Book picks similar to
Strong Motive by K.C. Turner
mystery
ebook
genre-mystery
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Man of Wax
Robert Swartwood - 2011
He doesn't know how he got there, he doesn't know where his family is, and written in dried blood on the bathroom door are the words LET THE GAME BEGIN. Soon Ben is contacted by Simon. Simon knows all there is to know about Ben, more than he cares to remember himself. If Ben wants to save himself and his family, he will have to do everything Simon says.As the game begins -- with stakes much higher than either man can imagine -- no one knows where it will lead or how it will end.Only one thing is for certain: this time the game will change everything.MAN OF WAX is 80,000 words long and the first book in a thriller trilogy where every day men and women must fight a power that threatens to destroy the world. Recommended for fans of Harlan Coben, Michael Marshall, and Dean Koontz. Praise for MAN OF WAX: "MAN OF WAX grabs you by the throat in the first chapter and never lets go. A suspense-filled thrill ride with plenty of shocks along the way. Read it!" -- F. Paul Wilson, author of the Repairman Jack novels
Prophecy (The Owens Chronicles Book 1)
Amanda Lynn Petrin - 2019
Her first week of kindergarten she was dubbed “that weird Owens girl” and her social status never recovered. She lives a quiet, sheltered life with her guardians, her best friend, and frequent visits from two mysterious young men, Embry and Gabriel, who claim to be friends of the family. On prom night, things take an unexpected turn when Lucy is forced to escape the dance through a window and brought to a safe house. She discovers that Embry and Gabriel are Gifteds, a subset of humans with supernatural abilities who don’t die until their job is done. In this case, their ‘job’ is to defend Lucy against another Gifted who is hell-bent on acquiring her. Now, on the run with Embry and Gabriel, Lucy is left wondering who this other Gifted is. And, more importantly; what does he want with her?
Tagged by Death
Judith A. Barrett - 2021
Unknowingly, she’s also the only one who can identify a serial killer. As one murder follows another, the evidence she discovers may lead her to expose the murderer’s scheme. When she gets too close, Riley finds herself in the crosshairs of the desperate killer as he escalates to a final murder. Can Riley escape his deadly intentions?
Find The Girl
Nic Roberts - 2021
A young woman who never made it home and a detective hell-bent on hiding her scars.Haunted by a vicious incident eighteen months ago, Detective Inspector Olivia Austin left the busy City of London Police to heal back in her home county of Cornwall.Working for the CID in touristy Newquay was supposed to ease her back into her job gently after a year and a half break, but when a young woman in the nearby fictional town of Peterly goes missing, and a gruesome package is delivered to her distraught parents, there’s a race against time to find her.Despite battling her own trauma, DI Austin doesn’t know if she’s dealing with a plain kidnapping or a murder case, but there's only one thing she’s determined on and that's to find the girl and bring her home.Dead or alive.
The Chateau Hauntings: A Riveting Haunted House Mystery Boxset
James Hunt - 2021
The estate is in disrepair, but one couple is determined to restore the estate to its former glory. But when strange accidents begin to become more dangerous, putting their crew’s lives at risk, the fixer-upper couple realize they might have bitten off more than they could chew.The Haunting of Calhoun MansionThree murders. One night. No convictions.Nicole Harper, a hospice nurse with a floundering marriage, is assigned a new patient in the remote Northwestern wilderness. But when Nic meets her new patient, she discovers the old woman's family history is as troubling as her medical condition.The Haunting of the Holloway FamilyA job opportunity has brought the Holloway family to a small desert town on the Arizona/California border in the middle of nowhere. But what is thought as a godsend soon devolves into a parent’s worst nightmare.
Sweet Revenge
Morgana Best - 2016
The truth of the matter was that her love of eating chocolate had caused her to become excessively overweight. Some years later, a car wreck leads to her undergoing extensive plastic surgery on her face and body. Now that she is medically unable to gain weight, she decides to indulge her love for chocolate by opening a designer chocolate shop.When people who bullied her at high school are murdered one by one, she becomes the prime suspect. Will she be able to prove her innocence when the police think she’s out for revenge? Will Carl, her best friend, stop flirting with the police long enough to help her find the real killer?
