Book picks similar to
Fighting Dirty by Blair Denholm


fiction
short-story
mystery-thriller
detective

Madhouse


Miguel Estrada - 2017
     Faced with his parents’s divorce, eleven-year-old Lucas runs away from his house with the hope that his family will get back together to find him. On his way walking through the empty streets, he is picked up by a mysterious woman who offers to take care of him and provide him with a loving family. The boy then wakes up in shackles, confined to a bed in a decrepit house in the middle of nowhere and will have to face his deepest fears in order to survive in his new home. Join Lucas in a desperate attempt to get back to his family in Madhouse, the first published book from horror-thriller author Miguel Estrada.

Troubled Sea


Jinx Schwartz - 2009
    But their chosen sea has a serpent: Mexico's out-of-control drug trade. After witnessing a drug-deal gone wrong, they set off a deadly chain of events that lands them in a sea of intrigue involving a best friend, the Mexican Federal Police, the DEA, US Coast Guard, the INS, and a nasty drug cartel.This fast-paced adventure is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of cutting the lines and shoving off to adventure.Show More Show Less

Unknown Remains: A Novel


Peter Leonard - 2016
    Outside his office window, Jack hears a booming sound, and then the worst thing imaginable. He works in the World Trade Center, and it is September 11, 2001.His wife in Connecticut, Diane, is visited the next day by a grief counselor, and then the mob, where she learns her husband owes them $750,000. Their personal bank accounts have been emptied. She’s totally and utterly broke. Lost in grief and now shock, Diane soon learns her husband was not the loving spouse he appeared to be. But neither is she, owing to that Beretta she keeps tucked into her handbag.The perfect summer read, Unknown Remains boasts an exciting crime story, inventive plot twists, and a cast of rogues, who just might be using a national tragedy to cover up their own deep transgressions and greed.

The Tracie Tanner Collection: Three Complete Thriller Novels


Allan Leverone - 2016
     PARALLAX VIEW, originally published in 2013: It's spring 1987, and CIA clandestine operations agent Tracie Tanner is tasked with what should be a relatively simple mission: deliver a secret communique from Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to U.S. President Ronald Reagan. After smuggling the document out of East Germany, Tracie believes she is in the clear. She's wrong. A shadowy cabal is work, people who will stop at nothing to prevent the explosive information contained in the letter from reaching the White House. Soon, Tanner is knee-deep in airplane crashes and murder, paired up with a young Maine air traffic controller and on the run for their lives, unsure who she can trust at CIA, but committed to completing her mission, no matter the cost... ALL ENEMIES, originally published in 2014: It's the early fall of 1987, and when United States Secretary of State J. Robert Humphries is kidnapped out of his Washington, D.C. home at gunpoint, all evidence points directly to the Soviet Union as the responsible party. Still recovering from her injuries suffered earlier in the summer, covert ops specialist Tracie Tanner is tasked by CIA Director Aaron Stallings to follow the evidence and recover Humphries safely from the Soviets. There's only one problem - Tanner's not convinced the Soviets are involved. Soon, she's ruffling feathers, risking her career, and once again running for her life, betting everything on a hunch that might just get her and Humphries killed and result in the start of World War Three… THE HITLER DECEPTION, originally published in 2015: It's November 1987, and the disappearance of an elderly West German man results in CIA Director Aaron Stallings dispatching Tracie Tanner to the scene. Working with the assistance of a CIA operative she's not sure she can trust, Tracie faces her toughest assignment yet - pick up the trail of the mysterious Amber Room key, utterly unique and critical to unlocking the mystery of a missing cache of treasure worth an unimaginable sum. Meanwhile, lurking in the background is a man long-believed to have taken his own life in the dying days of World War II, but who may, in fact, be very much alive. Adolph Hitler. And he's waiting to resume his rightful place atop the Thousand Year Reich. Readers of the Tracie Tanner thriller series have come to expect international intrigue and a lightning-fast plot. THE HITLER DECEPTION delivers, raising the bar with treasure, treachery, and a Tracie Tanner pushed to the very limit of her abilities and endurance. ---------- Suspense, thrills, twists, and a surprisingly human - and fallible - hero make THE TRACIE TANNER COLLECTION a must-have for any thriller fan. You'll find yourself compulsively turning the nearly one thousand action-packed pages deep into the night... ---------- Praise for the Tracie Tanner novels: "Allan Leverone's PARALLAX VIEW is a sure-footed, masterful thriller with a breakneck pace that never lets up. Faced with the deepest act of betrayal in U.S. history, CIA agent Tracie Tanner must call on every tool she has---and her every last reserve to see the mission through." -- J. Carson Black, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of THE SHOP and HARD RETURN "PARALLAX VIEW...is a powerhouse full-throttle spy thriller...It is a taut and thoughtful journey back to the dying days of the Cold War...it will keep you up, and on the edge of your chair, long into the night.

