Book picks similar to
The Fan Club by Irving Wallace
fiction
thriller
irving-wallace
mystery
Lost Boy Lost Girl
Peter Straub - 2003
A week later, her son -- fifteen-year-old Mark -- vanishes. The boy's uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before Nancy's suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from basement to attic with the echoes of a long hidden true-life horror story, and Tim comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.
Her Last Breath
Hilary Davidson - 2021
However, her sorrow turns to bone-chilling confusion when she receives a message Caroline sent days earlier warning that her death would be no accident. Long used to being a pariah to her family, Deirdre covers her tattoos and heads to Manhattan for her sister’s funeral.The message claimed Caroline’s husband, Theo, killed his first wife and got away with it. Reeling from the news, Deirdre confronts Theo on the way to the cemetery, and he reveals both his temper and his suspicion that Deirdre’s “perfect” sister was having an affair.Paranoid and armed with just enough information to make her dangerous, Deirdre digs into the disturbing secrets buried with Caroline. But as she gets closer to the truth, she realizes that her own life may be at risk…and that there may be more than one killer in the family.
The Banker’s Wife
Cristina Alger - 2018
Soon after, it simply drops off the radar, and its wreckage is later uncovered in the Alps. Among the disappeared is Matthew Werner, a banking insider at Swiss United, a powerful offshore bank. His young widow, Annabel, is left grappling with the secrets he left behind, including an encrypted laptop and a shady client list. As she begins a desperate search for answers, she determines that Matthew's death was no accident, and that she is now in the crosshairs of his powerful enemies. Meanwhile, ambitious society journalist Marina Tourneau has finally landed at the top. Now that she's engaged to Grant Ellis, she will stop writing about powerful families and finally be a part of one. Her entry into the upper echelons of New York's social scene is more appealing than any article could ever be, but, after the death of her mentor, she agrees to dig into one more story. While looking into Swiss United, Marina uncovers information that implicates some of the most powerful men in the financial world, including a few who are too close to home. The story could also be the answer to Annabel's heartbreaking search--if Marina chooses to publish it.
Black Sunday
Thomas Harris - 1975
. . 80,000 people had better get ready to die. — The Super Bowl--where thousands have gathered for an all-American tradition. Suddenly it's the most terrifying place on earth . . . — Michael Lander is the most dangerous man in America. He pilots a television blimp over packed football stadiums every weekend. He is fascinated with explosives. And he happens to be very, very crazy. That's why a beautiful PLO operative has seduced him. That's why--on Super Bowl Sunday--the world will witness the bloody assassination of the U. S. president and the worst mass murder in history. Unless someone discovers what Michael Lander plans . . . and can kill him first.
Ghostman
Roger Hobbs - 2013
It’s what I do. This time I'm tidying up the loose ends after a casino heist gone bad. The loose ends being a million cash. But I only have 48 hours, and there’s a guy out there who wants my head in a bag.He'll have to find me first. They don’t call me the Ghostman for nothing...
Saving Max
Antoinette van Heugten - 2010
Until he's accused of murder.Attorney Danielle Parkman knows her teenage son Max's behavior has been getting worse—using drugs and lashing out. But she can't accept the diagnosis she receives at a top-notch adolescent psychiatric facility that her son is deeply disturbed. Dangerous.Until she finds Max, unconscious and bloodied, beside a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death.Trapped in a world of doubt and fear, barred from contacting Max, Danielle clings to the belief that her son is innocent. But has she, too, lost touch with reality? Is her son really a killer?With the justice system bearing down on them, Danielle steels herself to discover the truth, no matter what it is. She'll do whatever it takes to find the killer and to save her son from being destroyed by a system that's all too eager to convict him.
Clockers
Richard Price - 1992
His beat is a rough New Jersey neighborhood where the drug murders blur together, until the day Victor Dunham — a twenty-year-old with a steady job and a clean record — confesses to a shooting outside a fast-food joint. It doesn't take long for Rocco's attention to turn to Victor's brother, a street-corner crack dealer named Strike who seems a more likely suspect for the crime. At once an intense mystery, and a revealing study of two men on opposite sides of an unwinnable war, Clockers is a stunningly well-rendered chronicle of modern life on the streets.
Perfect Nightmare
John Saul - 2005
And what they might be after. Or whom. Now, ponder the unthinkable and surrender to your darkest dread, as sinister storyteller extraordinaire John Saul weaves a heart-stopping tale of lurking terror and twisted intent.Every parent’s nightmare becomes reality for Kara Marshall when her daughter, Lindsay, vanishes from her bedroom during the night. The police suspect that the girl is just another moody teenage runaway, angry over leaving behind her school and friends because her family is moving. But Lindsay’s recent eerie claim – that someone invaded her room when the house was opened to prospective buyers – drives Kara to fear the worst: a nameless, faceless stalker has walked the halls of her home in search of more than a place to live.Patrick Shields recognizes Kara’s pain – and carries plenty of his own since he lost his wife and two children in a devastating house fire. But more than grief draws Patrick and Kara together. He, too, senses the hand of a malevolent stranger in this tragedy. And as more people go missing from houses up for sale, Patrick’s suspicion, like Kara’s, blooms into horrified certainty. Someone is trolling this peaceful community – undetected and undeterred – harvesting victims for a purpose no sane mind can fathom. Someone Kara and Patrick, alone and desperate, are determined to unmask. Someone who is even now watching, plotting, keeping a demented diary of unspeakable deeds... and waiting until the time is ripe for another fateful visit.
