Book picks similar to
Crawlspace by Dan Padavona
horror
fiction
suspense
reviewed
Lurk
Adam Vine - 2016
But late one night, he finds a box of old Polaroids buried under his house that can change to show him whatever he desires, and Drew finds himself with the power to watch the people around him without them ever knowing.Yet as Drew falls deeper into the rabbit hole of jealousy and despair, he begins having strange visions of the students who lived at the house twenty years ago and the gruesome fates they met after moving out. He finds evidence of a stalker who may be living on the property. The line between reality and nightmare blurs. Drew realizes there is something under the house that is manipulating him through the pictures, an eldritch, not-quite-dead thing that will drive him to do unspeakable evil if he doesn't look away...A blistering page-turner, LURK is horror unlike you've ever read.
Crooked Man
Tony Dunbar - 1994
His clients are all renegades from the asylum, including a transvestite entertainer with curious medical issues, a buxom deadbeat blonde, a doctor who refers his own patients to a malpractice lawyer, and the driver of a Mardi Gras float shaped like a giant crawfish pot. He also has his hands full with an ex-wife and three teenage daughters, who are experts in the art of wrapping Tubby around their little fingers. And somehow, between work and family, Tubby finds time to sample the highs and lows of idiosyncratic Crescent City cuisine, from trout meuniere amandine and French roast coffee with chicory to shrimp po-boys and homemade pecan pralines. Tubby is asked to take on a new client: Darryl Alvarez, the manager of a local nightclub, who has been caught unloading fifteen bales of marijuana from a shrimp boat. At their first meeting, Darryl entrusts Tubby with an ordinary-looking blue gym bag. But when Darryl is later found shot at the nightclub, Tubby realizes he must tighten his grasp on the gym bag - and its million-dollar contents. Tubby can't just give up the cash. But if he gets caught, he'll be in jail. And if the wrong people catch him, he'll wish he was.
Edge of Shadows
Cege Smith - 2011
Darkness has been a constant companion since her parents’ untimely death, and she harbors a secret that never fails to remind her that she’s different.Ellie's protective bubble includes nothing but her coffee shop, her few friends, and her dog. The attention of a handsome young doctor, David Mitchell, pushes her out of her comfort zone, and Ellie warms to the idea that she may have found another risk worth taking.Then one of Ellie’s friends abruptly leaves town; entrusting her home to Ellie’s care. The house has its own mysterious past that draws Ellie into a new darkness. Her ex-husband resurfaces with premonitions of Ellie’s death. And suddenly Ellie’s life is being turned upside down yet again, and even David can’t help her make it right.Ellie is running out of time. Something old and evil has awakened and it wants Ellie all to itself. She must solve a century-old mystery and keep a grip on her sanity in order to survive.
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Tony Bertauski - 2012
In the early 1800s, Nicholas, Jessica and Jon Santa attempt the first human trek to the North Pole and stumble upon an ancient race of people left over from the Ice Age. They are short, fat and hairy. They slide across the ice on scaly soles and carve their homes in the ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean. The elven are adapted to life in the extreme cold. They are as wise as they are ancient.Their scientific advancements have yielded great inventions -- time-stopping devices and gravitational spheres that build living snowmen and genetically-modified reindeer that leap great distances. They’ve even unlocked the secrets to aging. For 40,000 years, they have lived in peace.Until now.An elven known as The Cold One has divided his people. He’s tired of their seclusion and wants to conquer the world. Only one elven stands between The ColdOne and total chaos. He’s white-bearded and red-coated. The Santa family will help him stop The Cold One. They will come to the aid of a legendary elvenknown as...Claus.
The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator
Joakim Palmkvist - 2017
When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on—except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime—and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden. But not for Therese Tang. For two years, this case was her obsession.A hard-working ex-model, mother of three, and Missing People investigator, Therese was willing to put her own safety at risk in order to uncover the truth. What she found was a nest of depraved secrets, lies, and betrayal. All she had to do now, in her relentless and dangerous pursuit of justice, was prove that it led to murder.
Birdsongs
Jason Deas - 2009
Fired from the FBI for inadvertently sleeping with the perp in a murder case, he tries to disappear to a houseboat and retirement. Not having what it takes to relax, Benny starts a service offering discreet investigations. That is until a body is found crucified near his marina. The local police department requests Benny’s help and he knows if he can catch the killer, redemption is his. The Chief gives Benny and the department ten days to solve the crimes before he promises to request the help of the FBI. As the case grows, grabbing national attention, and the murders continue, the media soon fills the normally quiet town. Media goddess, Rachael Martin arrives and adds spice to an already flavorful mix. A few newcomers straggle in as well. An ex-convict fresh out of prison from a thirty year murder rap slinks in unnoticed with revenge on his mind. Days later, a Greyhound bus delivers a strange young man raised by deaf-mute parents from deep within the Ozark Mountains. An old newspaper clipping and a dark secret pulls him to town. Whatever is going on has something strange to do with birds. At each murder site, dead birds are displayed in disturbing ways—the killer arranging them as an artist might. All the strange occurrences and unexplained visitors to this quiet town press Benny James to his max as he vehemently struggles to solve the most important case of his life.
Solomon vs. Lord
Paul Levine - 2005
Steve Solomon makes up his own. They'll either end up in ruin, in jail or in bed. Steve barely graduated from Key West School of Law. Victoria is fresh from Yale, toiling for an ambitious DA, before Steve gets her fired. Katrina Barksdale is a sexy former figure skater charged with killing her very wealthy, very kinky husband in Miami.