Rafferty & Llewellyn Series Boxed Set
Geraldine Evans - 2014
A Little Mayhem. A Little MURDER . . . Dead Before Morning #1 Down Among the Dead Men #2 Death Line #3 The Hanging Tree #4 *** DEAD BEFORE MORNING British Detective Joe Rafferty and his partner, Sergeant Dafyd Llewellyn in a murder mystery involving the killing of a young woman bludgeoned beyond recognition, with no ID and found in a secure place to which she supposedly had no admission. Who is she? How has she gained access? And who was responsible for her murder? These are just a few of the questions the detective duo must answer in this first novel in the cozy mystery series. With difficulties besetting them on all sides, including their own superintendent and a media that has decided to adopt the case of the 'Faceless Lady' as their own personal crusade for justice, newly-promoted Inspector Rafferty has something to prove. *** * DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN British Detectives Joe Rafferty and his partner, Dafyd Llewellyn, in their second murder mystery investigation, set out to discover who killed Barbara Longman, a woman with no known enemies. But when it soon becomes apparent that the murder has been committed by someone who must have known the victim well, the police investigation shifts to the victim's family, the wealthy and influential Shores. Rafferty suspects that Charles Shore, not a man known to forgive failure, will use his influence to damage Rafferty's career should he fail to find the murderer. * DEATH LINE Third novel in the Rafferty & Llewellyn mystery series, Death Line sees the detective duo trying to solve the murder mystery of the famed 'seer', Jasper Moon, with his own crystal ball. Gradually it becomes clear that Jasper Moon was a man of many parts, not all of them appeared very savoury. Moon was a wealthy man, but seems to have written no will; certainly, Detectives Rafferty and Llewellyn can't find it. In a case involving as many twists and turns as a snake avoiding capture, the detectives must take their murder investigation back through the years to the victim's youth to answer that question: 'Who did it?' And Rafferty fears that after such a long time, the evidence their murder inquiry needs will no longer be there to find. * THE HANGING TREE Fourth novel in the Rafferty & Llewellyn mystery series. This murder mystery involves the detective pair in the case of the vanishing hanged man. But when the hanged man turns up in Dedman Woods for a second time, the British detectives are able to confirm that he is a man many had reason to hate. Because Maurice Smith, charged years earlier with four child rapes, had escaped on a legal technicality. Detective Rafferty feels ambivalent about the case from the start. Not sure his desire to solve it is strong enough, he has to fight the feeling that natural justice, in winning out against the judicial sort, has right on its side. The punishment has, in his book, fitted the crime. As the usual police procedure continues towards an unwanted conclusion, Rafferty, caught between the law and his own sense of morality, feels this is an investigation that could cause him to demand his own resignation as a detective. * BOOKS IN THE RAFFERTY & LLEWELLYN MYSTERY SERIES The Spanish Connection #17 Asking For It #16 Kith and Kill #15 Deadly Reunion #14 Death Dance #13 All the Lonely People #12 Death Dues #11 A Thrust to the Vitals #10 Blood on the Bones #9 Love Lies Bleeding #8 Bad Blood #7 Dying For You #6 A
Corridor Man Volumes 1-3
Nick James - 2017
The Dirty Lowdown wrote: "Nick James has nailed it. The all too dark side of our legal industry, and the type of character we're all too afraid to admit exists!" It looks like disbarred attorney Bobby Custer has won the lottery. After serving four years of a seven-year sentence, he gets an offer he can’t refuse – from the feds. They just want him to keep an eye out for shady goings-on at one of the most prestigious law firms in the city. And suddenly he’s out – out of jail, but also totally cast out of his old life: shunned by family and friends. Bobby Custer is psychotic, narcissistic, psychopathic, greedy, unprincipled...and always charming. He did all the right things -- went to law school, got a job in a good law firm -- right up until the conviction for “a minor dalliance with a trust fund”. You could almost feel for the guy – a young man tempted by the high life could make a mistake he regrets and end up losing everything. And a guy who’ll help you hide a body could just be a good friend. But as the bodies start piling up, you have to wonder if there’s something about Bobby that’s just not … right. Chilling and action-packed, Corridor Man exposes a dark, violent undercurrent just beneath the surface of “perfectly legal and above-board”. A combination of Breaking Bad and House of Cards, Corridor Man is a sinister, disturbing legal thriller series that's bound to keep you awake at night. Books one, two and three in the Corridor Man series.
Chloe - Lost Girl (Carl Sant Murder Mysteries, #1)
Dan Laughey - 2019
A gunned-down detective. A woman in fear for her life. All three are connected somehow.Detective Inspector Carl Sant and his fellow officers get on the case. But what links the disappearance of a university student, the death of an off-duty police sergeant, and a professor reluctant to help them solve the case?Their only clue is a sequence of numbers, etched by the police sergeant Dryden on a misty window moments before he breathed his last. Soon it becomes clear that Dryden's clue has brought the past and present into a head-on collision with the very heart of Sant’s profession.Racing against time, D.I. Sant must find out what's behind the mysterious events - before the bodies start piling up.
Angry Betty
Jamie Lee Scott - 2019
Kate Darby learned to hate cops at an early age, thanks to her drug addicted mom, so no one would have guessed she’d become a cop when she grew up. Now patrolling the streets of Peculiar, Texas, Kate does her best to keep her town safe. She's trained to be ready for anything on a routine traffic stop. When she pulls a Mercedes over for running a stop sign, the fact the driver flees isn't unexpected, but the dead body in the trunk...
