Book picks similar to
The Things you find in Rockpools by Gregg Dunnett
mystery
thriller
fiction
book-club
Blood for Blood
Victoria Selman - 2019
Now one is profiling her.Rush hour, London. A packed commuter train is torn apart in a collision. Picking through the carnage, ex-special forces profiler Ziba MacKenzie helps a dying woman who passes on a cryptic message: He did it. You have to tell someone.When a corpse is found bearing the gruesome signature of a serial killer dormant for twenty-five years, Ziba is pulled into the hunt for the perpetrator. As the body count rises it becomes clear he’s on a new spree. But what’s brought the London Lacerator back after such a long hiatus? And does his sudden return have anything to do with the woman on the train?Ziba scrambles to profile the killer in the hope of predicting his next move. But time is running out. And the closer she gets to uncovering his identity, the closer he gets to destroying hers.
Suspect
Michael Robotham - 2004
But Joe's snug, happy world is crumbling. Recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, he's dreading the inevitable and all too palpable deterioration of his body and mind. Then, when the police ask for his help in solving the brutal murder of a woman they assume is a prostitute, he's horrified to recognize the victim as a nurse he once worked with, and with whom he had a bit of a past. As Joe begins to suspect that one of his patients may be responsible, the police zero in on him.Michael Robotham possesses the rare ability to create fully believable characters, fashion terrific dialogue, and generate nonstop suspense. Suspect is a powerhouse first novel, intricately crafted and chillingly authentic.
Mr. Mercedes
Stephen King - 2014
They are tired and cold and desperate. Emerging from the fog, invisible until it is too late, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes.Months later, an ex-cop named bill Hodges, still haunted by the unsolved crime, contemplates suicide. When he gets a crazed letter from "the perk," claiming credit for the murders, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, fearing another even more diabolical attack and hell-bent on preventing it.Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again. Only Bill Hodges, with a couple of eccentric and mismatched allies, can apprehend the killer before he strikes again. And they have no time to lose, because Brady's next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands.Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.--front flap
Irreparable Harm
Melissa F. Miller - 2011
Downloaded by more than one million readers!Attorney Sasha McCandless has one goal: Make partner at the best firm in town. Then a plum assignment plunges her into a world of deceit and danger.When a commercial flight crashes, killing everyone on board, she's tapped to defend the airline. It's her big chance ... high-stakes litigation for an important client. But, as she digs into the evidence, people close to the case start dying.She discovers the crash was intentional, caused by a smartphone app capable of overriding the cockpit controls. But she's not sure who she can trust with the horrifying truth. She teams up with a federal air marshal, and they race to prevent another airline disaster.Soon, Sasha finds herself with a brand-new life goal: Stop a madman before he kills her.
The Silent Daughter
Claire Amarti - 2020
Blonde hair waterfalling over her shoulders, serious eyes, lips a little parted like she's about to speak. That's when I realize I've been holding my breath, because the gasp when I inhale almost chokes me.Sadie Kelly has lost her job. Until last month, she was a teacher at Horton College – the same high school she went to ten years ago along with her best friend, Fiona. But Fiona died in an accident on their graduation night, in circumstances Sadie's spent the last ten years trying to forget, and since then nothing's been the same.Now Sadie's back in the small Connecticut town where she grew up, jobless and living temporarily with Fiona's mother. But when she hears that a Horton schoolgirl has gone missing, everything changes. Because the missing girl is Devon Hundley - daughter of Philip Hundley, a man Sadie knows all too well…
The Chain
Adrian McKinty - 2019
But a cell phone call from an unknown number changes everything: it's a woman on the line, informing her that she has Kylie bound and gagged in her back seat, and the only way Rachel will see her again is to follow her instructions exactly: pay a ransom, and find another child to abduct. This is no ordinary kidnapping: the caller is a mother herself, whose son has been taken, and if Rachel doesn't do as she's told, the boy will die. "You are not the first. And you will certainly not be the last." Rachel is now part of The Chain, an unending and ingenious scheme that turns victims into criminals—and is making someone else very rich in the process. The rules are simple, the moral challenges impossible; find the money fast, find your victim, and then commit a horrible act you'd have thought yourself incapable of just twenty-four hours ago. But what the masterminds behind The Chain know is that parents will do anything for their children. It turns out that kidnapping is only the beginning.