Amagansett
Mark Mills - 2004
Little has changed in the three centuries since white settlers drove the Montaukett Indians from the land. But for Conrad Labarde, a second-generation Basque immigrant recently returned from the Second World War, and his fellow fisherman Rollo Kemp, this stability is shattered when a beautiful New York socialite turns up dead in their nets.On the face of it, her death was accidental, but deputy police chief Tom Hollis - an incomer from New York - is convinced the truth lies in the intricate histories and family secrets of Amagansett's inhabitants. Meanwhile the enigmatic Labarde is pursuing his own investigation.
True Fiction
Lee Goldberg - 2018
Now one of those schemes has come true, and Ian is the only person alive who knows how it was done...and who is behind the plot. That makes him too dangerous to live.Ian goes on the run, sweeping up an innocent bystander in his plight--Margo French, a dog walker and aspiring singer. They are pursued by assassins and an all-seeing global-intelligence network that won't stop until Ian and Margo are dead. Ian has written thrillers like this before, but this time he doesn't know how it's going to end--or if he will be alive to find out.
The Woods
Harlan Coben - 2007
Her body was never found. Now, Paul is the prosecutor for Essex County, New Jersey, immersed in one of the biggest cases of his career-a case that will change everything he believes about the past...and the truth.
Evelyn, After
Victoria Helen Stone - 2016
Her husband, a prestigious psychiatrist, has been in an accident. And he isn’t alone.Suddenly Evelyn’s world isn’t as tidy as she thought. And in the midst of it all is Juliette, not only her husband’s secret lover but also his patient. If news of the affair were to get out, it would ruin more than just Evelyn’s marriage. Although it’s a bitter pill for Evelyn to swallow, protecting her family means staying silent—even if, as she begins to discover, the night of the accident has consequences far more dangerous than the unmasking of an affair.But the more Evelyn learns about Juliette’s picture-perfect life—complete with a handsome, unsuspecting husband—the more she yearns for revenge…and satisfaction. Her growing obsession fuels her rage, burning away her complacency. What will be left of her after it flames out?
A Matter of Honor
Jeffrey Archer - 1986
A disgraced British colonel bequeaths a mysterious letter to his only son. But the moment Adam Scott opens the yellowing envelope, he sets into motion a deadly chain of events that threatens to shake the very foundations of the free world.Within days, Adam's lover is brutally murdered and he's running for his life through the great cities of Europe, pursued not only by the KGB, but by the CIA and his own countrymen as well. Their common intent is to kill him before the truth comes out. While powerful men in smoke-filled rooms plot ever more ingenious means of destroying him, Adam finds himself betrayed and abandoned even by those he holds most dear.When at last he comes to understand what he is in possession of, he's even more determined to protect it, for it's more than a matter of life and death-it's a matter of honor.
The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson - 1952
A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers--the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between--as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday.But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen. An urge that has already claimed multiple lives, and cost Lou his brother Mike, a self-sacrificing construction worker who fell to his death on the job in what was anything but an accident. A murder that Lou is determined to avenge--and if innocent people have to die in the process, well, that's perfectly all right with him.In The Killer Inside Me, Thompson goes where few novelists have dared to go, giving us a pitch-black glimpse into the mind of the American Serial Killer years before Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, in the novel that will forever be known as the master performance of one of the greatest crime novelists of all time.
And When She Was Good
Laura Lippman - 2012
But twenty years later, Heloise considers it a blessing to be a person who knows how to avoid attention. In the comfortable suburb where she lives, she's just a mom, the youngish widow with a forgettable job who somehow never misses a soccer game or a school play. In the state capitol, she's the redheaded lobbyist with a good cause and a mediocre track record.But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the area, she's the woman of your dreams—if you can afford her hourly fee.For more than a decade, Heloise has believed she is safe. She has created a rigidly compartmentalized life, maintaining no real friendships, trusting few confidantes. Only now her secret life, a life she was forced to build after the legitimate world turned its back on her, is under siege. Her once oblivious accountant is asking loaded questions. Her longtime protector is hinting at new, mysterious dangers. Her employees can't be trusted. One county over, another so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car, a suicide. Or is it?Nothing is as it seems as Heloise faces a midlife crisis with much higher stakes than most will ever know.And then she learns that her son's father might be released from prison, which is problematic because he doesn't know he has a son. The killer and former pimp also doesn't realize that he's serving a life sentence because Heloise betrayed him. But he's clearly beginning to suspect that Heloise has been holding something back all these years.With no formal education, no real family, and no friends, Heloise has to remake her life—again. Disappearing will be the easy part. She's done it before and she can do it again. A new name and a new place aren't hard to come by if you know the right people. The trick will be living long enough to start a new life.