Book picks similar to
The Docent by Tom Kenny


mystery
crime
1-fic-mystery
crime-spy-thriller

Imprint of the Past


Robin Roughley - 2019
    So when she discovers the picturesque cottage for sale on the internet she instantly falls in love with the place and when her husband John agrees to view the property she comes to believe that it is written in the stars that this will be their new forever home. Rosebud Cottage sits on the clifftops commanding breath-taking views of the sea, a vista that is forever changing, and one that instantly fills them both with a sense of belonging. Though things are about to change, as a simple walk on the pebbled beach at Seaview Cove turns into a nightmare for Emily as she discovers a body hidden by the rocks, a man is sprawled on the stones, eyes closed, arms outstretched his wild black hair matted with blood. Though by the time she raises the alarm and dashes back to the beach she is left stunned to find the man has vanished. So starts the mind bending mystery as Emily tries to navigate her way through the labyrinth of her own mind, and as those around her become more concerned with her behaviour, she finds herself doubting her own sanity. As obsession takes over, Emily comes to realise that sometimes even the most tranquil of surroundings can mask the most devastating of crimes. As the weather changes and the storms arrive Emily Green finds herself trapped in a dark place, a place where even her own senses are not to be trusted. And as she tries to hold onto her sanity, someone is watching from the shadows, someone with evil on their mind.

Shadow Kill


David Caris - 2021
    Betrayed by his employer and left for dead, Kovac decides to lie low in Tokyo.His plan? Revenge...But when a young woman asks him to protect her from the yakuza, Kovac feels duty-bound to help. She’s a victim of abuse, and long experience tells him if he doesn’t step in tonight she’ll be a corpse before dawn.As Kovac works to uncover the truth of his last job, he finds himself drawn into a conspiracy which goes well beyond the yakuza to a new and terrifying multinational cartel. One that will stop at nothing to control the global drug trade.The kingpins are certain they’ve covered all bases. They're well-funded and utterly ruthless. But they’ve failed to account for one man – John Kovac.SHADOW KILL is the first in a fast-paced, unflinching thriller series that won't in any way shortchange you on action. Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Mark Greaney and Mark Dawson.

The Trap


Jack Parker - 2018
     Mary West is a dedicated CIA agent, intent on finding out the truth about her parents' death. She had never known another life apart from what her job had to offer. But when she is tasked to "babysit" a wealthy CEO's son, the secrets surrounding a past she couldn't exactly remember start to unravel. Will she be able to uncover the truth before they get to her?

Nobody's Safe Here


Bill Percy - 2016
    Meanwhile, Deputies Andi Pelton and Boyd Ordrew clash as they investigate Jared Hansen, a boy caught with rifles and a paranoid plan to kill his schoolmates. Their problem? Jared, a great kid, a school leader, has no previous problems. Ordrew’s convinced Jared’s a mass shooter-in-waiting, but Andi’s not. Ed joins their search for whatever caused his radical transformation from great kid to psychotic killer. It’s a race against time: Magnus grows more irrational and homicidal, Jared's insanity may not be controlled before it’s too late, and Ed’s risky plan to save the boy may destroy his relationship with Andi. Nobody’s Safe Here, a psychological thriller, tells the story of a community of ordinary, decent people facing terrifying mysteries.

Bribing Saint Anthony


Rita Moreau - 2014
    A missing husband. A plot to blow up a national treasure. Fortune telling aunts. Mary Catherine, MC for short, didn’t move as the Queen of Boca Vista, Babbs La-Fleur, placed a pile of cash, which appeared out of a purse she knew cost more than her car, smack dab in the middle of her desk.Word at all the cocktail parties was that MC had a skill that came in handy for an aging socialite going through a divorce. She was good at finding cash in hidden bank accounts. Cash to pay for a nip and tuck and a new identity: Cougar. Hired that day by Queen Babbs to find her bad boy husband, Charlie, MC was back on familiar ground, tracking down bad guys through clues left in the DNA of their paper life. Asking her Aunt Sophia to read the family fortune telling cards might have helped. Instead, the paper trail Charlie left takes MC from a murder in the world of rich socialites to working with covert government agents deep in the world of counter terrorism.Praise for Bribing Saint Anthony Review from Sheldon Siegel "I had a chance to read Bribing Saint Anthony on a recent flight. It was a great read! I don't have a lot of time to read for fun these days, and your story was a treat. You have a nice touch, and MC is an engaging lead. Reminded me a bit of Carl Hiaasen--What is it about Florida, anyway?!? Keep up the good work!" Cheers from San Francisco, SheldonSheldon Siegel is a New York Times best-selling author of the critically acclaimed legal thriller series featuring Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez, two of the most beloved characters in contemporary crime fiction.