After Anna
Alex Lake - 2015
A girl is missing. Five years old, taken from outside her school. She has vanished, traceless. The police are at a loss; her parents are beyond grief. Their daughter is lost forever, perhaps dead, perhaps enslaved. But the biggest mystery is yet to come: one week after she was abducted, their daughter is returned. She has no memory of where she has been. And this, for her mother, is just the beginning of the nightmare.
Hard Rain
Irma Venter - 2012
It starts when he meets Ranna, a beautiful photographer with something to hide. Alex stopped believing in love a long time ago, yet here in the middle of East Africa, it’s found him again.Alex knows a thing or two about chaos—wherever he goes, it follows. When an IT billionaire washes up onshore after seasonal flooding, he finds himself at the center of an investigation with Ranna as the main suspect. It turns out she may have a good reason for hiding her past.Wherever she goes, murder follows.Alex should be used to these cat-and-mouse games, but this time it’s different. Should he listen to his heart and help Ranna hide the bloody trail leading to her? Or should he use his head and run for his life?
The Girl with a Clock for a Heart
Peter Swanson - 2014
When George first met her, she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman from Sweetgum, Florida. She and George became inseparable in their first fall semester, so George was devastated when he got the news that she had committed suicide over Christmas break. But, as he stood in the living room of the girl's grieving parents, he realized the girl in the photo on their mantelpiece - the one who had committed suicide - was not his girlfriend. Later, he discovered the true identity of the girl he had loved - and of the things she may have done to escape her past.Now, twenty years later, she's back, and she's telling George that he's the only one who can help her...
Sweet Water
Cara Reinard - 2021
Marriage to her childhood sweetheart, Martin. Living in a historic mansion in Pennsylvania’s most exclusive borough. And Finn, a teenage son with so much promise. Until…A call for help in the middle of the night leads Sarah and Martin to the woods, where they find Finn, injured, dazed, and weeping near his girlfriend’s dead body. Convinced he’s innocent, Sarah and Martin agree to protect their son at any cost and not report the crime.But there are things Sarah finds hard to reconcile: a cover-up by Martin’s family that’s so unnervingly cold-blooded. Finn’s lies to the authorities are too comfortable, too proficient, not to arouse her suspicions. Even the secrets of the old house she lives in seem to be connected to the incident. As each troubling event unfolds, Sarah must decide how far she’ll go to save her perfect life.
Dear Daughter
Elizabeth Little - 2014
A change of clothes. A wig. An inconspicuous sedan. We doubled back once, twice, then drove south when we were really headed east. In San Francisco we had a girl who looked like me board a plane to Hawaii.Oh, I thought I was so clever.But you probably already know that I'm not.LA IT girl Janie Jenkins has it all. The looks, the brains, the connections. The criminal record.Ten years ago, in a trial that transfixed America, Janie was convicted of murdering her mother. Now she's been released on a technicality she's determined to unravel the mystery of her mother's last words, words that send her to a tiny town in the very back of beyond. But with the whole of America's media on her tail, convinced she's literally got away with murder, she has to do everything she can to throw her pursuers off the scent.She knows she really didn't like her mother. Could she have killed her?
Watch Me Disappear
Janelle Brown - 2017
No body—only a hiking boot—has ever been found. Billie’s husband and teenage daughter cope with her death the best they can: Jonathan drinks, Olive grows remote.But then Olive starts having waking dreams—or are they hallucinations?—that her mother is still alive. Jonathan worries about Olive’s emotional stability, until he starts unearthing secrets from Billie’s past that bring into question everything he thought he knew about his wife. Together, Olive and Jonathan embark on a quest for the truth—about Billie, their family, and the stories we tell ourselves about the people we love.
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
The Au Pair
Emma Rous - 2019
Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle.Now an adult, Seraphine mourns the recent death of her father. While going through his belongings, she uncovers a family photograph that raises dangerous questions. It was taken on the day the twins were born, and in the photo, their mother, surrounded by her husband and her young son, is beautifully dressed, smiling serenely, and holding just one baby.Who is the child and what really happened that day?One person knows the truth, if only Seraphine can find her.
Two Girls Down
Louisa Luna - 2018
Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemic, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan. Cap is a man trying to put the scandal of his past behind him and move on, but Vega needs his help to find the girls, and she will not be denied. With little to go on, Vega and Cap will go to extraordinary lengths to untangle a dangerous web of lies, false leads, and complex relationships to find the girls before time runs out, and they are gone forever.