Book picks similar to
Head Games by Craig McDonald
mystery
ebook
fiction
noir
Steady Trouble
Mike McCrary - 2017
Now older, wiser, and tougher than ever before, Teddy has managed to carve out a small place in Austin’s criminal underworld, but that world comes with its own brand of trouble. Trouble she’s learned to handle with some razor-sharp wit and the occasional baseball bat.Desperate to buy the only link to her childhood – her parents’ old farm – Teddy jumps at an opportunity that could change her life. A stranger has just walked into her bar and presented her with a chance to get back a little of what she once had, but it may not be as simple as she thinks. This chance of a lifetime may take her down a long, winding road filled with more trouble than she might be able to handle.From Mike McCrary, author of Genuinely Dangerous and the Remo Cobb series comes the first book in a brand-new exciting series of thrillers. Steady Trouble is filled with nonstop action, humor, a touch of heart, and fun character affectionately known as Steady Teddy.
Lost Girls
Celina Grace - 2012
She was never seen again.In the present day, Maudie is struggling to come to terms with the death of her wealthy father, her increasingly fragile mental health and a marriage that’s under strain. Slowly, she becomes aware that there is someone following her: a blonde woman in a long black coat with an intense gaze. As the woman begins to infiltrate her life, Maudie realises no one else appears to be able to see her. Is Maudie losing her mind? Is the woman a figment of her imagination or does she actually exist? Have the sins of the past caught up with Maudie’s present... or is there something even more sinister going on?Lost Girls is the new novel from the author of The House on Fever Street: a dark and convoluted tale which proves that nothing can be taken for granted and no-one is as they seem
Dust Devils
Roger Smith - 2011
Hunting the real killer, father and son take a bloody road trip into the heart of darkness, uncovering a conspiracy reaching to the highest levels of the state.Praise for Dust Devils"A bloody, hair-raising revenge tale." The Times"A tour de force of a chase and pursuit thriller. I would put Roger Smith in the same class as Elmore Leonard, he's that good." Shotsmag"Truly powerful writing." Florida Times-Union"Terrific." Star-Telegram"A brilliant work." The Drowning Machine"Smith is the master of the coolly-described nightmare." Der Spiegel"A crime ride that is dark, riveting and original." Cape Times"A fast-paced, frenetic tale. Dark and bloodsoaked." Business Day"So painfully precise, lucid and compelling, you can't help but read on." Frankfurter Rundschau"One of the best noir thrillers of 2011. A must read!" Keith Rawson - editor of Crimefactory"A great thriller." Die Welt"Topping my list of favorite crime thrillers of all time. Absolutely breathtaking." Dave Zeltserman - The Caretaker of Lorne Field and Small Crimes"An amped-up, page turning noir, sure to leave the reader blistered and bruised with satisfaction." Frank Bill - Crimes in Southern Indiana"Shocking, unsparing and very satisfying." Mack Captures Crime"Noir at its most brutal and honest." A.N. Smith - Yellow Medicine
Binary
John Lange - 1972
including the President of the United States?
Footprints
Rosen Trevithick - 2010
However, cracks start to form, causing Jenna to ask some startling questions and she sets off to Cornwall to find answers.At first the people of Bosdower are welcoming and friendly, but Jenna slowly finds herself drawn into a web of unrequited passions, abduction and perhaps, even murder.
Three Seconds to Rush
Danielle Stewart - 2016
She’s positive she’s a good mother and hard worker. So why is she in an alley with a needle in her arm? Waking up in the hospital without her son is terrifying. Being told she can’t have him back nearly crushes her. With her memory spotty and the circumstances incriminating, Tara must fight to learn the truth and wrestle with the idea that maybe her son is better off without her. Reid Holliston defends guilty people for a living and it's slowly killing him. He’s certain there is no such thing as a truly blameless client anymore. When his phone rings with a voice from his childhood his jaded views make him certain Tara is just one more criminal claiming innocence. But even his skepticism isn’t enough to keep him away. Best friends from a lifetime ago, the two must find a way to trust each other again in spite of how the years apart have changed them. Can a promise made in childhood be enough to save them both?
Muleshoe (Mike Bishop #1)
Jess Butcher - 2011
When Mike Bishop arrives in Muleshoe seeking a legendary cache of rare gold coins, he enlists the aid of local Sheriff Laura Moss. The Sheriff cautiously joins Bishop’s search and together they discover a link between the gold and an unexplained series of grisly murders spanning more than a century. But others are racing to recover the treasure as well. The line between good and evil blurs as Bishop and Laura struggle to survive a murderous local legend … a legend that promises to turn the Kansas prairie black with blood.
The Book of Air and Shadows
Michael Gruber - 2007
As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began with a fire in an antiquarian bookstore.A distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death . . . A lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries . . . An encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth . . . The Washington Post called Michael Gruber's previous work "a miracle of intelligent fiction and among the essential novels of recent years." Now comes his most intellectually provocative and compulsively readable novel yet. Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives? These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for four hundred years. In a frantic race from New York to England and Switzerland, Jake finds himself matching wits with a shadowy figure who seems to anticipate his every move. What at first seems like a thrilling puzzle waiting to be deciphered soon turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, where no one—not family, not friends, not lovers—is to be trusted. Moving between twenty-first-century America and seventeenth-century England, The Book of Air and Shadows is a modern thriller that brilliantly re-creates William Shakespeare's life at the turn of the seventeenth century and combines an ingenious and intricately layered plot with a devastating portrait of a contemporary man on the brink of self-discovery . . . or self-destruction.
