The King of Lies


John Hart - 2006
    But does that make her capable of a vicious murder? Fearing the worst, Work launches his own investigation, crossing paths with a power-hungry detective, a string of damning evidence, and the ugly rumors that swirl within his small, moneyed Southern town.Desperate for the redemption that has eluded him for so many years and stripped of everything he once valued, he fights to save his sister and clear his name--in this poignant and thrilling anatomy of a murder and its ripple effect within a family and a community.

99 Red Balloons


Elisabeth Carpenter - 2017
    What would you do if one was your daughter? When eight-year-old Grace goes missing from a sweetshop on the way home from school, her mother Emma is plunged into a nightmare. Her family rallies around, but as the police hunt begins, cracks begin to emerge.What are the secret emails sent between Emma’s husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is Emma really as innocent as she seems?Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Taylor sees Grace’s picture in the newspaper. It’s a photograph that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with another girl – the first girl who disappeared…

The Babysitter


Sheryl Browne - 2018
    Would you trust her with your life? Mark and Melissa Cain are thrilled to have found Jade, a babysitter who is brilliant with their young children. Having seen her own house burn to the ground, Jade needs them as much as they need her. Moving Jade into the family home can only be a good thing, can’t it? As Mark works long hours as a police officer and Melissa struggles with running a business, the family become ever more reliant on their babysitter, who is only too happy to help. And as Melissa begins to slip into depression, it’s Jade who is left picking up the pieces. But Mark soon notices things aren’t quite as they seem. Things at home feel wrong, and as Mark begins to investigate their seemingly perfect sitter, what he discovers shocks him to his core. He’s met Jade before. And now he suspects he might know what she wants … Mark is in a race against time to protect his family. But what will he find as he goes back to his family home?

Into the Inferno


Earl Emerson - 2003
    In a frantic race against time, one man must unlock the secret to his own potential demise and that of his entire department—as they venture . . . INTO THE INFERNO In the freezing heart of the Pacific Northwest winter, a group of firefighters from North Bend Fire and Rescue responds to a freeway accident. Two trucks have collided on the icy pavement. One of the trucks was transporting livestock; the other carried within its cargo an unmarked, innocuous-looking container. Now the highway is chaos with irate drivers, volunteer fire crews, and hundreds of escaped chickens. The trucks are cleared, the highway reopens, and another day ends. But the repercussions of the crash are enormous. For six months later, the firefighters who were at the scene begin to mysteriously succumb to unexplained accidents and ailments. Jim Swope wakes up with the first, strange symptom—a symptom of an unknown disease that renders its victims brain-dead within a week. Now he has only seven days to determine how he and his fellow firefighters have been poisoned—and to discover an antidote . . . if one exists. If he doesn’t, these will be the last seven days of his life.In a red-hot pursuit to the end, Earl Emerson puts real-life heroes up against seemingly insurmountable odds. Intense in the third degree, Into the Inferno is a brilliant melding of fact and thriller. Prepare yourself for the sweltering heat of wickedly good suspense.

Immoral


Brian Freeman - 2005
    For the second time in a year, a beautiful teenage girl has disappeared off the streets of Duluth, Minnesota—gone without a trace, like a bitter gust off Lake Superior. The two victims couldn’t be more different.  First it was Kerry McGrath, bubbly, sweet sixteen.  And now Rachel Deese, strange, sexually charged, a wild child.  The media hounds Stride to catch a serial killer, and as the search carries him from the icy stillness of the northern woods to the erotic heat of Las Vegas, he must decide which facts are real and which are illusions.  And Stride finds his own life changed forever by the secrets he uncovers.  Secrets that stretch across time in a web of lies, death, and illicit desire.  Secrets that are chillingly…immoral.

Hush


Anne Frasier - 2002
    None haunts her dreams more than the killer who took her son's life sixteen years ago, then silently disappeared into the dark. Now an urgent request for help from the Chicago police has reawakened Ivy's greatest nightmare. The Madonna Murderer has returned to fulfill his calling. This time Ivy understands the killer instinct. She knows what man is capable of. This time she's ready to confront her deepest fear, face-to-face. For the very last time...

An Ace and A Pair


Blake Banner - 2017
    But he’s a dinosaur who belongs to another age. Detective Carmen Dehan has such a bad attitude that nobody at the precinct can stomach her. Captain Jennifer Cuevas wants them both out of the way and thinks they make a perfect pair. So she gives them the Cold Cases file – the cases nobody gives a damn about.She has no idea just how hot a cold case can get.Ten years back Nelson Hernandez and his four cousins were playing poker in a dive at Hunts Point. Somebody came in, blew them away and beheaded and castrated Nelson, leaving his head and his balls on the table. There was no shortage of suspects, the Jersey Mob, the Triads from Manhattan, or the 43rds own bent cop, Mick Harragan. But nobody was ever charged, and the night of the murder Mick Harragan went missing with Nelson’s wife, Maria.Now Stone and Dehan plan to find him – whatever the consequences…

Hit Man


Lawrence Block - 1998
    Keller goes in, does the job, gets out: usually at a few hours’ notice . . . Often Keller’s work takes him out of New York to other cities, to pretty provincial towns that almost tempt him into moving to the woods and the lakeshores. Almost but not quite. But then one job goes wrong in a way Keller has never imagined and it leaves him with a big problem. Finding himself with an orphan on his hands, Keller's job begins to interfere with his carefully guarded life. And once you let someone in to your life, they tend to want to know what you do when you're away. And killing for a living, lucrative though it is, just doesn't find favour with some folks.

