Book picks similar to
Dead Money by Dean Wesley Smith


story-bundle
mystery
thriller
romantic

Operation Sheba


Misty Evans - 2008
    After a mission was blown and Conrad died, Julia was yanked back to Langley and given a new identity. She is now the Counterterrorism Center’s top analyst, spending her days at CIA headquarters and her nights in her boss’s bed. Her former life as a secret agent has been sealed off with her heart.Former SEAL Conrad Flynn—codename Solomon—has his own secrets.For starters, he’s not dead. Going under the deepest cover possible, he faked his own death to save Sheba’s life. Now he must tear that new life apart and ask for her help to hunt down a traitor inside the Agency’s walls.Is Conrad a rogue operative or a jealous ex-lover looking for revenge?Julia must risk everything for the man who still holds her heart in order to decide. Drawn into a web of seduction and betrayal, she is forced to play the spy game of her life, flushing out an Agency mole and stopping a hostage situation using nothing more than her iPod and her intuition.

Size Matters


John Locke - 2019
    Beat him to death with a tree branch after he threatened to rape her. But what started as self-defense became problematic for two reasons. First, she killed Robert Sims after he’d been rendered completely defenseless. And second, she inadvertently left her fingerprints at the scene. Allie is young, beautiful, the smartest person in any room. But she’s also been diagnosed as clinically insane. As her past catches up with her and her marriage starts to crumble, Allie is determined to survive at all costs. Size Matters is a taut, compelling novel that teaches us never to underestimate a woman with nothing to lose. PRELIMINARY REVIEWS: “Size Matters is so full of twists and turns and surprises I couldn’t have flipped the pages faster if you paid me! This novel surprised and delighted and kept me shaking my head time and again. Fans of Donovan Creed should be aware that he and Callie make a brief appearance that furthers their saga.” “‘I’ve done bad things,’ says Allie McPherson, ‘but that doesn’t make me a bad person.’ Well, that’s one opinion!” “This book is crazy! There are twists and turns on virtually every page! While I consider myself an expert on Locke novels, I have to admit he took me on a wild ride that made me guess wrong every single time.” “Size Matters is a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino. From start to finish I was shocked, surprised, and hopelessly entertained.”

Don't Let Go


Harlan Coben - 2017
    For fifteen years, Nap has been searching, both for Maura and for the real reason behind his brother's death. And now, it looks as though he may finally find what he's been looking for. When Maura's fingerprints turn up in the rental car of a suspected murderer, Nap embarks on a quest for answers that only leads to more questions—about the woman he loved, about the childhood friends he thought he knew, about the abandoned military base near where he grew up, and mostly about Leo and Diana—whose deaths are darker and far more sinister than Nap ever dared imagine.

Tear Me Apart


J.T. Ellison - 2018
    During surgery, doctors discover she’s suffering from a severe form of leukemia, and a stem cell transplant is her only hope. But when her parents are tested, a frightening truth emerges. Mindy is not their daughter.Who knows the answers?The race to save Mindy’s life means unraveling years of lies. Was she accidentally switched at birth or is there something more sinister at play? The search for the truth will tear a family apart… and someone is going to deadly extremes to protect the family’s deepest secrets.With vivid movement through time, Tear Me Apart examines the impact layer after layer of lies and betrayal has on two families, the secrets they guard, and the desperate fight to hide the darkness within.

Family Album


Patricia Kay - 2002
    But under this surface perfection is a secret Hannah has tried to bury, one that rears its painful head each year on her birthday. When David Conway enters her life just as she turns thirty-eight, that secret will be exposed. Can Hannah's relationship with her husband and daughter survive when they discover she is not the person they thought her to be? Patricia Kay once again delivers an emotional story centering around family relationships, one of her favorite themes.

