Book picks similar to
A Slow Burning by Stanley Pottinger


fiction
thriller
mystery
romantic-suspense

Hour of Need


Melinda Leigh - 2014
    Emotionally scarred from war, the career soldier returns home on emergency leave to temporarily care for his orphaned nephew and niece. But when someone tries to kidnap the kids and their teenage babysitter, Grant knows it’s not a random act…and neither were the murders.Already devastated by her neighbors’ violent deaths, Ellie Ross is shattered by the attempted abduction of her teenage daughter so she desperately turns to Grant for help. As they navigate a deadly search for the truth, they struggle with growing feelings for each other and Grant’s impending return to deployment.But time is running out. The killer is growing bolder by the hour, and Ellie and Grant must find him before the children become his next victims.

The Ambler Warning


Robert Ludlum - 2005
    There, far from prying eyes, the government keeps in "deep storage" former intelligence employees whose psychiatric state make them a security risk to their own government, people whose ramblings might jeopardize ongoing operations or prove dangerously inconvenient.One of these employees, former Consular Operations agent Hal Ambler, is one of the few who is so dangerous that he is in complete isolation from other patients, kept heavily medicated and closely watched. But there's one critical difference between Ambler and the other patients in the facility: Ambler isn't crazy.With the help of a sympathetic nurse, Ambler manages to first clear his mind of the drug-induced haze and then executes a daring escape. On the loose and barely one step ahead of the retrieval teams sent after him, he is out to discover who had him stashed in the psychiatric hospital and why.But the world he returns to isn't the one he so clearly remembers - friends and longtime associates don't recognize him, and there are no official records of any person named Hal Ambler. With no resources and his unknown enemies closing in on him, Ambler has to uncover the truth of who he was and figure out what it is about him - remember what he knows - that makes him such a danger that someone is willing to risk everything to see him dead.

The Thinnest Air


Minka Kent - 2018
    Her husband, Andrew, is a charming and successful financial broker. She has two lovely stepchildren and is living in affluence in a mountain resort town. After three years of marriage, Meredith’s life has become predictable. Until the day she disappears.Her car has been discovered in a grocery store parking lot—purse and phone undisturbed on the passenger seat, keys in the ignition, no sign of struggle, and no evidence of foul play. It’s as if she vanished into thin air.It’s not like Meredith to simply abandon her loved ones. And no one in this town would have reason to harm her. When her desperate sister, Greer, arrives, she must face a disturbing question: What if no one really knows Meredith at all? For Greer, finding her sister isn’t going to be easy…because where she’s looking is going to get very, very dark.

Cuckoo


Julia Crouch - 2011
    But then her best friend Polly comes to stay. Very soon, Rose's cosy world starts to fall apart at the seams - her baby falls dangerously ill & her husband is distracted. It appears that once you invite Polly into your home, it's very difficult to get her out again.

Vanished


Kendra Elliot - 2014
    In the eye of the storm is local detective Mason Callahan, whose life is crumbling to pieces—he’s related to the victim, and his longtime confidential informant has just been murdered.Both he and Agent McLane hole up in the victim’s family home. Every second counts in a kidnapping case, and the stakes keep rising the longer the girl is missing. As Ava and Mason struggle to hold the family together in their darkest hour, the two investigators find themselves drawn to each other.2015 Overall Daphne du Maurier Award Winner

The Missing


C.L. Taylor - 2016
    They make you feel safe. You trust them. Or do you…?When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire Wilkinson, blames herself. She's not the only one. There isn't a single member of Billy's family that doesn't feel guilty. But the Wilkinson’s are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn't until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface.Claire is sure of two things – that Billy is still alive and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance.A mother's instinct is never wrong. Or is it?

Miracle Cure


Harlan Coben - 1991
    Their family and social connections tie them to the highest echelons of the political, medical, and sports worlds - threads that will tangle them up in one of the most controversial and deadly issues of our time. In a clinic on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a doctor has dedicated his life to eradicating a divisive and devastating disease. One by one, his patients are getting well. One by one, they're being targeted by a serial killer. And now Michael has been diagnosed with the disease. There's only one cure, but many ways to die. . .

The Sinner


Petra Hammesfahr - 1999
    Why? What would cause this quiet, kind young mother to stab a complete stranger in the throat over and over again, in full view of her family and friends? For the local police, it's an open-and-shut case. Cora quickly confesses and there's no shortage of witnesses, but those questions remain unanswered. Haunted by the case, the police commissioner refuses to close the file and begins his own maverick investigation. So begins the slow unraveling of Cora's past, a harrowing descent into a woman's private hell. A dark, spellbinding novel, where the truth is to be questioned at every turn, The Sinner has been a bestseller around the world, and is poised to be a summer smash with the coming TV adaptation, already hailed as one of the most anticipated shows of the summer."The Sinner is unnerving and weird and guaranteed to stick with you weeks later." -Sarah Weinman, editor of Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives and Women Crime Writers"Hauntingly insightful and sensitive." -The Guardian

Dead Wrong


Mariah Stewart - 2004
    Now the first is free. It was inescapably chilling, as if the murderer was methodically working his way down a page torn from the phone book. The three victims brutally killed in their own homes had one thing in common: they were all listed as M. Douglas. The fact that Mara Douglas is next on the list has her jumping at shadows, until FBI agent Aidan Shields shows up to make sure she doesn't become the fourth victim.Aidan has been out of commission since an undercover operation went bad more than a year ago. Back on the job, his razor-sharp instincts are returning. But it will take all of Aidan's wits to stay one step ahead of the elusive killer who has engaged him in a deadly game--a game in which Mara's life is the prize. A game only one can win ...

