Book picks similar to
First to Die by Kate Slayer
thrillers
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mystery
The Body Next Door
Gay Yellen - 2016
Now there's a dead man next door, and his wife is holed up in the apartment where Samantha is staying. Dragged into the incriminating murder investigation, Samantha catches the attention of a suspicious homicide detective. To make matters worse, a mysterious stalker is haunting her balcony. Could it be the real killer?The investigation thwarts Samantha's chance at a new television career and instigates a fresh conflict with Carter. Sifting through conflicting theories posed by the aggressive detective, an overbearing defense attorney, and a nosy neighbor, she's confronted with more than one alarming reality. Stymied by fear and uncertainty, she begins to question the assumptions she's made about her past and her future as she navigates a minefield of secrets to redeem her reputation and reclaim the life she wants to live.A luxury high-rise condominium in the bustling city of Houston, and a ranch in the nearby HIll Country of Central Texas provide the main settings for Samantha's attempts to discover what really happened next door.Awards:Finalist, Writers League of TexasShort List, Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem
The Stakes
Ben Sanders - 2018
The latest from Ben Sanders, following his novels American Blood and Marshall’s Law.Rip-offs are a dangerous game, but heist man Miles Keller thinks he’s found a good strategy: rob rich New York criminals and then retire early, before word’s out about his true identity. New town, new name, no worries. Retirement can’t come soon enough, though. The NYPD is investigating him for the shooting of a hitman named Jack Deen, who was targeting Lucy Gates—a former police informant and Miles’s ex-lover. Miles thinks shooting hitmen counts as altruism, but in any case a murder charge would make life difficult. He’s ready to go to ground, but then Nina Stone reappears in his life. Nina is a fellow heist professional and the estranged wife of LA crime boss Charles Stone. Miles last saw her five years ago, and since then her life has grown more complicated: her husband wants her back, and he’s dispatched his go-to gun thug to play repo man. Complicating matters is the fact that the gun thug in question is Bobby Deen, cousin of the dead Jack Deen—and Bobby wants vengeance. The stakes couldn’t be higher, but Nina has an offer that could be lucrative. Maybe Miles can stick around a while longer…
Eagle Security
Kenna Coulby - 2018
To this day, her brothers, Jason and Brandon, and two cousins, Zach and Tyler have never stopped looking. The Fierce Four, as the town’s residence have come to call them, went so far as to open their own private security firm—Eagle—in the name of figuring out what happened to Annabelle. It’s a good thing, too, because ever since the girl’s disappearance, Mystic Springs has been plagued with cases of kidnapping, missing persons, and stalking—it would seem this town is in high need of protection. JASON When a woman by the name of Rebecca Sauder spills into private security agent, Jason Braun’s office with grave concerns for her life—she’s being stalked but can’t prove it, the threats in the air feel like cold hands tightening around her throat, but the police won’t help—everything Jason thought he knew about Mystic Springs—and falling in love—is quickly turned on its head. Not only is Rebecca being stalked to a life-threatening extent, but her aggressor holds the key that will unlock the first clue as to what happened to Annabelle Braun all those years ago. BRANDON When a brand-new client, a quiet mysterious woman by the name of Molly Jaspers hires Eagle Security—and Brandon specifically—he soon realizes he might not want to be a loner forever. Molly is far too enchanting, and the reason she’s come to his private security firm, too intriguing. Her sister was killed in a car crash that Molly knows was no accident. And the twist that keeps her up at night? It was Molly’s own car that her sister was driving. ZACH Agent Zach Winter spent his senior year of high school in love with the girl next door—stunning, French transfer student, Sophia Rothschild. It was never more than that, admiration from afar, despite their mutual attraction. Sophia chose the captain of the football team instead and got married quickly after graduation, but she never left Zach’s thoughts. When Sophia shows up at his private security firm, having been framed for the murder of her late husband, Zach finds the old flame that used to burn in his heart for her is reignited. TYLER Brittany Masterson comes with a dark past, one she’s working hard to forget. Beautiful and slender, with an edge of sorrow radiating from her alluring blue eyes, she’s built her life around her precious daughter, Ella, and is determined to find happiness in Mystic Springs. The bedrock of her effort is a promise she made to herself to never again become involved with a man. But that promise is quickly shattered when she has no choice but to accept the help of the very sexy bodyguard Tyler after young Ella goes missing. JESSICA Adam Walsh has big dreams. Born and raised in the backwoods of Alaska, he’s held his long-term goal of opening a cabin building company in the forefront of his mind. But money has never been easy to come by. Scrimping and saving, for the past three years he’s been moonlighting as an exotic dancer in Anchorage’s premiere male strip club. He’s got the body and the moves, but does he have what it takes to win the heart of a woman like Jessica when he hires her for protection against a stalker who has been targeting a number of the Beefcake dancers?