One Perfect Lie


Lisa Scottoline - 2017
    He’s applying for a job as a teacher and varsity baseball coach at the local high school, and he looks perfect, on paper. But his name is an alias, his resume is false, and everything about him is a lie. And he has a secret plan - for which he needs a pawn on the baseball team.Susan Sematov loves her younger son Raz, the quirky and free-spirited pitcher of the team. But Raz’s adored father died only a few months ago, and the family is grief-stricken. Secretly, Raz is looking to fill the Daddy-shaped hole in his heart.Heather Larkin is a struggling single mother who’s dedicated to her only son Justin, the quiet rookie on the team. But Justin’s shy and reserved nature renders him vulnerable to attention, including that of a new father-figure.Mindy Kostis is the wife of a busy surgeon and the queen bee of the baseball boosters, where her super-popular son Evan is the star catcher. But she doesn’t realize that Evan’s sense of entitlement is becoming a full-blown case of affluenza, and after he gets his new BMW, it’s impossible to know where he’s going – or whom he’s spending time with.The lives of these families revolve around the baseball team – and Chris Brennan. What does he really want? How far will he go to get it? Who among them will survive the lethal jeopardy threatening them, from the shadows?Enthralling and suspenseful, One Perfect Lie is an emotional thriller and a suburban crime story that will keep readers riveted to the shocking end, with killer twists and characters you won’t soon forget.

Nevermore - Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe


David Niall Wilson - 2013
    One was a young woman with the ability to see spirits trapped in trees, and stone, anchored to the earth beyond their years. Her gift was to draw them, and then, to set them free. The other was a dark man, haunted by visions that brought his stories of sadness and pain, and trapped in a life between the powers he sensed all around him, and a mundane existence attended by failure. They were Eleanore MacReady, Lenore, to her friends, and a young poet named Edgar Allen Poe, who traveled with a crow that was his secret, and almost constant companion, a bird named Grimm for the talented brothers of fairy-tale fame.Their meeting drew them together in vision, and legend, and pitted their strange powers and quick minds against the depths of the Dismal Swamp itself, ancient legends, and time.Once, upon a shoreline dreary, there was a tree. This is her story.

The Town with No Roads


Joe Siple - 2019
     Memorable objects from Aspen Collins’ childhood are appearing in the town square, accompanied by notes in her father’s handwriting. The notes relate to things happening in her life now. But that’s impossible —Aspen's father is in a coma. The miracle brings chaos in the form of a ghost hunter, three different factions of people with conflicting beliefs about the miracle, and a television reporter who Aspen finds herself falling for. But when everything comes to a head, an impossible choice must be made. And the consequences of either decision could be too much to bear. An enchanting follow-up to Siple’s award-winning debut, The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride, The Town with No Roads is a story of forgiveness and redemption that explores whether unconditional love should hold us close or set us free.

The It Girl


Ruth WareRuth Ware
    April Coutts-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford. Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead. Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…including a murder.

What You Did


Claire McGowan - 2019
    A devastating accusation. Who should she trust, her husband or her best friend?It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.When Karen staggers in from the garden, bleeding and traumatised, she claims that she has been assaulted—by Ali’s husband, Mike. Ali must make a split-second decision: who should she believe? Her horrified husband, or her best friend? With Mike offering a very different version of events, Ali knows one of them is lying—but which? And why?When the ensuing chaos forces her to re-examine the golden era the group shared at university, Ali realises there are darker memories too. Memories that have lain dormant for decades. Memories someone would kill to protect.

The Newman Resident


Charles Swift - 2014
    Dr. Newman is at the leading edge of creating the perfect educational environment for children, and all he requires is a hefty tuition—and your child at the age of six months.Christopher Carson is one of the “Newman Residents” who live at the Newman Home year-round. His parents, Richard and Carol, both Manhattan attorneys, may disagree about the specifics, but each wants what’s best for their son. For Richard, this means bringing Christopher, now six years old, home for one last summer vacation before the visits become brief and infrequent.Carol agrees with the staff: Christopher should stay at the school. And Christopher is confused, not sure where his real home is anymore. But Richard would like for their house to be Christopher’s home, at least for one summer.As Richard and Christopher spend more time together they become closer. Not long into Christopher’s visit, Richard begins to suspect that the Newman Home’s methods for developing their children into future leaders are too experimental, if not outright dangerous. His suspicions are confirmed when a secretive support group of Newman parents reaches out to him about their frightening experiences with the school.Richard’s investigations into the Newman Home quickly spiral out of control; he has underestimated the extent of the school’s power and connections—and Dr. Newman’s incessant drive to achieve a new level of success for the students. But what Dr. Newman underestimates may be even more powerful: one father’s determination to fight for his son against the odds.What follows in The Newman Resident is a whirlwind battle between a devoted father and an education system more terrifyingly powerful than he ever could have imagined. It’s a battle that forces him to confront how some will cross any line in order to create the “perfect” child.

