Book picks similar to
Valentino: Film Detective by Loren D. Estleman
short-stories
fiction
movies
mystery
A Woman Scorned
John Locke - 2020
Virtually broke, they turn to embarrassing home invasions and petty hits to rebuild their nest egg. In addition to each other, Callie and Creed have dreams. Creed’s is to retire and live in a scenic lake house. Callie’s is to romance a local hot mom. The same hot mom who happens to be the target of a creepy, dangerous stalker named Walter Develin.
Brahma Rakshas: The Monster Within
Sandiip N. Paatil - 2021
At 11, he looks big and strong for his age. His kind mother, Geeta is a rural Indian archetype: the overworked, stressed-out, barely-keeping-it- together single mother. His father is in prison for multiple robbery cases. The villagers are cold and overbearing, and his schooldays are made hellish by bullies. If this wasn’t enough, he has nightmares and uncanny callings from the age-old monstrous Peepal tree that lays on his way to school. The legend is a monster called Brahma Rakshas, living under this tree, for years unknown to people, lures kids with the black devil fruits and then makes them wrestle until one dies.And, one stormy night, the legend comes true when Brahma Rakshas meets Sarja. Set in a fictional village of Deogiri; a small haven of human civilization, away from the din of city life, this story is an adventure ride filled with riddles and monster wrestling.
Caliber Detective Agency - Box Set - Case Files 7-12
Donald Wells - 2013
CALIBER DETECTIVE AGENCY - Box Set - Case Files 7-12
CASE FILE # 7
The Calibers tackle three new cases.A man believes someone is out to kill him in case one, while in case two, a worried father hires the detective agency to look into his daughter's shady fiancé.The third case is more of a favor, as the old man and Kelli travel to Texas to help out family.Blue Steele makes a cameo appearance.
CASE FILE # 8
The old man and Blue Steele engage in a friendly shooting contest, but then the client arrives and Jake gets down to business. Chris and Velma reveal their true feelings for each other, despite knowing that they can never be together.
CASE FILE # 9
As Jake learns more about Victor Jansen's inner circle, Chris and Velma set out to sting the target of their investigation.And in Texas, the old man investigates the disappearance of James Preston, and by doing so, he places himself and Kelli in jeopardy.
CASE FILE # 10
The old man proves once again that he's the real deal and gets one step closer to solving the mystery of James Preston.Jake uncovers treachery within the Jansen inner circle and later saves his client's life.Meanwhile, Velma learns something meaningful about her husband's nurse.
CASE FILE # 11
Chris and Velma run their sting operation on Remmi Harlow, and then later on, Velma makes a confession.Jake becomes jealous over Kelli's new boyfriend, but with help from a friend, he may just win her back.And after the old man visits Remmi Harlow in jail, he solves the mystery of James Preston.
CASE FILE # 12
Jake and Kelli reunite, and later, Jake discovers where the illegal guns are coming from.After the old man verifies that his hunch is correct, he brings the hammer down on the man behind the disappearance of James Preston.Velma and Chris share an intimate moment as a fortunate turn of events takes place.
COMING SOON!
CALIBER DETECTIVE AGENCY - BOX SET - CASE FILES 13-18
Visit the Caliber Detective Agency website at: thecaliberdetectiveagency.com
Keller's Adjustment; Forever
Ed McBain - 2006
In the Aftermath of 9/11, Keller is questioning his life and the choices he's made, dealing out philosophy and murder on a meandering road trip from one end of the America to the other."Forever" by Jeffery Deaver: Talbot Simms is an unusual cop. He's a statistician with the Westbrook County Sheriff's Department. When wealthy county resident's begin killing themselves one after another, Simms begins to believe that there is something more at play. And what he discovers will change his life . . . forever.
The Other End
John Shirley - 2007
But when you look around at the world as it stands you see Darfur, you see Somalia and the Congo, you see the modern slavery of indentured servitude, you see children sold into prostitution, you see millions starving, you see mindless wars, you see people you care about dying of Alzheimer's and children dying of cancer and millions of others trapped in schizophrenia or living lives of media-hypnotized desperation... And you know that it's only going to get worse. This can't go on; something has to change. What if you could change it? What if you could design your own Judgment Day? Not a Judgment Day based on childish interpretations of religion, on bias and cultural narrowness... What if you could design a Judgment Day, for the whole world--one that offers real Justice?What would it be like? In John Shirley's novel, THE OTHER END, a wave of light shatters the world's assumptions; human behavior takes a sudden unexpected turn. Swift, a newspaper reporter, has to find his missing daughter in a panicking world even as something from Every Where makes millions of people suddenly look inward. And looking inward, strangely, takes them outward again... And then come the Adjustors. Who are they? Where exactly are they from? They say they're not angels, or aliens... Then who are they? The usual End Timers offer one End of the World as We Know It... John Shirley's courageous, genuinely risky new novel offers the other end. The other end of the ideological spectrum; the other end of the world. Does it involve...aliens? No. Does it involve God? Not really--but then, it depends on your definition. John Shirley, the award-winning author of DEMONS, IN DARKNESS WAITING, CELLARS, A SPLENDID CHAOS, ECLIPSE, BLACK BUTTERFLIES, and so much more gives us a totally unexpected Judgment Day. Something is coming, to near-future Earth--to the whole world. Something is coming that will finally give the human race the chance it never had before...to bring it to THE OTHER END.