The Tournament


Matthew Reilly - 2013
    Under its charismatic Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, it is an empire on the rise. It has defeated Christian fleets. It has conquered Christian cities.Then the Sultan sends out an invitation to every king in Europe: send forth your champion to compete in a tournament unlike any other.We follow the English delegation, selected by King Henry VIII himself, to the glittering city of Constantinople, where the most amazing tournament ever staged will take place.But when the stakes are this high, not everyone plays fair, and for our team of plucky English heroes, winning may not be the primary goal. As a series of barbaric murders take place, a more immediate goal might simply be staying alive…

The Complete Sherlock Holmes


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1894
    Volume 2. Introduction / by Loren D. Estleman --The hound of the Baskervilles --The valley of fear --His last bow : The adventure of Wisteria Lodge : The singular experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles ; The tiger of San Pedro ; The adventure of the cardboard box ; The adventure of the red circle ; The adventure of the Bruce-Partington plans ; The adventure of the dying detective ; The disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax ; The adventure of the devil's foot ; His last bow --The case-book of Sherlock Holmes : The adventure of the illustrious client ; The adventure of the blanched soldier ; The adventure of the Mazarin stone ; The adventure of the three gables ; The adventure of the Sussex vampire ; The adventure of the three Garridebs ; The problem of Thor Bridge ; The adventure of the creeping man ; The adventure of the lion's mane ; The adventure of the veiled lodger ; The adventure of Shoscombe old place ; The adventure of the retired colourman.

Foreign Involvement: A Chuck Winters Thriller


Robert E. Smith - 2018
    He soon gets caught up with a nemesis character that spews death and destruction, hiding throughout the world like a chameleon---causing Winters to leave his serene retirement and take chase.

Under Cover of Daylight


James W. Hall - 1987
    Hall’s haunting debut novel first introduced the rugged character Thorn and the breathtaking South Florida landscape where he lives. Thorn’s past includes a savage act of revenge on the drunken hit-and-run killer of his parents. Now, fifteen years later, Thorn still cannot escape that moment, or the darkness he took into his soul that night. Not even his best friend, Sugarman, knows the truth. Not even Sarah Ryan knows the depths of her lover’s pain. Then suddenly, the nightmare begins again as Thorn’s foster mother is found slaughtered. Thorn can almost taste the rage as he stalks her killer and waits. "An exciting, well-crafted first novel that smoothly places complex, believable characters into an action-filled plot."—Washington Post "It starts good and stays good, right to the end."—Chicago Tribune

Another Three Dogs in a Row: Golden Retriever Mysteries


Neil S. Plakcy - 2020
    

The Advocate


Lori Lacefield - 2018
    A young recruit who will have to expose the truth of just how far one of them will go to get revenge.\Former victim Palmer Reed is facing the 20th anniversary of her kidnapping when she is recruited to the board of a prestigious foundation dedicated to helping the victims of crime. Run by Marjoram Swall, a woman known as The Vindicator, who helped rescue Palmer twenty years ago from the hands of their mutual enemy, the foundation gives Palmer something to believe in, hoping that by helping other victims, she will resolve her own painful past.But something dark lies beneath the foundation’s surface, and after Palmer learns of the foundation's use of blackmail to raise money for their cause, she discovers that several individuals who escaped their blackmail attempts all later died in mysterious accidents. She investigates, and soon believes their deaths are anything but accidental.Faced with the dilemma of staying loyal to her mentor and the foundation that's provided her with a purpose, or exposing the truth and tearing her life apart, she's forced to question her own ethical boundaries, whether the pursuit of justice and the equalization of a faulty legal system is worth murder.But her mentor won't risk giving her that choice, and soon Palmer finds herself the target of an unknown killer, her former kidnappers, and even Marjoram herself. For Palmer has opened a deadly link to their past, and she's on a mission to uncover the truth.

