Book picks similar to
A Bad Death by David Mark
mystery
david-mark
starred
nat-ebook
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?
The Girl Beneath the Sea
Andrew Mayne - 2020
An auxiliary officer for Lauderdale Shores PD, she’s the go-to diver for evidence recovery. Then Sloan finds a fresh kill floating in a canal—a woman whose murky history collides with Sloan’s. Their troubling ties are making Sloan less a potential witness than a suspect. And her colleagues aren’t the only ones following every move she makes. So is the killer.Stalked by an assassin, pitted against a ruthless cartel searching for a lost fortune, and under watch within her ranks, Sloan has only one ally: the legendary DEA agent who put Sloan’s uncle behind bars. He knows just how deep corruption runs—and the kind of danger Sloan is in. To stay alive, Sloan must stay one step ahead of her enemies—both known and unknown—and a growing conspiracy designed to pull her under.
The Tremor of Forgery
Patricia Highsmith - 1969
Ripley: "Her best novel" (The New Yorker). Set in Tunisia in the mid-1960s, this is the story of Howard Ingham, an American writer who has gone abroad to gather material for a movie too sordid to be set in America. Ingham is cool toward the girlfriend he left behind in New York-but his feelings start to change when she doesn't answer his increasingly aggravated letters, and the filmmaker who hired Ingham fails to show in Tunisia. Amid the tea shops and alleys of the souk, the sun-blasted architecture, and the beaches and hotels frequented by international tourists, Ingham tries to pass the time by working on a writing project. But a series of peculiar events-a hushed-up murder, a vanished corpse, secret broadcasts to the Soviet Union-will pull him in, and may finally put his increasingly fragile sense of morality to the test.
The Anderson Tapes
Lawrence Sanders - 1970
Delaney, and the masterpiece of murder and suspense that launched Sanders' career.The author outlines the conception, planning, and execution of the robbery of an Upper East Side apartment building with machine-like precision. The novel employs a clever premise: the entire story is told in surveillance-tape transcripts and reports from law-enforcement agencies, each of which observes an aspect of the situation in which the robbery takes place.
The Complete Detective Mike Croft Box Set
Jane A. Adams - 2020
She and her twelve-year-old cousin Suzie take a shortcut through the Greenway, an ancient pathway steeped in Norfolk legend. Somewhere along this path Suzie simply vanishes . . . Twenty years later: Cassie is still tormented by nightmares, parts of her memory completely erased. With her husband Fergus and friends Anna and Simon, she returns to Norfolk, determined to confront her fears and solve a mystery that won’t let her rest.BOOK 2: THE SECRETSThreatening phone calls, smashed windows, physical intimidation. Eric Pearson and his family have only just moved into a new home in a sleepy cul-de-sac, but they already have dangerous enemies. How could a respectable family become the focus of such hatred? Detective Inspector Mike Croft knows the Pearson family well. Eric Pearson claims to own a journal which gives evidence of a horrifying ring of abusers. If true, it would be a high stakes case for DI Croft, and expose awful secrets that the town has buried deep.BOOK 3: THEIR FINAL MOMENTSHe wants to capture their final moments on film so he can watch them again and again. DECEMBER: Detective Mike Croft is in pursuit of a serial attacker, whose victims are all young blonde women. But forensics on the victims, reveals an even more horrific scenario. Many miles away, in Wiltshire, a young woman dies in a burning car. In Norwich, an actress is found dead in her own home and a teenage boy runs away from a past he doesn’t know how to face.BOOK 4: THE LIARMartha Toolin is found stabbed to death on a Norfolk beach. She was a stranger to the area and had been seen arguing with a teenage boy. BUT SHE IS A LIAR. Detective Mike Croft is called into investigate and quickly finds out that the victim was not who she says she was. She is a con artist who exploited the vulnerable and elderly.
The Long-Legged Fly
James Sallis - 1992
This is a smart, tough novel teeming with life and always on the verge of igniting from its own energy. In steamy modern-day New Orleans, black private detective Lew Griffin has once again taken on a seemingly hopeless missing persons case. The trail takes him through the underbelly of the French Quarter with its bar girls, pimps, and tourist attractions. As his search leads to one violent dead end, and then another, Griffin is confronted with the prospect that his own life has come to resemble those he is attempting to find; he is becoming as lost as the frail identities he tries to recover. Waking in a hospital after an alcoholic binge, Griffin finds another chance in a nurse who comes to love him, but again he reverts to his old life in the mean streets among the predators and their prey. When his son vanishes, Griffin searches back through the tangles and tatters of his life, knowing that he must solve his personal mysteries before he can venture after the whereabouts of others. The Long-Legged Fly is exciting, visceral entertainment that takes the reader into a corner of society where life is fought for as much as it is lived. James Sallis has written a compelling novel that succeeds both as detective fiction and worthy literature.
Cold Flame
Natalie Hames - 2018
Hours later his body is discovered in his hot tub, a single gunshot to his head signifying an execution style killing. DI Grace Dalton is called upon to crack the case and bring the killer to justice but the more she investigates, the more she realises his lifestyle and criminal activities have accumulated a long list of enemies. Ploughing through a sea of suspects, Grace is not only under pressure to find the killer but also adapt to a new partner, DS Ryan Nash. A rogue detective with an ambiguous past and a playboy image, he's everything she despises, yet despite her protesting to DCI Harris is given no other choice other than to be his reluctant mentor. To make matters worse, the murder weapon is traced back to a previous crime at the infamous Ringfield Estate, throwing Grace into a precarious position. Known for its gun crime and ruled by the vicious Ringfield Crew, relations between the estate and the police is taut with controversy. With links between Carl and the head of the gang coming to light, Grace finds herself thrown into a confusing maze of suspects and motives. No sooner have the pieces of the puzzle fitted together, the tables of fate turn and send the pieces into disarray. Grace soon realises that if she is to solve the case she must go back to the start where a shocking revelation will reveal how pure, deep seated rage is found in the most unlikely, and quiet places.