Striking Back
Mark Nykanen - 2011
These men like to hurt women. Now it's payback time for an unknown murderer who's slaughtering the abusers in ways that mirror the ugly violence they forced upon the women in their lives. As the death count grows-and media interest explodes-innocent people could get caught in the killer's revenge. Los Angeles therapist Gwyn Sanders keeps her ugly family history to herself. More than twenty years ago, when she was still a teen, her violent stepfather died a grisly, mysterious death. Gwyn knows all the secrets but she's not talking about the past-she's too busy trying to change the future by breaking the cycle of domestic violence. The men she counsels aren't saints, but maybe she can change the mindset that makes their lives-and the lives of the people closest to them-so miserable. But when someone starts killing her controversial clients, Gwyn becomes LAPD's primary suspect. After all, there's the unsolved mystery of her stepfather's bizarre death. Maybe Gwyn has a hidden desire for justice that's far from therapeutic. Mark Nykanen is an Emmy-winning former NBC correspondent and the author of acclaimed thrillers HUSH, SEARCH ANGEL, THE BONE PARADE, PRIMITIVE and, writing as James Jaros, BURN DOWN THE SKY. Visit him at www.MarkNykanen.com.
Hard Rain
Irma Venter - 2012
It starts when he meets Ranna, a beautiful photographer with something to hide. Alex stopped believing in love a long time ago, yet here in the middle of East Africa, it’s found him again.Alex knows a thing or two about chaos—wherever he goes, it follows. When an IT billionaire washes up onshore after seasonal flooding, he finds himself at the center of an investigation with Ranna as the main suspect. It turns out she may have a good reason for hiding her past.Wherever she goes, murder follows.Alex should be used to these cat-and-mouse games, but this time it’s different. Should he listen to his heart and help Ranna hide the bloody trail leading to her? Or should he use his head and run for his life?
Tips for Living
Renee Shafransky - 2018
With the help of her best friend, she fled New York City for a small resort town, snagged a job as the advice columnist for the local paper, and is cautiously letting a new man into her life. But when Hugh and his perfect new family move into a summer house nearby, Nora backslides. Coping with jealousy, humiliation, and resentment again is as hard as she feared. It’s harder still when Hugh and his wife are shot to death in their home.If only Nora could account for the night of the murders. Unfortunately, her memories have gone as dark as her fantasies of revenge. But Nora’s not the only one with a reason to kill—and as prime suspect in the crime, she’d better be able to prove it.
The Insiders
Craig Hickman - 2009
The Insiders by acclaimed international best-selling author Craig Hickman is a tech-savvy suspense novel filled with the vices of vicious men. It introduces a new brand of thriller that exposes the way broken capitalism exploits the middle class and corrupt business leaders keep their activities concealed through high-level conspiracies. As some readers may suspect, the world’s most powerful CEOs have an insider’s club based on a complex web of insider trading and corporate espionage. From killings in the stock market to access to contract killers—whatever they want, they get. They live above the law until one man whose powerful father founded the insider’s club must avenge an attempt on his father’s life. As with the real life big business economic meltdown, one man’s missteps can mean chaos to the American Dream, and the adrenaline rush will last until the very end.
Trial and Terror
Adam L. Penenberg - 2012
The bad news? Her client was guilty. What's more, he knows all about Summer's past.As Summer pursues her next case, this time to keep an innocent woman off death row, elements of that past--a mysterious case of childhood amnesia, her police officer father's involvement with a serial killer, a terrifying attack she survived just months earlier--entwine with her present legal work, her missing mother, and her rocky relationship with a private investigator, all of which culminate in a thrilling trial... and terror.
Ma Polinski's Pockets
Sara Sheridan - 1999
Setting off to discover why, she rocks her stable existence and uncovers secrets about her mother's experiences as a 5 year old in a concentration camp in WWII. What made Ma Polinski leave Rachel everything and will what she finds set her and her family free?
Continuance
Marta Tandori - 2013
Within hours of a special news bulletin airing nationwide, the FBI’s hotline is inundated with anonymous tips relating to sightings of a little boy matching Ethan’s description outside a historic Savannah building, now a newly-renovated eatery. The FBI quickly assembles a task force and searches the premises but instead of finding little Ethan, they stumble upon the century-old remains of what appears to be a murdered man hidden in a pirate’s tunnel under the historic building. With her restaurant on temporary lockdown pending the FBI’s forensic investigation, owner Annie Eastwood researches the history of the building she inherited, hoping it will shed some light on the identity of the murdered man, but what she uncovers are bits and pieces of a horrible scandal that nearly destroyed the du Maurier family over a century ago. With hopes for Ethan’s safe return dwindling by the hour, Annie finds an unlikely lead in an old classified ad from a Boston newspaper which connects the events of the past to the present-day abduction of Ethan du Maurier—and to the identity of his abductor. Determined to rescue little Ethan before time runs out, Annie quickly realizes that the boy’s abductor will stop at nothing—even murder—in order to exact his revenge.