The Girl Before


Rena Olsen - 2016
    . . wasn’t? Clara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. Without warning, her home is invaded by armed men, and she finds herself separated from her beloved husband and daughters. The last thing her husband yells to her is to say nothing. In chapters that alternate between past and present, the novel slowly unpeels the layers of Clara’s fractured life. We see her growing up, raised with her sisters by the stern Mama and Papa G, becoming a poised and educated young woman, falling desperately in love with the forbidden son of her adoptive parents. We see her now, sequestered in an institution, questioned by men and women who call her a different name—Diana—and who accuse her husband of unspeakable crimes. As recollections of her past collide with new revelations, Clara must question everything she thought she knew, to come to terms with the truth of her history and to summon the strength to navigate her future.

Her Last Breath


Hilary Davidson - 2021
    However, her sorrow turns to bone-chilling confusion when she receives a message Caroline sent days earlier warning that her death would be no accident. Long used to being a pariah to her family, Deirdre covers her tattoos and heads to Manhattan for her sister’s funeral.The message claimed Caroline’s husband, Theo, killed his first wife and got away with it. Reeling from the news, Deirdre confronts Theo on the way to the cemetery, and he reveals both his temper and his suspicion that Deirdre’s “perfect” sister was having an affair.Paranoid and armed with just enough information to make her dangerous, Deirdre digs into the disturbing secrets buried with Caroline. But as she gets closer to the truth, she realizes that her own life may be at risk…and that there may be more than one killer in the family.

She Belongs to Me


Carmen DeSousa - 2011
     Charlotte police officer Jordan Monroe is used to being in control. Ever since his father died, he has provided for his mother and sisters and even hired his two brothers-in-law to help run his successful construction company. On a chance business trip, however, he meets the one person who throws his life into a whirlwind--Jaynee.Jaynee has lived a tragic life and has sworn off all men. That is until a rugged southern gentleman lands in her seating area, refusing to take no for an answer. From the moment they meet, Jordan sweeps her off her feet, assuring her that happiness exists. But can she really escape her past?Five years later, Jordan finds Jaynee on their back porch with a gunshot wound to the head. While Jaynee lies in a coma, Jordan has to go back to their beginning and figure out what went wrong. Did he push his wife to the edge, or has her past come back to haunt them? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "You'll be swept off your feet along with Jaynee as she discovers the man of her dreams. You'll be drawn into the drama. And you'll flip the pages fast as Jordan must desperately figure out the truth in time. I was and did!" -- New York Times bestselling author Jaime Rush⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "SHE BELONGS TO ME is definitely a good suspenseful read. Ms. DeSousa is a talented author and I had no problem in connecting with the characters. The story displayed a realistic relationship between Jordan and Jaynee." -- The Romance Reviews

The Moonlight Child


Karen McQuestion - 2020
    Through her neighbor's kitchen window, she sees what appears to be a little girl washing dishes late at night. But the Fleming family doesn't have a child that age, and even if they did, why would she be doing housework at this late hour?It would be easy for Sharon to just let this go, but when eighteen-year-old Niki, a former foster child, comes to live with Sharon, she notices suspicious activity at the Flemings' house as well. When calling social services doesn't result in swift action, the two decide to investigate on their own.

Every Step She Takes


Kelley Armstrong - 2020
    . . .Genevieve has secrets that no one knows. In Rome she can be whoever she wants to be. Her neighbours aren't nosy; her Italian is passable; the shopkeepers and restaurant owners now see her as a local, and they let her be. It's exactly what she wants.One morning, after getting groceries, she returns to her 500-year-old Trastevere apartment. She climbs to the very top of the staircase, the stairs narrowing the higher she goes. When she gets to her door, she puts down her bags and pushes the key into the lock . . .. . . and the door swings open.It's unlocked. Sometimes she doesn't lock it because break-ins aren't common in Rome. But Genevieve knows she locked the door behind her this morning. She has no doubt.She should leave, call the police. What if someone is in her apartment, waiting for her? But she doesn't.The apartment is empty, and exactly as she left it, perfectly tidy and not a thing out of place . . . except for the small box on her kitchen table. A box that definitely wasn't there this morning. A box postmarked from the US. A box that is addressed to "Lucy Callahan."A name that she hasn't used in ten years.Edge-of-your-seat riveting, K.L. Armstrong's new book will keep you turning the pages until the very end.

Lie for Me


Karen Young - 2011
    Tucker claims to have been alone at a job site at the time, but he needs Lauren to lie for him so that he won't become a suspect in the murder. She refuses; now as a prime suspect, Tucker disappears without a trace. Years later, she sees him at an antique fair, and worried that Lauren will reveal his carefully constructed life, he forces his into her hotel room and tells her that he's trying to find evidence to clear his name. As Lauren tries to help Tucker, she questions her ability to judge character as she uncovers a labyrinth of deceit, putting her very life in danger."Karen Young has written an exciting thriller with the second chance romantic subplot enhancing the suspense. Readers will root for the embattled lead protagonists caught in the crosshairs of a ruthless diabolical killer. . . . Lie For Me is a gripping one sitting read." --Harriet Klausner (5 stars)