What Have You Done


Matthew Farrell - 2018
    Instead, the victim turns out to be a woman he'd had an affair with before breaking it off to save his marriage. But there's a bigger problem: Liam has no memory of where he was or what he did on the night of the murder.Panicked, Liam turns to his brother, Sean, a homicide detective. Sean has his back, but incriminating evidence keeps piling up. From fingerprints to DNA, everything points to Liam, who must race against time and his department to uncover the truth - even if that truth is his own guilt. Yet as he digs deeper, dark secrets come to light, and Liam begins to suspect the killer might actually be Sean ...When the smoke clears in this harrowing family drama, who will be left standing?

Drive


James Sallis - 2005
    Sallis combines murder, treachery and payback in a sinister plot with resonances of 1940s pulp fiction and film noir. Told through a cinematic narrative that weaves back and forth through time and place, the story explores Driver's near existential moral foundations, intercut with moments of bloody violence.

Capriati's Blood


Lawrence De Maria - 2013
    The man, she says, doesn’t know about his child but may hold the key to saving her life. Rhode, whose private investigation business withered when his reserve unit was called up, takes the case, although it seems hopeless. If the F.B.I. can’t find the father, how can he? That turns out to be the least of Rhode’s problems, as he almost immediately becomes the target of a deranged mobster. He only survives because a mysterious guardian angel – with an automatic pistol – is watching his back. It soon becomes apparent that nothing is as it seems. Bodies pile up as Rhode’s search takes him from a college campus to a nursing home to a Florida orange grove. And, finally, to a revelation he never sees coming.

The Hot Rock


Donald E. Westlake - 1970
    Here, the released convict and his ride pal Kelp plot to steal the $500,000 Balaboma Emerald. The former British colony has recently become independent and split. The Akinzi have the stone, the Talabwo want it back, and their UN rep will pay for retrieval.

Shoot the Piano Player


David Goodis - 1956
    Now he bangs out honky-tonk for drunks in a dive in Philadelphia. But then two people walk into Eddie's life--the first promising Eddie a future, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past.Shoot the Piano Player is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty: the kind a man owes his family, no matter how bad that family is; the kind a man owes a woman; and, ultimately, the loyalty he owes himself. The result is a moody thriller that, like the best hard-boiled fiction, carries a moral depth charge.

Ben's Story


Andrew M. Stafford - 2015
     Ben’s body lay alongside Liz, who was unconscious and barely alive at the bottom of Mill Tut, a Bronze aged burial mound in the beautiful Badock’s Wood in Bristol. DCI Markland Garraway, who at the last moment is brought in to lead the investigation into Ben’s murder has a reputation of being a maverick detective who thinks outside the box. The mystical powers of the ancient burial mound begin to influence Garraway’s attitude towards the case and soon he is alienated by his colleagues. Mill Tut, or The Hill as Garraway refers to it, opens up a Pandora’s Box of supernatural happenings which infiltrate his waking and sleeping life, creating a host of mental demons which the Scottish detective must learn to deal with. Daniel Boyd has fled Bristol to evade capture for the crime he has committed. To those who know him, he’s vanished off the face of the earth. But can he escape the mystical powers of The Hill? The power of The Hill does not only affect Garraway. It reaches out to many, including Christopher Jameson, who was born at the precise moment Ben’s life ended. The Hill reveals to Garraway and the others who are affected by its influence, the world for what it is; a place where the impossible is real, and the dead speak with the living.

The Black Echo


Michael Connelly - 1992
    This one is personal...because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war. Now Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit. Pitted against enemies inside his own department and forced to make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, Bosch goes on the hunt for a killer whose true face will shock him.

Shot of Tequila


J.A. Konrath - 2009
    And he likes those odds.SHOT OF TEQUILA by JA KonrathRevenge served straight up...

'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy


Leslie Langtry - 2007
    And those knitting needles aren't just for craft projects. To most people, Gin Bombay is an ordinary single mom. Then again, they don't know she's from a family of top secret assassins. Somewhere between leading a Girl Scout troop for her kindergartner--would nooses count for a knot badge?--and keeping their puppy from destroying the furniture, Gin now has to take out a new target. BUT YOU CAN PICK THEM OFFExcept this target has an incredibly hot Australian bodyguard who knows just how to make her weak in the knees. But with a mole threatening to expose everything, Gin doesn't have much time to let her hormones do the happy dance. She's got to find the leak and clear her assignment...or she'll end up next on the Bombay family hit list.