Back to Lazarus
Judy K. Walker - 2014
He beat and choked her to death. I'm told that he was found hanging from a homemade noose in his cell. I want to know why he waited so long to do it." Sydney Brennan isn't sure how to answer her client's question, short of holding a séance, and the Tallahassee detective has some questions of her own. Why does Noel Thomas remember so little about her childhood? Why is she delving into her father's suicide now? And, most importantly, why isn't Noel telling her the truth?Sydney crisscrosses the Florida Panhandle, reconstructing the tragic Thomas family history. The violence that destroyed the Thomas family connects to a present-day web of deceit and corruption through a desperate man willing to do anything to keep his secrets safe. To discover his identity, Sydney must go Back to Lazarus, back to the town where Noel's beautiful but troubled mother began her inevitable descent over twenty years ago. But by following in the footsteps of the murdered woman, does Sydney risk sharing her fate?Rooted in bars and back roads and Panhandle prisons, forgotten towns and forgotten people, at its heart Back to Lazarus is about stories: the stories people tell us, the stories we tell ourselves, and what happens when we realize it's all a lie.
Murder on the Mind
L.L. Bartlett - 2005
But after suffering a fractured skull in a vicious mugging, he reluctantly accepts the fact that he has a long and brutal recovery to face—and his closest of kin can provide him with the time and place to do it. Now, Jeff is haunted by unexplained visions of a heinous crime—a banker, stalked, killed, and eviscerated like a ten-point buck. When Matt Sumner’s murder is discovered, a still-recovering Jeff realizes this was what he had seen. Jeff must not only convince himself of his new-found psychic ability, but also his skeptical brother Richard Alpert. Since Sumner was Richard’s banker, both brothers have a stake in finding out what happened. With Richard’s reluctant help, Jeff’s investigation leads him to Sumner’s belligerent family and hard-nosed business associates, none of whom want him snooping around. When Jeff discovers a second victim, he knows he must relentlessly chase his quarry even if it means risking his brother’s life.
Rafferty's Rules
W. Glenn Duncan - 1987
Fifteen years ago, Rafferty saved Vivian Mollison from a crazed junkie who tried to blow her head off. A lot has changed since then. Rafferty’s no longer a cop, and Vivian’s now twenty-five, studying sociology at SMU, with a father who made a fortune in computers. So when Rafferty gets summoned to the Mollison estate and told to chase down the five outlaw bikers who kidnapped Vivian and put her into a drug-induced twilight zone, it’s mixed emotions. The payday will be big, but he’ll have to earn every penny of it. The bikers aren’t likely to come quietly and who knows how many people could get hurt in the crossfire. But behind all that fun and excitement, there’s still a girl who needs his help. Rafferty saved Vivian once. Can he do it again? If you’re a fan of Spenser, Mike Hammer or Matt Scudder, then this hardboiled pulp thriller, from Shamus Award Winner W. Glenn Duncan, will keep you reading late into the dark night. RAFFERTY'S RULES is a hardboiled P.I. mystery in the tradition of the best pulp thrillers. Rafferty’s a Dallas P.I. and an ex-cop who spent enough time on the streets to understand how things work. And when they don’t, Rafferty’s the guy you’ll want on your side. He may quote Latin occasionally, smoke too much and be a cynical sonofabitch, but when it all hits the fan and you need someone you can trust, you’ll be glad you called Rafferty. Originally published by Ballantine, this 30th Anniversary release of RAFFERTY'S RULES marks the first time that W. Glenn Duncan’s work has been available in digital format. We doubt that Rafferty would quietly accept the ongoing march of technology that provides this opportunity, but even a grizzled P.I. has to grow up sometime. This hardboiled PI series will continue with the first new Rafferty story in nearly three decades. FALSE GODS, written by W. Glenn Duncan Jr. (son of the original author) sees Rafferty looking for a missing girl, up to his ass in religious fundamentalists and needing all the help he can get from his old pals Cowboy and Mimi—and a few new ones—to make sure he gets out alive.
Blood Ties
Lori G. Armstrong - 2005
Lack of public interest in finding his murderer, or the killer of several other transient Native American men, has left Julie with a bone-deep cynicism she counters with tequila, cigarettes, and dangerous men. The one bright spot in her mundane life is the time she spends working part-time as a PI with her childhood friend, Kevin Wells. When the body of a sixteen-year old white girl is discovered in nearby Rapid Creek, Julie believes this victim will receive the attention others were denied. Then she learns Kevin has been hired, mysteriously, to find out where the murdered girl spent her last few days. Julie finds herself drawn into the case against her better judgment, and discovers not only the ugly reality of the young girl’s tragic life and brutal death, but ties to her and Kevin’s past that she is increasingly reluctant to revisit. On the surface the situation is eerily familiar. But the parallels end when Julie realizes some family secrets are best kept buried deep. Especially those serious enough to kill for.