Little Boy Lost
J.D. Trafford - 2017
But when eight-year-old Tanisha Walker offers him a jar full of change to find her missing brother, he doesn’t have the heart to turn her away.Justin had hoped to find the boy alive and well. But all that was found of Devon Walker was his brutally murdered body—and the bodies of twelve other African American teenagers, all discarded like trash in a mass grave. Each had been reported missing. And none had been investigated.As simmering racial tensions explode into violence, Justin finds himself caught in the tide. And as he gives voice to the discontent plaguing the city’s forgotten and ignored, he vows to search for the killer who preys upon them.
The Good Widow
Liz Fenton - 2017
Or at least she thought it was…until two police officers showed up at her door with devastating news. Her husband of eight years, the one who should have been on a business trip to Kansas, had suffered a fatal car accident in Hawaii. And he wasn’t alone.For Jacks, laying her husband to rest was hard. But it was even harder to think that his final moments belonged to another woman—one who had left behind her own grieving and bewildered fiancé. Nick, just as blindsided by the affair, wants answers. So he suggests that he and Jacks search for the truth together, retracing the doomed lovers’ last days in paradise.Now, following the twisting path of that fateful road, Jacks is learning that nothing is ever as it seems. Not her marriage. Not her husband. And most certainly not his death…
Deadly Switch
Karen Dodd - 2013
Each obsessed and tormented.Both harboring too many secrets. He’s on the run; she’s in the chase of her life.What they discover changes everything. From the gruesome discovery in an exclusive enclave of West Vancouver, British Columbia, DEADLY SWITCH takes you on a wild ride from Italy’s Amalfi coast, to the idyllic seaside town of Carmel, California. Gavin Stone’s tormented daughter, Alexis, searches frantically for her missing father, matching wits with devious criminals. With demons of her own to fight, she shouldn’t care about proving him innocent of murder and embezzlement—but she does.Murder…intrigue… a romance built on a house of cards: this thriller will satisfy your thirst for the adrenaline rush that this intricately plotted story delivers. A delicious stay-up-all-nighter, DEADLY SWITCH stuns with its heart-pounding conclusion. You will not see it coming.If you love suspense/thrillers, you will devour DEADLY SWITCH.
Dead Certain
Adam Mitzner - 2017
By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan.No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister’s gone missing.Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then her sister’s novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance.Desperate to bring Charlotte home, Ella works through her list of suspects, matching fictitious characters with flesh-and-blood men. But will it be too late to save the sister she only thought she knew?
Lawyers, Guns and Money
J.D. Rhoades - 2011
Local crime boss Voit Fairgreen has just dropped a bag full of cash on his desk and hired him to defend Voit's brother Danny on a murder charge. Andy's one of the movers and shakers in the small southern town of Blainesville, and Voit figures Andy's the kind of inside guy that can cut a deal to get his baby brother out of the jam. The problem is that Danny just might be innocent. But someone powerful needs this case buried, and if an innocent man dies for that, so be it. Andy Cole is a guy who's made a good living by going along to get along. He's been willing to bend every rule, except Rule One--always get paid. But this case will cause him to re-examine his life and push him and his lover, beautiful newspaper editor Elizabeth Sinclair, to risk everything--including their lives-- for the truth. J.D. Rhoades, author of the Kindle bestseller BREAKING COVER and an attorney himself, turns his eye on his own profession in a book that combines the hard-boiled tone of the classic P.I novel with the white-knuckle suspense of the legal thriller.