Line of Sight
James Queally - 2020
Until Keyonna Jackson, a social justice activist, presents him with a troubling video: a made-for-Youtube cell phone snippet chronicling the same kind of questionable use-of-force that had set New York City, Ferguson, and Cleveland on fire in recent years. The same use-of-force that he’s been covering up for Newark PD.Now, the young black man who filmed this video is dead and the more questions Russell asks, the less his cop buddies like him. For the first time in his life, Russell finds himself on the wrong side of the guys with the badges and guns. When details of the shooting become public―and a city with race riots in its DNA flirts with the idea of letting history repeat itself―Russell finds himself allying with street activists and gang members as he races to put together the biggest story of his life… before the city he needs to tell it to burns down around him.
Perfect Victim
Jan Christensen - 2013
Warren Wade's fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, he has no alibi, and Sylvia broke up with him the night she was killed. After another young woman friend of Sylvia's is bludgeoned to death, Paula is dismayed when the police keep Warren in jail. They claim the second murder could have been committed by a copy-cat and remind her Warren's fingerprints are still on the weapon that killed Sylvia.Working with her best friend who often hires Paula to investigate cases and who is Warren’s lawyer, Paula searches for answers. Paula and her computer guru lover narrow down the suspects to the victim's friends. The group is led by a mesmeric young man with political ambitions. Paula doesn’t trust him, especially when she learns that all of Sylvia's friends have lied during her interviews. At the preliminary hearing, some answers begin to emerge. Paula zeros in on the killer and sees firsthand how friendship and loyalty can be used for personal gain. With Warren’s freedom on the line, she has to find a way to capture the real killer. But in doing so, she doesn't realize she’s putting herself and her own best friend in danger.First in a series featuring Paula as a feisty private investigator.
Sweet Hearts
Melanie Rae Thon - 2001
After eight years in juvenile detention and an escape from the Landers School for Boys, Flint returns home to the one person he loves and trust, his sister Cecile. Together they rob and terrorize a local doctor, steal their mother’s car, and strike out alone on a desperate journey south to the Crow Indian Reservation their ancestors once lived upon. But is Cecile Flint’s accomplice or his hostage? No one knows. Only Marie Zimmer, the children’s deaf aunt, understands the strange logic of their crimes, desires, fears, and devotion to each other. Marie has stories to tell, and though she will not speak, she is the only one bold enough to share the tale of Flint and Cecile. In this devastatingly passionate story, the tales of a silent woman struggling to unravel the web of generational family violence are revealed through the celebration of life in the midst of sorrow. In the fierce light of her imagination, Marie interweaves the past and the present, inventing a language of signs subtle enough to illuminate the mysterious ways we are all connected.
The Tin Collectors / The Viking Funeral
Stephen J. Cannell - 2005
Or was his mind playing tricks? Shane's lover, Alexa Hamilton, herself a lauded LAPD officer, happens to think so. But Shane knows what he saw. And for a rogue cop with nothing left to lose, the search for Dean has become more than an investigation. It's become an obsession.The first clue to Dean's secret lifeand suspicious deathis murder. The victim is Dean's former commanding officer. The connection taps into a corrupt, high-level conspiracy among L.A.'s finest that will put Shane and everyone he loves in harm's way. It will cut deep into the heart of betrayal and the meaning of friendship. And it will dare one cop already on the brink of madness to take on step further into darkness...
The Concrete Blonde & The Last Coyote (Harry Bosch, #3-4)
Michael Connelly - 2008
The Second Universe in Flames Trilogy - Books 4 to 6
Christian Kallias - 2017
Powers Unlocked. An Alliance is Born.Ten thousand years ago, the Furies nearly exterminated all life in the universe before being defeated by a coalition of worlds led by the Olympians.Or so everyone thought.Now they're back, and a new reign of terror has begun.
Jack of Spades
Joyce Carol Oates - 2015
Rush has achieved the kind of critical and commercial success most authors only dream about: He has a top agent and publisher in New York, and his twenty-eight mystery novels have sold millions of copies. Only Stephen King, one of the few mystery writers whose fame exceeds his own, is capable of inspiring a twinge of envy in Rush. But Rush is hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym "Jack of Spades," he pens another string of novels—noir thrillers that are violent, lurid, masochistic. These are novels that the upstanding Rush wouldn't be caught reading, let alone writing. When his daughter comes across a Jack of Spades novel he has carelessly left out, she picks it up and begins to ask questions. Meanwhile, Rush receives a court summons in the mail explaining that a local woman has accused him of plagiarizing her own self-published fiction. Before long, Rush's reputation, career, and family life all come under threat—and in his mind he begins to hear the taunting voice of the Jack of Spades.
Talking to the Dead
Harry Bingham - 2012
. . . At first, the murder scene appears sad, but not unusual: a young woman undone by drugs and prostitution, her six-year-old daughter dead alongside her. But then detectives find a strange piece of evidence in the squalid house: the platinum credit card of a very wealthy--and long dead--steel tycoon. What is a heroin-addicted hooker doing with the credit card of a well-known and powerful man who died months ago? This is the question that the most junior member of the investigative team, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, is assigned to answer.But D.C. Griffiths is no ordinary cop. She's earned a reputation at police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, for being odd, for not picking up on social cues, for being a little overintense. And there's that gap in her past, the two-year hiatus that everyone assumes was a breakdown. But Fiona is a crack investigator, quick and intuitive. She is immediately drawn to the crime scene, and to the tragic face of the six-year-old girl, who she is certain has something to tell her . . . something that will break the case wide open.Ignoring orders and protocol, Fiona begins to explore far beyond the rich man's credit card and into the secrets of her seaside city. And when she uncovers another dead prostitute, Fiona knows that she's only begun to scratch the surface of a dark world of crime and murder. But the deeper she digs, the more danger she risks--not just from criminals and killers but from her own past . . . and the abyss that threatens to pull her back at any time.