Book picks similar to
The Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series, Books 7-9 by Louise Penny
mystery
louise-penny
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crime
The Paris Apartment
Lucy Foley - 2022
She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The conciergeEveryone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.
Amazing Grace
John G. Hartness - 2017
Hartness. Lila Grace Carter is your favorite new detective, you just don’t know it yet. She’s determined, smart, caring, and sassy as the day is long. She also talks to dead people. Of course, as she puts it, “I’m Southern. We all talk to dead people down here. The difference is, they talk back to me.” Lila Grace has lived in Lockhart, S.C. her entire life, and has always been shunned for being different. Discovering her ability to see and talk to ghosts at an early age, she used her ability to help people settle disputes, communicate with lost loved one, and generally make life better in small ways. Until poor dead Jenny Miller showed up on her doorstep. Now Lila Grace has a teenaged ghost following her around, a handsome new sheriff in town, and a murderer in her sleepy southern town. This ain’t Mayberry, kids. Award-winning author and poet John G. Hartness has mined his southern roots for inspiration and color in this supernatural love letter to small-town Southern life. "A modern Southern Gothic with charming characters—living and dead. Hartness expertly blends a sinister, small-town murder with the warmth, humor, and innocence of a cozy mystery. Lila Grace is an entertaining amateur sleuth. Highly recommend." —E.J. Stevens, award-winning author of the Ivy Granger Psychic Detective series "More twists than a tangled ball of twine! Great fun and more Southern than grits." -Charlotte Henley Babb, author of Maven Fairy Godmother
The Last of the Stanfields
Marc Levy - 2017
Two strangers unite in this novel of family secrets. When London journalist Eleanor-Rigby Donovan receives an anonymous letter alluding to a crime committed by her deceased mother, her life is turned upside down. It points her to a bar on the Baltimore Harbor, where she finds a stranger who has received the same mysterious letter about his own mother. Together, Eleanor-Rigby and this young man, George-Harrison Collins, embark on a quest through the shadowy past of the Stanfields, a moneyed Maryland family full of unimaginable secrets. These secrets will transport them back decades, across continents, and to a mysterious crime long buried…until now.
Busted Flush
Brad Smith - 2005
Renovating the home, Dock stumbles upon a treasure trove of Civil War memorabilia squirreled away in an old root cellar, including pictures and possibly even a recording of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. As he's forced to defend his new find from the onslaught of collectors, history buffs, and media hounds, Dock discovers that, much like Honest Abe himself, he's the right man for the fight--independent, funny, loyal, and stubborn as a Missouri mule. When the scallywags and opportunists--including an easy-on-the-eyes television reporter with one hell of an attitude--start crawling out of the woodwork, he'll need all of that and a bit more.
They're Watching
Gregg Andrew Hurwitz - 2009
They're Watching reminded me what it's like to be in the thrall of a great story: helpless until the end, loving every minute of it."--Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Die for You
Patrick Davis is a man with troubles. First his Hollywood dreams crumble and then his storybook marriage hits a snag. Now, DVDs start being delivered to his house--DVDs which show that someone is watching him and his wife, that the two of them are being stalked and recorded by cameras hidden in their house. Then the e-mails start, and someone offers to fix everything, to take the mess his life has become and make it all right. Patrick figures it's the offer of a lifetime. But Patrick couldn't be more wrong. With every step he falls deeper into a web of intrigue that threatens everything he values in this world. Before he knows it, he's in and in deep--and his only escape is to outwit and outplay his unseen opponents at their own game.
The Shetland Sea Murders
Marsali Taylor - 2021
A fishing vessel has become trapped on the rocks off the coast of one of the islands.In the days that follow, there's both a shocking murder and a baffling death. On the surface there's no link, but when Cass becomes involved it is soon clear that her life is also in danger.Convinced that someone sinister is at work in these Shetland waters, Cass is determined to find and stop them. But uncovering the truth could prove to be deadly . .
The Murder at Sissingham Hall
Clara Benson - 2013
But in the dead of night Sir Neville is murdered. Who did it? As suspicion falls on each of the house guests in turn, Knox finds himself faced with deception and betrayal on all sides, and only the enigmatic Angela Marchmont seems to offer a solution to the mystery. This 1920s whodunit will delight all fans of traditional country house murder stories.
The Light in the Ruins
Chris Bohjalian - 2013
1943: Tucked away in the idyllic hills south of Florence, the Rosatis, an Italian family of noble lineage, believe that the walls of their ancient villa will keep them safe from the war raging across Europe. Eighteen-year-old Cristina spends her days swimming in the pool, playing with her young niece and nephew, and wandering aimlessly amid the estate’s gardens and olive groves. But when two soldiers, a German and an Italian, arrive at the villa asking to see an ancient Etruscan burial site, the Rosatis’ bucolic tranquility is shattered. A young German lieutenant begins to court Cristina, the Nazis descend upon the estate demanding hospitality, and what was once their sanctuary becomes their prison. 1955: Serafina Bettini, an investigator with the Florence police department, has her own demons. A beautiful woman, Serafina carefully hides her scars along with her haunting memories of the war. But when she is assigned to a gruesome new case—a serial killer targeting the Rosatis, murdering the remnants of the family one-by-one in cold blood—Serafina finds herself digging into a past that involves both the victims and her own tragic history. Set against an exquisitely rendered Italian countryside, The Light in the Ruins unveils a breathtaking story of moral paradox, human frailty, and the mysterious ways of the heart.