Hunted
A.D. Starrling - 2012
One fall night in Boston, the Hunt starts again, resulting in Soul's fifteenth death and triggering a chain of events that sends him on the run with Reid Hasley, a former US Marine and his human business partner. From Paris to Prague, their search for answers leads them deep into the Immortal societies and brings them face to face with someone from Soul’s past. Shocking secrets are revealed and fresh allies come to the fore as they uncover a new and terrifying threat to both immortals and humans.To defeat his enemies, Soul must embrace his tortured fate and become the Hunter. But time is running out. Can he protect the ones he loves and prevent another Immortal War before his seventeenth and final death?Hunted is the first installment in AD Starrling’s bestselling supernatural thriller series Seventeen. If you like high-octane, fast-paced adventures that combine science and fantasy then you’ll love the world of Seventeen.
Trust No One
Debra Webb - 2020
She’s locked in a bitter struggle with her ex-husband and teenage daughter, and her reckless new partner is anything but trustworthy.Still, she has a job to do: there’s a killer at large, and a pregnant woman has gone missing. Once Devlin and her partner get to work, they quickly unearth secrets involving Birmingham’s most esteemed citizens. Each new layer of the investigation brings Devlin closer to the killer and the missing woman, who starts looking more like a suspect than a victim.But just as answers come into view, the case twists, expands, and slithers into Devlin’s personal life. There’s a much more sinister game at work, one she doesn’t even know she’s playing—and she must unravel the truth once and for all to stop the killer before she loses everything.
Wraith
Angel Lawson - 2012
Weird. Crazy. These are the names tossed around seventeen-year old Jane Watts by her fellow classmates. But things aren’t always as they seem. Sometimes there’s a reason for talking to yourself in the hallway at school.Adjusting to her new home and school after an abrupt move, Jane just wants to be like everyone else at school. Although she does manage to make one friend, Evan — sixteen, charming and protective. Evan is everything a girl could want in a best friend, with one minor caveat: He’s dead.Caught somewhere between life and death, Evan is tied to Jane and the living world, unable to complete the journey to the other side. She thinks he’s here to be her friend, to take care of her, and that’s why no one else can see or hear him.That is, until a new boy shows up at school after a rumored stretch in juvie. Connor can see Evan and is not convinced that the ghost is completely honest. Past experience taught him how ghosts tend to need something from the humans they connect to and Evan, despite his arguments, isn’t any different.Jane is resentful of Connor’s intrusion but soon realizes that her ghostly friend has secrets about his past. And now Evan's family, still reeling from his tragic death, is in danger. Jane must face her fears and battle Evan’s human demons to free both of them.
This Secret Thing
Marybeth Mayhew Whalen - 2020
Out of protection. Out of fear. Everyone has a reason to lie.Everyone in Raleigh, North Carolina, is talking about Norah Ramsey, the single mother accused of being a suburban madam. But Norah’s not the only one keeping secrets.After her mother’s arrest, Norah’s teenage daughter, Violet, is devastated and alone. She has no one to turn to until her grandmother Polly arrives. Polly, long estranged from Norah, is running from her own troubles. Down the street, Bess, once Norah’s best friend, desperately tries to hide secrets while Casey, Bess’s daughter, flees college after a traumatic event, only to find that home isn’t the safe haven she expected. And Nico, the detective who has doggedly pursued Norah Ramsey in hopes that she will lead him to his missing brother, is drawn further into these women’s lives while facing his own domestic disturbance.Scandal has brought each of them to a crossroads. Now, as they delve into Norah’s secrets, they must come to terms with secrets of their own—ones that still have the power to hurt or to heal.
When You're Gone
Marguerite O'Callaghan - 2017
Eighteen-year-old Lydia Stone wakes up one morning in the north London gothic mansion she shares with her family, to find that her twin sister Kate has disappeared off the face of the earth. CCTV footage shows Kate entering a night club in south London on the night she went missing, but there is no evidence that she ever came out of the club, and police are considering the idea that she was sex-trafficked. In the days and weeks that follow, Lydia takes a closer look at her twin sister's life; her modelling career, penchant for fetish clubs, and interesting array of older friends. It seems like Kate was definitely hiding something. But she isn't the only one...
One S'more Summer
Beth Merlin - 2017
She knows it’s wrong and it has to stop, but she hasn’t been able to let go ever since they all met on the bus to summer camp back when they were 7 years old. The same week that her best friends finally announce their wedding date, Gigi loses her high-profile design job. With all of her dreams unravelling, she runs to the last place she remembers being happy.Taking the Head Counselor position at Camp Chinooka, Gigi hopes to reclaim the joy she felt as a camper, but the job isn’t all campfire songs and toasting marshmallows. Gigi’s girls are determined to make her look bad in front of the boys’ Head Counselor—the sexy but infuriating Perry—and every scrap of the campground is laced with memories.When Gigi finally realizes she can’t escape the present by returning to her past, she’s forced to reexamine her life and find the true meaning of love. But will she be able to mend fences and forgive herself before she loses her one real shot at happiness?The Campfire Series1. One S’more Summer—Releases May 30, 2017!2. S'more to Lose—Coming December 2017!
The Housewife Assassin's Handbook
Josie Brown - 2011
Donna Stone has one…and it happens to be government-sanctioned. She earned it the hard way: her husband was killed the day she delivered her third child. To avenge his death, she leads a secret life – as an assassin. But espionage makes for strange bedfellows – and brings new meaning to that old adage, "Honey, I’m home…"
Ring
Kōji Suzuki - 1991
Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure. Asakawa, a hardworking journalist, is intrigued by his niece's inexplicable death. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan tokyo teeming with modern society's fears to a rural Japan--a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic--haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape's mystery before it's too late--for everyone--assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. Ring is a chillingly told horror story, a masterfully suspenseful mystery, and post-modern trip.