Precious Things: Some things are worth killing for.


Marie Reyes - 2021
    

The Misplaced Mob


John Rose Putnam - 2018
    But the next day, after barely escaping death when someone fires four rounds of buckshot into his oncoming patrol car, Roy realizes this case is not only dangerous, it’s personal.

Fishermen's Court


Andrew Wolfendon - 2019
    So why would a team of killers want to murder him and frame it as a suicide? Finn survives the encounter to discover the killers have left behind a “suicide note” detailing a dark incident from Finn’s past no one could possibly know about.Finn escapes to Musqasset Island, his former home, to seek refuge with an old friend, but soon realizes he has trapped himself on the small island with the very people who want him dead—and with old debts that need to be paid. His only hope for survival, and redemption, is to figure out who’s trying to kill him and why they’ve waited eighteen years to act—no easy task in a raging nor’easter, where communications are shaky and relationships (and Finn’s mental state) are even shakier.

Richter Ten


Rob Leininger - 2014
    In Eastern Oregon, 90,000 cubic feet of mantle-hot gas is roaring out of the Devil's Pore fumarole every second. To Bell, this is just a "leak," a pinhole, relatively speaking. But what is leaking? Where is all that gas coming from? And why is 700 square miles of land subsiding, inch by inch, year by year? The fumarole, it turns out, is just the visible tip of an iceberg. A disaster of monstrous proportions is brewing. Bell wants the fumarole plugged in order to study the problem, but the hot gas is carrying with it a rare-earth element worth billions, an element with military applications. The U.S. government wants Bell to shut up and go away; Drew Gannon wants Bell dead; 14-year-old Lissa Bell just wants to spend the summer with her dad; and gorgeous ex-model Kate is caught in the middle, forced into a disturbing agenda of her own. Forces of nature, government, greed, and love collide with the potential for an explosion that could make a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault look like a whisper in the wind.

Unstolen: You can steal, but you can't hide


Tony Batton - 2018
    Almost.
 He returns stolen items to their rightful owners.
 For a price.

 A man has to make a living, and Jake more than most. Because he's still paying for mistakes made a long time ago. And they weren't even his.

The Plantagenet Vendetta


John Paul Davis - 2014
    They were secretly created during the final hours of the reign of Richard III. Their sole purpose to hunt down and eliminate the descendents of his murderer.By any means necessary.Over five hundred years later the long reign of King James III of England comes to an unexpected end. Less than a week later, the bodies of two Cabinet ministers are discovered in a burning car. Though the deaths of all three are initially assumed to be unconnected, a chance arrest in London yields a bizarre confession. And a sinister warning...Thomas Winchester has been waging war on the enemies of his family ever since graduating from Sandhurst. Youngest nephew of the king, he is celebrated as one of MI5's finest agents - the only man capable of taking on the Royal Family's biggest crisis in recent memory.Meanwhile, a quiet village in the North York Moors mourns a tragic loss. A young girl has vanished, allegedly the victim of a deranged boy who later committed suicide. A year on, television researcher Jennifer Farrelly is sent to follow up the story. The body was never found, and the girl's parents have not given up hope of finding her alive.A locked door in the medieval vaults of a remote Yorkshire church hides something strange: something with the potential to expose a previously untold chapter of England's darkest history. As Farrelly's search for the truth causes her to unwittingly cross paths with that of the royals, she and Winchester have no choice but to form a unique alliance to uncover a secret many have died to protect - a secret that still threatens the very foundation of the monarchy...