One Last Child


Anni Taylor - 2020
    The heat was stifling that day, the tinkle of an ice-cream van in the air....Three-and-a-half years later, in the dead of winter, the children are returned to their families...one by one.All except for Ivy - the granddaughter of Homicide Detective Kate Wakeland. The other four children say Ivy is dead.Speculation grows that the mysterious abductor is enacting a cruel revenge plot due to a murderer that Kate put in jail years before.Kate isn't sure what to believe. But one thing is certain - she's about to begin the battle of her life. When the children were first stolen, she was prevented from investigating the case.But now, Kate will be relentless in uncovering the identity of the abductor and discovering what happened to Ivy.

Look Behind You


Sibel Hodge - 2014
    She escapes through deserted woods with her life, but no one believes her story.And when she suspects her husband is lying to her, Chloe is forced to retrace her past, following in her own footsteps to find the truth and stay alive.But who is following Chloe?Look Behind You. You never know who’s out there.

Like a Charm


Karin SlaughterPeter Robinson - 2004
    In Like A Charm, the cream of British and American crime writers combine for a must-have collection. From nineteenth-century Georgia, where the bracelet is forged in fire, to wartime Leeds, a steam train across Europe, the violent backstreets of 1980s Scotland, present-day London, a Manhattan taxi, the Mojave desert and back to Georgia, each writer weaves a gripping story of murder, betrayal and intrigue.

The Rosary Girls


Richard Montanari - 2005
    Now Montanari has written an astounding novel that pits two besieged detectives against a fiercely intelligent serial killer.Sprawling beneath the statue of William Penn, Philadelphia is a city of downtrodden crack houses and upscale brownstones. Somewhere in this concrete crazy quilt, one teenage Catholic girl is writing in her diary, another is pouring her heart out to a friend, and yet another is praying. And somewhere in this city is a man who wants these young women to make his macabre fantasy become reality. In a passion play of his own, he will take the girls–and a whole city–over the edge.Kevin Byrne is a veteran cop who already knows that edge: He’s been living on it far too long. His marriage failing, his former partner wasting away in a hospital, and his heart lost to mad fury, Byrne loves to take risks and is breaking every rule in the book. And now he has been given a rookie partner. Jessica Balzano, the daughter of a famous Philly cop, doesn’t want Byrne’s help. But they will need each other desperately, since they’ve just caught the case of a lifetime: Someone is killing devout young women, bolting their hands together in prayer, and committing an abomination upon their otherwise perfect bodies.Byrne and Balzano spearhead the hunt for the serial killer, who leads them on a methodically planned journey. Suspects appear before them like bad dreams–and vanish just as quickly. And while Byrne’s sins begin to catch up with him, and Balzano tries to solve the blood-splattered puzzle, the body count rises. Meanwhile, the calendar is approaching Easter and the day of the resurrection. When the last rosary is counted, a madman’s methods will be revealed, and the final crime will be the one that hurts the most.Relentlessly paced and vividly told, The Rosary Girls is a smart, emotionally complex, fiercely gripping thriller from an author who takes chances, breaks new ground, and leaves readers haunted and moved long after the last page is turned.

If Snow Hadn't Fallen


Sharon J. Bolton - 2012
    Long-smouldering feelings come to a head in a burst of shocking violence. A young Muslim man is brutally murdered by a masked gang.There is just one witness to the horrific crime: DC Lacey Flint. Or at least that's what she thinks...

The Confession


John Grisham - 2010
    He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched in amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row.Now nine years have passed. Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess. But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?

The Girl Who Lived


Christopher Greyson - 2017
    One girl lived. No one believes her story. The police think she’s crazy. Her therapist thinks she’s suicidal. Everyone else thinks she’s a dangerous drunk. They’re all right—but did she see the killer? As the anniversary of the murders approaches, Faith Winters is released from the psychiatric hospital and yanked back to the last spot on earth she wants to be—her hometown where the slayings took place. Wracked by the lingering echoes of survivor’s guilt, Faith spirals into a black hole of alcoholism and wanton self-destruction. Finding no solace at the bottom of a bottle, Faith decides to track down her sister’s killer—and then discovers that she’s the one being hunted. How can one woman uncover the truth when everyone’s a suspect—including herself? From the mind of Wall Street Journal bestselling author Christopher Greyson comes a story with twists and turns that take the reader on a journey of light and dark, good and evil, to the edge of madness. The Girl Who Lived should come with a warning label: Once you start reading, you won’t be able to stop. Not since Girl on the Train and Gone Girl has a psychological thriller kept readers so addicted—and guessing right until the last page.