blue man," a madman who brings with him blood and pain and terror, a terror spawned by forces no one can understand.

All Good Things: A Jack Hart Mystery


Rosemary Reeve - 2018
    The demands and indignities of associate life have been softened by his interest in his mentor, Harmony Piper, granddaughter of the firm’s founder. When Harmony disappears, Jack learns firm secrets and dangers that he could not have imagined – and may not survive. Set in 1990s Seattle, All Good Things reflects a world before smartphones and constant connectivity, where a responsible and hardworking attorney says a cheerful goodbye to her colleague at midnight – and simply vanishes before morning.

Soultaker


Bryan Smith - 2009
    . . Sexy . . . Inhuman. — Jake McAllister knows that his brother Trey’s new girlfriend is a bad influence, but he doesn’t know what Myra’s really after — Trey’s soul. Trey is just one of her new playthings, a pawn in her centuries-long game. One by one, Myra has seduced and enslaved the young men of the town. The women have joined her cult as eager priestesses, lured by promises of sex and power. But Myra’s unholy plan is almost complete. Can one man hope to battle such seductive evil? Will he be able to resist the . . .SOULTAKER

Bad Brains


Kathe Koja - 1992
    Still reeling from his divorce, would-be painter Austen takes a fall in a 7-Eleven parking lot that leaves him with brain damage and strange visions, a madness that sends him on a cross-country odyssey of debauchery and pain.

Rod Serling's Night Gallery


Rod Serling - 1971
    Miraculously, the boat is still afloat--and its only passenger is alive!"Make Me Laugh": Fat, ugly Jackie Slater is a third-rate comic playing the desperation circuit of sleazy nightclubs. Enter Chatterje, the miracle guru. Suddenly, Jackie is a big-time TV comic--but the laughs are tinged with hysteria."Pamela's Voice": Jonathan has ever-so-neatly "disposed" of his nagging, druid-like wife, Pamela. Strange, then, that she should return from the grave in full bloom--and bitchier than ever.PLUS "Does the Name Grimsby Do Anything to You?"--The worst space risk of all: Lunar Insanity... "Clean Kills and Other Trophies"... Father and son play the most dangerous game... and the Emmy Award Nominee "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar".Don't miss television's most imaginative show -- Rod Serling's Night Gallery

Gray Matters


William Hjortsberg - 1971
    Altho they have no bodies to move around with, they're free to mentally visit any of the other residents, & engage in all the emotional, intellectual & pseudo-sexual congress that they desire. This is the story of a projection of life in the 25th century. People have been reduced to Cerebromorphs--disembodied brains stored in tanks in huge Depositories & wired up to computers, memory files & mammoth study programmes. In the tanks they're supposed to pass thru various levels of understanding before they are liberated, implanted in hatchery-nurtured perfect bodies & sent back into a pastoral paradise flourishing outside. The novel follows a small group of these brains: that of a 12-year-old boy killed in an air crash; an ex-movie queen, fastidious, rich & lethal; a former Nigerian sculptor & the last of the great humanists.

Hell Train


Christopher Fowler - 2011
    Imagine there was a supernatural chiller that Hammer Films never made. A grand epic produced at the studio's peak, which played like a cross between the Dracula and Frankenstein films and Dr Terror's House Of Horrors... Four passengers meet on a train journey through Eastern Europe during the First World War, and face a mystery that must be solved if they are to survive. As the 'Arkangel' races through the war-torn countryside, they must find out: What is in the casket that everyone is so afraid of? What is the tragic secret of the veiled Red Countess who travels with them? Why is their fellow passenger the army brigadier so feared by his own men? And what exactly is the devilish secret of the Arkangel itself? Bizarre creatures, satanic rites, terrified passengers and the romance of travelling by train, all in a classically styled horror novel.

Crimson


Gord Rollo - 2002
    Evil has stalked its dark streets once before, twenty years ago, leaving in its wake a legacy of blood and madness. These days, no one in the town likes to talk about it much. Some folks deny it ever happened....But four boyhood friends are about to discover the truth, though no one will believe them. Their parents think they've been listening to too many scary stories. But what the boys have released from an icy well is no legend. It's very real indeed, and it will soon terrify Dunnville to its very core. Unspeakable horror is running free... And the nightmares of the past are about to begin again.