Spirit of Steamboat


Craig Johnson - 2013
    Walt doesn’t recognize the mystery woman, but she seems to know him and claims to have something she must return to Connally. With his daughter, Cady, and his undersheriff Vic Moretti in Philadelphia for the holidays, Walt is at loose ends, and despite the woman’s reticence to reveal her identity, he agrees to help her.At the Durant Home for Assisted Living Lucian Connally is several tumblers into his Pappy Van Winkle’s and swears he’s never clapped eyes on the woman before. Disappointed, she whispers “Steamboat” and begins a story that takes them all back to Christmas Eve 1988, when three people died in a terrible crash and a young girl had the slimmest chance of survival . . . back to a record– breaking blizzard, to Walt’s first year as sheriff, with a young daughter at home and a wife praying for his safety . . . back to a whiskey-soaked World War II vet ready to fly a decommissioned plane and risk it all to save a life.Back to the Spirit of Steamboat.

Perils in Provence


Carolyn L. Dean - 2018
     A dangerous past life. A new mysterious boss. An old chateau with some very suspicious characters. Jennifer was happy working as a baker at the Ravenwood Inn, but when fate comes calling in the form of Gable Landon, she’s ready to jump at the new career he offers. Soon she’s globetrotting from Oregon to Bruges, then on to Provence to assess a rundown property her boss might want to buy. The charm of southern France and its food and landscape is almost intoxicating, and it doesn’t hurt that she’s made a new friend, a French bulldog named Orly. What Jennifer hadn’t expected, though, was stone cold murder. Clean language, and only rated PG because hey, there’s a murderer running around in this book.

The Cretan Bull (The Labours of Hercules, Vol. 2)


Agatha Christie - 1947
    Includes "The Cretan Bull," "The Horses of Diomedes," "The Stymphalean Birds," and "The Augean Stables." 2 cassettes.

London Large - Bound by Blood (Detective Hawkins #2)


Roy Robson - 2016
    Inspector Harry ‘H’ Hawkins, only just back at work after a mental and physical breakdown, investigates the crime in the only way he knows how; he embarks on a full-blooded search for the truth. But the truth can be brutal As the murder investigation gathers pace H discovers his own son has been sucked into the dark world of organised crime. A traumatized young man; and a traumatized father H's hard-boiled instinct is to fight, to protect the things he loves. But when his son becomes his enemy his world view is shattered. How can son be turned against father? H’s gripping mission is no longer a search for a killer; but a quest to save his boy, and exact a terrible vengeance against the man who has corrupted him. And his search is a search for a deeper truth, a truth that will stretch family loyalty - and the love of a father for his son - to its very limits. Blood Is Thicker than Water…Or Is It?

The Rancher's Second Chance


Maddie James - 2020
    Annie's domain was home and hearth, and her dying put a hole in his day-to-day rancher lifestyle--far beyond the one she left in his heart.But his heart is only one of his problems when ten-year-old Callie rebels. Missing her mom and unsure how her life is unfolding, Callie pushes back at every turn and John doesn't know how to help her. Then his friend, Buck McGinnis, introduces him to Abby Cooper. Buck thinks John should seek the counsel of a woman for advice dealing with a moody pre-teen female. Suddenly, life becomes even more complicated.The Parker Ranches, Inc. series launches with this short novella, The Rancher's Second Chance, establishing the patriarch of the family, John Rankin, and his second chance at love and healing his family. **** The Parker Ranches, Inc. series is a contemporary western romance series written by award-winning and bestselling romance author Maddie James.Linked by strong family relationships, these stories take place in multiple ranch settings across Montana, South Dakota, Texas, and Kentucky. The Parker and Rankin families--Montana ranchers for generations--anchor the series and provide the foundation for stories to come. As families grow, forming new ranch partnerships, you'll also meet the South Dakota MacKay and the Texas/Kentucky Remington families.Parker Ranches, Inc. books are first and foremost romance stories with happily-ever-after endings. Some are sweet, most are steamy, and a few are erotic. These novels and novellas always feature cowboy heroes and the women who love them--often with complicated relationships and external challenges that require time and attention to sort out.Welcome to Rankin's Rock Creek Ranch.