Graveyard Special (Mill City 1)
James Lileks - 2012
One waiter, one customer. The overnight fry cook rambles up to the pie case to take his nightly hit of dessert-topping propellant. It’s not a complete surprise when he falls to the floor; the stuff gives him the spins. That’s the point. It’s a bad moment for the boss to arrive, though. It’s worse when the cook turns out to be dead - from a bullet no one heard. For the waiter, it’s the start of the the worst few months of his life, and before it’s done he’ll be neck-deep in drug deals, romances with a faithless minx and an unintelligible Russian teacher - and a plot by campus radicals to blow something big. It’s 1980, after all. No shortage of things to deplore. They’re not too concerned with disco, though; that seems to be on the way out. “Graveyard Special” is another humorous mystery by the author of “Falling Up the Stairs,” and the first in a series of interconnected mysteries that span six decades.
The C.J. Sansom CD Box Set: Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation
C.J. Sansom - 2003
J. Sansom. Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and reformist in London during the reign of Henry VIII. His investigation skills are tested in four cases where both his life and the lives of others are threatened. In "Dissolution" he travels to Scarnsea Monastery where one of Thomas Cromwell's Commissioner has been brutally murdered. Shardlake must expose the killer but his inquiries soon force him to question everything he hears, and everything that he intrinsically believes. In "Dark Fire" Shardlake returns to London and a new assignment from Cromwell. The formula for Greek Fire, a legendary Byzantine weapon, is discovered by an official of the Court of Augmentations. Shardlake is sent to retrieve the formula but instead finds the official and his alchemist brother murdered and the formula missing. "Sovereign" takes Shardlake to York, following Henry VIII and his Progress to the North. The murder of a local glazier involves Shardlake in a mystery connected not only to a prisoner in York Castle but to the royal family itself. And in "Revelation" when an old friend is horrifically murdered Shardlake promises his widow to bring the killer to justice. His search leads him to connections with the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation. Shardlake follows the trail of a series of horrific murders that shakes him to the core, and which are already bringing frenzied talk of witchcraft and a demonic possession - for what else would the Tudor mind make of a serial killer...? Praise for the series: 'Dissolution is a remarkable, imaginative feat. It is a first-rate murder mystery and one of the most atmospheric historical novels I've read in years' - "Mail on Sunday". 'One of the author's greatest gifts is the immediacy of his descriptions, for he writes about the past as if it were the living present' - Colin Dexter.
Murder on Cape Cod
Maddie Day - 2019
She's expecting an influx of tourists at Mac's Bikes; instead she discovers the body of Jake Lacey. Mac can't imagine anyone stabbing the down-on-his-luck handyman. However, the authorities seem to think Mac is a strong suspect after she was spotted arguing with Jake just hours before his death. Mac knows she didn't do it, but she does recognize the weapon--her brother Derrick's fishing knife.Mac's only experience with murder investigations is limited to the cozy mysteries she reads with her local book group, the Cozy Capers. So to clear her name--and maybe her brother's too--Mac will have to summon help from her Cozy Capers co-investigators and a library's worth of detectives' tips and tricks. For a small town, Westham is teeming with possible killers, and this is one mystery where Mac is hoping for anything but a surprise ending...
Penumbra
Carolyn Haines - 2006
But her strange talent isn't the only thing that sets her apart from the townspeople of tiny Drexel, Mississippi. Jade is half-black and the unacknowledged bastard daughter of Drexel's "first lady," the imperious Lucille Longier. Jade's half sister, the pale, fragile, and legitimate Marlena, is married to Lucas Bramlett, the wealthiest man in the region. While the entire town knows of the blood bond between the two women, no one dares speak the truth out loud. Though her talents as a hairdresser are highly sought after by Drexel's elite, Jade accepts that she'll never truly be part of the town and lives her life the best she can. But on one hot summer day in 1952, Jade's world is turned inside out when Marlena, on a tryst with her lover, is savagely beaten and her young daughter kidnapped. Determined to find her niece before it's too late, Jade accepts help from a white sheriff's deputy, Frank Kimble. The forbidden attraction that ignites between them threatens to add to the violence already brewing in town. Carolyn Haines has written several acclaimed mysteries, but here she mines much darker, more serious territory, resulting in a suspenseful, lyrical, passionate, and literary crime novel.
Stealing Jenny
Ellen Gable - 2011
A neighbor, however, is secretly hatching a sinister plot which will find Jenny and her unborn baby fighting for their lives.
Every Secret Thing
Emma Cole - 2006
Paul's and makes a mystifying mention of murder and an oddly familiar comment about her grandmother, Kate Murray is intrigued. But she never gets to hear the rest of Andrew Deacon's tale. Shocked by his unexpected death, she wonders who this strange, old man is, and what the odd reference to her grandmother could mean. Interest piqued by the story never told, Kate becomes drawn into an investigation, uncovering secrets about the grandmother she thought she knew and a man she never did. Soon she is caught up in a dangerous whirlwind of events that takes her back into her grandmother's mysterious wartime past and across the Atlantic as she tries to retrace Deacon's footsteps. Finding out the truth is not so simple, however, as only a few people are still alive who know the story...and Kate soon realizes that her questions are putting their lives in danger. Stalked by an unknown and sinister enemy, and facing death every step of the way, Kate must use her tough journalistic instinct to find the answers from the past in order to have a future.
The English Wife
Lauren Willig - 2018
Yes, there are rumors that she’s having an affair with the architect, but rumors are rumors and people will gossip. But then Bayard is found dead with a knife in his chest on the night of their Twelfth Night Ball, Annabelle goes missing, presumed drowned, and the papers go mad. Bay’s sister, Janie, forms an unlikely alliance with a reporter to uncover the truth, convinced that Bay would never have killed his wife, that it must be a third party, but the more she learns about her brother and his wife, the more everything she thought she knew about them starts to unravel. Who were her brother and his wife, really? And why did her brother die with the name George on his lips?