Flower Net
Lisa See - 1997
ambassador's son is discovered entombed in a frozen lake in Beijing. Then the son of a powerful Chinese politician is found dead in the hold of a smuggler's freighter bound for California. The Chinese and American authorities suspect the deaths are linked and, in a rare move, join forces to solve the crime, and soon U.S. District Attorney David Stark is sent across the Pacific to team up with brilliant yet rebellious police detective Liu Hulan. Their investigation takes them into every corner of today's China -- from glitzy karaoke bars, where government leaders and mafia kingpins make their most unsavory deals, to Beijing's labyrinthine hutongs, where working-class Chinese have eked out their livings for centuries.Revealing a China that most Westerners have never seen -- a strange nation at once admirable and frightening -- Flower Net is an utterly original story and one of the most timely, thrilling, and thought-provoking reads from an astonishing new writer."Flower Net is a treat. In this, her debut mystery, Lisa See begins to do for contemporary Beijing what, say, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did for turn-of-the-century London or Dashiell Hammett did for 1920s San Francisco". -- Washington Post
Summer Rain: An Inspector Banks Short Story
Peter Robinson - 2015
Dead Eyed
Matt Brolly - 2015
But as the body count rises, Michael realises that his own links to the victims could mean that he is next on the killer’s list…The gripping first novel in a thrilling new crime series by Matt Brolly. Perfect for fans of Tony Parsons, Lee Child and Angela Marsons.
Local Girl Missing
Claire Douglas - 2016
It's also where twenty-one-year-old Sophie Collier vanished eighteen years ago.Francesca has spent the last twenty years haunted by the disappearance of her best friend. But when she receives a phone call from Sophie's brother saying that a body has been found, she knows she can't keep hiding from what happened. With her own secrets to keep, Francesca doesn't relish the idea of digging up the past or returning to Oldcliffe. But it is time to go back to where she grew up, and it looks like she isn't the only one there hiding truths.
Exhume
Danielle Girard - 2016
Annabelle Schwartzman has finally found a place to belong. As the medical examiner for the San Francisco Police Department, working alongside homicide detective Hal Harris, she uncovers the tales the dead can’t tell about their final moments. It is a job that gives her purpose—and a safe haven from her former life at the hands of an abusive husband. Although it’s been seven years since she escaped that ordeal, she still checks over her shoulder to make sure no one is behind her.Schwartzman’s latest case is deeply troubling: the victim bears an eerie resemblance to herself. What’s more, a shocking piece of evidence suggests that the killer’s business is far from over—and that Schwartzman may be in danger. In this pulse-pounding thriller from award-winning writer Danielle Girard, a woman must face her worst nightmare to catch a killer.
Little Deaths
Emma Flint - 2017
and Cindy, have gone missing. Later that day, Cindy's body is found in a derelict lot a half mile from her home, strangled. Ten days later, Frankie Jr.'s decomposing body is found. Immediately, all fingers point to Ruth. As police investigate the murders, the detritus of Ruth's life is exposed. Seen through the eyes of the cops, the empty bourbon bottles and provocative clothing which litter her apartment, the piles of letters from countless men and Ruth's little black book of phone numbers, make her a drunk, a loose woman - and therefore a bad mother. The lead detective, a strict Catholic who believes women belong in the home, leaps to the obvious conclusion: facing divorce and a custody battle, Malone took her children's lives. Pete Wonicke is a rookie tabloid reporter who finagles an assignment to cover the murders. Determined to make his name in the paper, he begins digging into the case. Pete's interest in the story develops into an obsession with Ruth, and he comes to believe there's something more to the woman whom prosecutors, the press, and the public have painted as a promiscuous femme fatale. Did Ruth Malone violently kill her own children, is she a victim of circumstance - or is there something more sinister at play?
The Night Ferry
Michael Robotham - 2007
Now on her feet again she receives a desperate plea from an old school friend, who is eight months pregnant and in trouble. On the night they arrange to meet, her friend is run down and killed by a car and Alisha discovers the first in a series of haunting and tragic deceptions.Determined to uncover the truth, she embarks upon a dangerous journey that will take her from the East End of London’s to Amsterdam’s murky red light district and into a violent underworld of sex trafficking, slavery and exploitation.
Behind Every Lie
Christina McDonald - 2020
Eva was found unconscious down the street. She can’t remember what happened but the police are highly suspicious of her.Determined to clear her name, Eva heads from Seattle to London—Kat’s former home—for answers. But as she unravels her mother’s carefully held secrets, Eva soon realizes that someone doesn’t want her to know the truth. And with violent memories beginning to emerge, Eva doesn’t know who to trust. Least of all herself.Told in alternating perspectives from Eva’s search for answers and Kat’s mysterious past, Christina McDonald has crafted another “complex, emotionally intense” (Publishers Weekly) domestic thriller. Behind Every Lie explores the complicated nature of mother-daughter relationships, family trauma, and the danger behind long-held secrets.