Justice for Sara


Erica Spindler - 2013
    Kat was named the prime suspect and, on a string of circumstantial evidence, charged and tried. While the jury found her innocent, not everyone else agreed, and her only choice was to go into hiding. But she carried a dark secret with her, one that made her worry she might actually have had something to do with Sara’s death . . .Now, years later, Kat is still haunted by her sister’s unsolved murder and continues to receive chilling anonymous letters, but she has tried to move on with her life. Until, on the tenth anniversary of Sara’s death, she receives a letter that makes the past impossible to ignore: "What about justice for Sara?" What about justice for Sara? And for herself? Kat realizes that going back to Liberty, Louisiana, might be the only way to move forward and find some peace. And there’s a killer out there who was never caught.But the town she’s come back to is hardly different from the one she left. The secrets and suspicions still run deep. Kat has an ally in Detective Luke Tanner, son of the former Liberty police chief, but he may be her only one. With plenty of enemies, no one to trust and a killer determined to keep a dark secret buried, Kat must decide if justice is worth fighting—and dying—for.

Her Perfect Family


Teresa Driscoll - 2021
    The perfect family? Or the perfect lie?It’s their daughter’s graduation and Rachel and Ed Hartley are expecting it to be one of their family’s happiest days. But when she stumbles and falls on stage during the ceremony, a beautiful moment turns to chaos: Gemma has been shot, and just like that, she’s fighting for her life.PI Matthew Hill is one of the first on the scene. A cryptic message Gemma received earlier in the day suggests someone close to her was about to be exposed. But who? As Matthew starts to investigate, he finds more and more layers obscuring the truth. He even begins to suspect the Hartleys are hiding something big—from him and from each other.While Gemma lies in hospital in a coma, her would-be killer is still out there. Can Matthew unravel the family’s secrets before the attacker strikes again?

Deception Bay


Chris Patchell - 2019
    He’s dangerous. Together, can they stop a killer from tearing a small island community apart? When wise-cracking cozy mystery author, Austin Martell, left his hometown on Whidbey Island for the bright lights of New York, he vowed he would never go back. But some promises are impossible to keep, and when Austin discovers that his mother has suffered a serious accident, he has no choice but to return. Austin soon learns that her accident may be no accident at all, and secrets that were laid to rest after his brother’s tragic death off the coast of Deception Bay, have now begun to surface. >>>As they close in on the killer, new dangers arise Austin finds himself in the center of a real-life murder mystery, when Police Chief Ellie Sharpe uncovers a curious connection between the author and the death of a local businessman. Born and raised on Whidbey and trained as a New York cop, Ellie is smart, and tough, and determined to solve the mystery behind the killing before more people die. Sparks fly as the two pair up to figure out who is responsible for the murder. The closer they come to discovering truth, the more desperate someone is to keep the sins of the past from coming to light. >>>Someone close to Austin harbors a deadly truth. Can Ellie unmask a killer before Austin becomes one more secret buried beneath the waves of Deception Bay? Scroll Up and Grab Your Copy Today!

Cold Cold Heart


Tami Hoag - 2014
    #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag delivers a shocking new thrillerDana Nolan was a promising young TV reporter until a notorious serial killer tried to add her to his list of victims.  Nearly a year has passed since surviving her ordeal, but the physical, emotional, and psychological scars run deep.  Struggling with the torment of post-traumatic stress syndrome, plagued by flashbacks and nightmares as dark as the heart of a killer, Dana returns to her hometown in an attempt to begin to put her life back together.  But home doesn’t provide the comfort she expects. Dana’s harrowing story and her return to small town life have rekindled police and media interest in the unsolved case of her childhood best friend, Casey Grant, who disappeared without a trace the summer after their graduation from high school.  Terrified of truths long-buried, Dana reluctantly begins to look back at her past.  Viewed through the dark filter of PTSD, old friends and loved ones become suspects and enemies.  Questioning everything she knows, refusing to be defined by the traumas of her past and struggling against excruciating odds, Dana seeks out a truth that may prove too terrible to be believed…