The Short Drop
Matthew FitzSimmons - 2015
Still unsolved, the mystery remains a national obsession.For legendary hacker and marine Gibson Vaughn, the case is personal—Suzanne Lombard had been like a sister to him. On the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, the former head of Benjamin Lombard’s security asks for Gibson’s help in a covert investigation of the case, with new evidence in hand.Haunted by tragic memories, he jumps at the chance to uncover what happened all those years ago. Using his military and technical prowess, he soon discovers multiple conspiracies surrounding the Lombard family—and he encounters powerful, ruthless political players who will do anything to silence him and his team. With new information surfacing that could threaten Lombard’s bid for the presidency, Gibson must stay one step ahead as he navigates a dangerous web to get to the truth.
The French Diplomat Affair
Jack Murray - 2020
A French Diplomat is murdered during a meeting with British and American delegates. The prime suspect is British, female and the girlfriend of Kit Aston's friend, 'Spunky' Stevens. But all is not as it seems as Kit and his new manservant, Harry Miller, deal with deception and double deception as Europe faces a new, unknown enemy, intent on dragging it back into the carnage from which it has just escaped.The latest Kit Aston mystery is a gripping historical crime thriller, full of twists, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie with a dash of PG Wodehouse. This is post war Paris, a melting pot for the world's leaders, the new jazz music from America and modern art with a cast of characters including Georges Clemenceau, Arthur Balfour and Marcel Duchamp.From the global-selling author of 'The Affair of the Christmas Card Killer' and 'The Chess Board Murders'.
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.
The Threat
Jonas Saul - 2011
Things go bad fast. During the deal on the fourteenth floor of an apartment building, the dealer disappears, and Drake is stuck in the apartment with a dead woman.The police are at the door. He has nowhere to go.On the run from the police and the maniacal killers intent on framing Drake for murder, he must uncover the truth before it is too late.There is a reason behind the madness that has become his life. That information takes him back twelve years to when he was hospitalized with a concussion and his fiancée went missing.The only way out is to clean up someone else's mess. The only way out is murder.Drake Bellamy didn't want to break the law, but now he is out for blood.
River Bodies
Karen Katchur - 2018
The crime is eerily similar to a twenty-year-old cold case: another victim, brutally murdered, found in the Delaware River. Lead detective Parker Reed is intent on connecting the two murders, but the locals are on lockdown, revealing nothing.The past meets the present when Becca Kingsley, who returns to Portland to be with her estranged but dying father, runs into Parker, her childhood love. As the daughter of the former police chief, Becca's quickly drawn into the case. Coming home has brought something ominous to the surface - memories long buried, secrets best kept hidden. Becca starts questioning all her past relationships, including one with a man who's watched over her for years. For the first time, she wonders if he's more predator than protector.In a small town where darkness hides in plain sight, the truth could change Becca's life - or end it.
A Shadow Fell
Patrick Dakin - 2012
Patrick Dakin once again thrills fans with a tale that is never predictable and is always entertaining.
I Will Never Leave You
S.M. Thayer - 2018
Banking heiress Trish and her husband, James, seem to have it all, from a lavish lifestyle to a historic mansion in the nation’s capital. All that’s missing from their privileged life is a baby.So when Trish sees Anne Elise for the first time, it’s no surprise that she falls deeply in love. There’s just one problem: Trish isn’t the mother. The baby belongs to Laurel, James’s young mistress. And James and Laurel want the wife out of the picture.When Trish becomes perversely obsessed with making Laurel’s baby her own, the lovers come up with a wicked plan to end James’s marriage that quickly goes awry. As the love triangle becomes more and more dangerous, how far is each of them willing to go to get what they want?