He Made Me (a Booker & Cash Story Book 2)


Oliver Tidy - 2017
    Someone is demanding a lot of money from her husband and she wants to know why.What do the dying words of one man - he made me - actually mean?As the mystery unfolds people will come undone and reputations will be ruined before the answer becomes clear.At the end of the day Mrs Swaine might end up wishing she’d let sleeping dogs lie… Also available in the Booker & Cash series: Bad Sons

Justice for All (A Holt Foundation Story Book 1)


Chris Patchell - 2019
    But all that changes when, after a romantic birthday with her fiancée, Elizabeth returns home, unaware a secret watcher has unimaginably horrible plans for her. Left for dead . . . Days after the attack, Elizabeth emerges from a coma, but she is irrevocably changed. Compelled to find her attacker and find justice, she travels down a dark path that forces her to choose between love and her obsession--not just for herself, but other survivors. Justice or vengeance... Forced to choose between obsession and love, Elizabeth doggedly pursues justice for the victims of other crimes, while her attacker remains at large. Until finally she gets a call with the news she’s been waiting twelve years for. But what Elizabeth learns could tear her life apart...

The Other Side of Goodbye (Norman Green Book 1)


Ben Follows - 2018
    He has created a career out of working for those the police have turned their back on. The only people he won't work with are child abusers, rapists, and journalists. However, when Robin Sweetwater, a journalist working for the same paper that destroyed Norman's athletic career, comes begging for help, Norman finds himself dragged into the same web of lies and deception that destroyed his life once before. In order to find the truth surrounding the alleged suicide of Robin's younger brother, a star athlete himself, Norman will need to wade through the dark depths of his past and unravel a conspiracy stretching farther than he could ever have imagined. Praise for Ben Follows's novels: "Explosive, extraordinary and engrossing; this is how I would describe this exceptional book. The Absence of Screams is a sensational crime/thriller novel that chilled me to my core from beginning to end." "What a great book. I found this book in my hands every time I had a spare minute. " "I couldn't go to sleep until I finished this book." "Ben Follows does it again; another excellent read by an accomplished writer."

Lisa Emmer Historical Thrillers Vol. 1-2


Rob Swigart - 2016
    Raimond Foix, her friend and mentor in the study of ancient documents. Horrified, Lisa finds clues at the crime scene left behind for her by her mentor—clues to secrets kept hidden for centuries, one of which is Lisa’s own identity, secret even from her.Since she was a child Lisa had suffered from uncontrollable fugue states. Now she discovers just in time that what she always thought was a liability may in fact be an almost paranormal ability to see things in ways others cannot.Who will like it: Fans of intrepid women sleuths will love Lisa, as well as anyone smitten with the romance of the ancient world, and action-adventure in historical fiction and thriller conspiracies, (especially those involving the Catholic church, like The DaVinci Code).A must-read for fans of Steve Berry, Dan Brown and Raymond Khoury!  Vol. 1: THE DELPHI AGENDA THE INQUISITION IS BACK! AND THIS TIME THEY HAVE TECHNOLOGY. Papyrologist Lisa Emmer’s friend and mentor, esteemed Paris historian Dr. Raimond Foix, has been savagely murdered. Now Lisa is not only a prime suspect in the murder investigation, but also smack-dab in the cross-hairs of a deadly commando group that proves to be none other than a contemporary offshoot of the Inquisition. They want an ancient document that reveals a secret so explosive it could change the world—a document they’ve been tracking for centuries. Led by a sadistic priest and a vicious but very accomplished nun with excellent military cred, their mission is to destroy the document—no matter what the cost in blood. Desperate to clear her name and to stay alive, with the help of a handsome yet mysterious banker, Lisa must solve the clues and uncover the millennia-old secret before her adversaries can find and destroy it. The trail leads everywhere from ancient cemeteries and tombs throughout France to Istanbul and Greece, as Lisa and Steve desperately stay one step ahead of their enemies, solving the clues to a dangerous treasure hunt their lives now depend upon.  Vol. 2: TABLET OF DESTINIES JOB DESCRIPTION: DELPHIC ORACLE, CURRENTLY SERVING TO-DOS: STOP APOCALYPSE. ASAP! A clay tablet turns up, containing a prophecy of demons, a snake goddess, and the birth of a “disruptive” miraculous child. A prophecy so dangerous the tablet was smashed to bits, and the shards scattered to all the cities of the ancient world to prevent reassembling, until a Jesuit scholar's vision sets the prophecy in motion in Paris, where the pieces have lain for centuries, half a world and three millennia away from their source. Yet very close to the current home of Lisa Emmer, chosen the Pythia, head of the Delphi Agenda because of her gift of sight, and trained in ancient world studies by a mentor who promised to "teach you life"; more accurately, he might have said "teach you to save the world from evil.