Titanoboa


Victor Methos - 2014
     On the small island of Kalou, Fiji, a rash of disappearances has the local police stumped. Men, women and children seem to disappear without a trace. Mark Whittaker is the island's sole private investigator. A former LAPD detective who moved to the island to get away from the violence of the city, he's now thrust into the middle of the disappearances when he's hired to find the brother of a mysterious client. As Mark digs into the disappearances, he discovers that something sinister and ancient has been awakened on the island. Something that kills without pity or remorse. And he fears his once island dream is about to be turned into a nightmare.

Dead Man's Badge


Robert E. Dunn - 2018
    It's lean and smart and very good. I say, check it out.” Joe Lansdale Career criminal Longview Moody, on the run from killers, assumes his dead, twin brother's identity as the new Chief of Police of a Texas town that's being terrorized by a Mexican drug cartel. To pull off the deadly deception, Longview desperately works to become the kind of cop and man that his brother was. But when the two lives he’s living converge, he’s forced to embrace the violence within him to get justice...and vengeance. PRAISE FOR ‘DEAD MAN’S BADGE' “Robert Dunn unloads both barrels – DEAD MAN'S BADGE is a fast, furious shootout from beginning to end. This tale of corrupt cops, cartel killers, and one bad guy just trying to make good, lingers like gun smoke. Bloody, dark, and pistol-whip smart, it's Border noir at its best.” J. Todd Scott, author of THE FAR EMPTY “Fans of Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns will find a lot to like.” Publishers Weekly "In Dunn's capable hands, readers will jump onboard for the ride. Dunn is a gifted writer and he opens DEAD MAN'S BADGE with one of the most gripping scenes I've ever read. Fans of grit will love this fast-paced book." Mystery Scene Magazine "Riveting thriller about coming back from the dead, revenge and redemption. The pages fly by even faster than the bodies pile up. DEAD MAN'S BADGE establishes Robert E. Dunn as a formidable new name in hard-boiled fiction." R.G Belsky, author of the Clare Carlson and Gil Malloy mystery series "DEAD MAN'S BADGE sizzles with suspense! Dunn promises action on page one of this thriller and delivers the goods nonstop to the very end." Margaret Mizushima, award-winning author of HUNTING HOUR. "Brutal, vivid, and unforgettable...a modern-day western morality tale in crime-novel wrapping with a blood-red bow. This one will haunt you." -Lee Goldberg, #1 New York Times bestselling author of TRUE FICTION "DEAD MAN’S BADGE is crazy good, a great story, non-stop action, and a brilliantly-crafted hero. Dunn hit it out of the park with this one". -Harry Hunsicker, former executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America and the author of THE DEVIL’S COUNTRY

The Nest


Gregory A. Douglas - 1980
    No one ever imagined that conditions were perfect for multiple breeding, that it was a warm womb, fetid, moist and with food so plentiful that everything crawling, creeping and slithering could gorge to satiation. Then the change in poison control was made and the huge mutants began to leave their nest - in search of human flesh...

Disturb Not the Dream


Paula Trachtman - 1980
     Mulberry is a three-story Victorian in the Hamptons, the perfect summer retreat for the Bradley family. Forty years ago a family was murdered in the house. Now, the bloodstains have been washed away, and the grisly killings are just a chilling local legend. But something unseen still waits in the shadowed hallways and antique furnished bedrooms. For psychiatrist Bert Bradley, his wife Alice, budding teens Stacey and Richard, and innocent five year old Lissie, the summer begins with days at the beach and neighborhood cocktail parties. But all is not right in Mulberry. The cellar door won’t stay closed. Lissie wakes screaming with night terrors. Strange, vivid dreams spread like a contagion to all the Bradleys. The sins of the past have never left Mulberry; they are slowly spinning a web around the unsuspecting family. Shocking secrets will soon be revealed and the innocent will be drawn inexorably towards a night of terrifying bloodshed. DISTURB NOT THE DREAM

The Wyrm


Stephen Laws - 1987
    In a small town, mysterious forces try to protect the gallows from being torn down as an evil entity possesses the bodies of the living.