Toward Night's End


M.H. Sargent - 2011
    The process goes quite smoothly until the Army discovers that a 21-year old Japanese-American fisherman, Matthew Kobata, is missing. During their search for Matthew, two Caucasian men are found murdered on the island. Seattle detective Elroy Johnstone has come to the island to investigate the murders, and evidence is leading him to suspect Matthew may be involved. But he is one step behind as Matthew escapes on his fishing boat. With Matthew now emerging as the prime suspect in the murders, the detective's investigation then takes him to Seattle where another murder has occurred. This time a Japanese-American.Complicating matters, the coroner finds that both the Japanese-American and one of the Caucasian men have identical tattoos, both on the left ankle. But what do these tattoos mean? And who has killed these three men? Matthew? And if so, why? And most important, where is Matthew?Johnstone's investigation will take him from Seattle's Naval Air Station to the Manzanar Relocation Center in Owens Valley, California, and back to Bainbridge Island. And, although he doesn't know it, the clock is ticking and a countdown is in place for an event that could result in the unthinkable taking place Toward Night's End.

The Value of Life


Andy Crowson - 2008
    When first one more, then two more and then three more boys of similar appearance and age but with widely differing parental background are snatched from under the noses of their parents, life at the Longmarsh station in south London gets really hectic.DI Mason is convinced it’s the money (as it usually is in a kidnapping) Lindahl is sure that money is not the kidnapper’s main concern … but he’s just a new DC. And anyway, what does the kidnapper really want?

Sledge


Ernie Lindsey - 2013
    He left Officer Mary Walker alive, but he crushed her leg, her confidence, and her spirits.Now a private investigator, Mary takes sleuthing work as it comes and keeps a watchful eye over her shoulder. But, during a routine surveillance job on a chilly October night, a ghost from her past leaves her future uncertain.***SLEDGE is a fast-paced, suspense thriller short story from the author of SARA'S GAME.

Quinn Checks In


L.H. Thomson - 2012
    A missing Dutch master. A thrilling whodunit...Liam Quinn has a second chance. Released after four years in prison for art forgery, a connection helps him get a job as an expert insurance investigator. But a gallery robbery is about to throw his new plans for a loop...Quinn is a good man who has made mistakes. His large Irish American family are leery of his past, and having two police officers in the family doesn't help. The entire department mistrusts him, and half the town wants his head.His chance for retribution rests on recovering a multi-million-dollar missing painting... if the local mob doesn't kill him first.Wit, action and backstory... what more could you want?" -- J. Michael Orenduff, author of "The Pot Thief" mysteries.More than 500,000 readers have already discovered the entire series of Liam Quinn mysteries!

Dark Horse


J.R. Rain - 2010
    It doesn't take long for Knighthorse to realize that not all is as it seems at tranquil Huntington High, from a band director who preys on the innocent to a vice-principal with a secret agenda of her own. Not to mention someone's hired a professional killer to keep Knighthorse permanently off the case.As the investigation continues, Knighthorse's personal life is shattered by the discovery of new evidence relating to his mother's unsolved murder, a murder dating back twenty years. Reeling from the discovery, a determined Jim Knighthorse sets out to bring two killers to justice.

The Missing Ones


Patricia Gibney - 2017
    A white flour bag encased the little body. Three small faces watched from the window, eyes black with terror. The child in the middle spoke without turning his head. I wonder which one of us will be next?When a woman’s body is discovered in a cathedral and hours later a young man is found hanging from a tree outside his home, Detective Lottie Parker is called in to lead the investigation. Both bodies have the same distinctive tattoo clumsily inscribed on their legs. It’s clear the pair are connected, but how? The trail leads Lottie to St. Angela’s, a former children’s home, with a dark connection to her own family history. Suddenly the case just got personal. As Lottie begins to link the current victims to unsolved murders decades old, two teenage boys go missing. She must close in on the killer before they strike again, but in doing so is she putting her own children in terrifying danger? Lottie is about to come face to face with a twisted soul who has a very warped idea of justice. Fans of Rachel Abbott, Karin Slaughter and Robert Dugoni will be gripped by this page-turning serial killer thriller, guaranteed to keep you reading late into the night.