Book picks similar to
Text Message by William Malmborg
horror
thriller
mystery
serial-killers
Carved in Darkness
Maegan Beaumont - 2013
For 83 days she was raped, tortured, and then left for dead in a deserted churchyard...but she was still alive. Melissa begins a new life as homicide inspector Sabrina Vaughn. With a new face and a new name, it's her job to hunt down murderers―a job she does very well. But when Michael O'Shea, a childhood acquaintance with a suspicious past, suddenly finds her, he brings to life the nightmare Sabrina has long since buried. Believing his sister was recently murdered by the same monster who attacked Sabrina, Michael is dead set on getting his revenge―using Sabrina as bait. Praise: Named a Best Debut of 2013 by Suspense Magazine Starred Review"Prepare to be overwhelmed by the tension and moodiness that permeates this edgy thriller. Beaumont's ability to keep the twists coming even when the answer seems obvious is quite potent."―Library Journal (starred review) and Debut of the Month "Pulse-pounding terror, graphic violence and a loathsome killer."―Kirkus Reviews "Beaumont knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat...Buckle up for the ride of a lifetime."―Suspense Magazine "Maegan Beaumont might be new to thriller scene, but her debut thriller, Carved in Darkness, promises to be the first in a long line of novels. Be warned, however, this novel isn't for those who jump a mile every time they hear something go bump in the night. But for anyone who's ever dreamed about enacting a just revenge, this book is for you. Beaumont knows how to cook up and serve a dish called revenge, but she doesn't serve it cold. She serves it sizzling hot."―Vincent Zandri, bestselling author of The Remains and Murder by Moonlight
Necropolis
S.A. Lusher - 2013
With nothing but his name and a pistol, he escapes into the rainy darkness of the wastelands surrounding him.Stumbling to a nearby outpost, expecting to find help and some clues to this mystery he's found himself in, Greg instead discovers a new level of terror. Something has gone incredibly wrong in the area. As he begins searching the base, he realizes that the dead aren't staying dead...
Bad Karma
Douglas Clegg - 1997
You will never escape me.” She’s the most dangerous inmate in the hospital for the criminally insane...and she just broke out. When Trey Campbell takes his family to Catalina Island, his escaped patient leaves a trail of bodies behind as she hunts for her one true love – from a previous life.
The Prophet
Michael Koryta - 2012
When they were teenagers, their sister was abducted and murdered, and their devastated family never recovered. Now Adam keeps to himself, scraping by as a bail bondsman, working so close to the town's criminal fringes that he sometimes seems a part of them. Kent Austin is the beloved coach of the local high school football team, a religious man and hero in the community. After years of near misses, Kent's team has a shot at the state championship, a welcome point of pride in a town that has had its share of hardships. Just before playoffs begin, the town and the team are thrown into shock when horrifically, impossibly, another teenage girl is found murdered. When details emerge that connect the crime to the Austin brothers, the two are forced to unite to stop a killer - and to confront their buried rage and grief before history repeats itself again.
Malevolent
Jana Deleon - 2015
Everyone wondered about Shaye Archer’s past. Including Shaye. Shaye Archer’s life effectively began the night police found her in an alley, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name. Nine years later, she’s a licensed private investigator, with a single goal—to get answers for her clients when there aren’t supposed to be any. And maybe someday, answers for herself. Emma Frederick thought her nightmare was over when she killed her abusive husband, but someone is stalking her and tormenting her with mementos from her past. With no evidence to support her claims, the police dismiss her claims as post-traumatic stress, but Shaye is convinced that someone is deliberately terrorizing Emma…playing a cat and mouse game with only one goal in mind. To kill Emma.
Embryo
J.A. Schneider - 2012
It came suddenly, a rushing whoosh of something that made her gag, and when she reached to wipe her mouth, her hand came away smeared with blood." So begins this thriller about a young intern, Jill Raney, determined to investigate tragedies and terror at a famous fertility and genetic engineering hospital. When two pregnant women die and a fetus is delivered with severe chromosomal abnormalities, Jill's superiors - including handsome, smitten-with-her resident David Levine - insist there's no common link. But her suspicions deepen with the grotesque murder near the hospital of another pregnant woman - her belly drained of amniotic fluid. And when a woman miscarries in the hospital and then disappears, Jill frantically searches for her - following a terrifying path that seems to link all the victims: Is someone playing with life...and the structures of human life itself? An unforgettable tale of suspense with a shocking denouement, Embryo takes you deep into the mind of malignant genius.. . . . . . .The heart-stopping ending of Embryo creates a new crisis in its sequel, Embryo 2: Crosshairs
Spare Room
Dreda Say Mitchell - 2019
The live-in owners are a kind and welcoming couple. Everything is fine until she finds a suicide note hidden in her room. But when the couple insist this man didn’t exist and that Lisa is their first tenant, Lisa begins to doubt herself.Compelled to uncover the secrets of the man who lived in the room before her, Lisa is alarmed when increasingly disturbing incidents start to happen. Someone doesn’t want Lisa to find out the truth.As the four walls of this house and its secrets begin to close in on Lisa, she descends into a hellish hall of mirrors where she’s not sure what’s real and what’s not as she claws her way towards the truth…
This room has already claimed one victim?
Is it about to take another?
Dinosaur Lake
Kathryn Meyer Griffith - 1993
Ex-cop Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for eight years and he likes his park and his life the way it’s been. Safe. Tranquil. Predictable. But he’s about to be tested in so many ways. First the earthquakes begin…people begin to go missing…then there’s some mysterious water creature that’s taken up residence in the caves below Crater Lake and it’s not only growing in size, it’s aggressive and cunning…and very hungry. And it’s decided it likes human beings. To eat.And it can come up onto land.So Henry, with the help of his wife, Ann; a young paleontologist named Justin; and a band of brave men must not only protect his park and his people from the monster but somehow find where it lives and destroy it…before it can kill again. ***
The Chill
Scott Carson - 2020
Early in the 20th century, the town was destroyed for the greater good: bringing water to the millions living downstate. Or at least that’s what the politicians from Manhattan insisted at the time. The local families, settled there since America’s founding, were forced from their land, but they didn’t move far, and some didn’t move at all…Now, a century later, the repercussions of human arrogance are finally making themselves known. An inspector assigned to oversee the dam, dangerously neglected for decades, witnesses something inexplicable. It turns out that more than the village was left behind in the waters of the Chill when it was abandoned. The townspeople didn’t evacuate without a fight. A dark prophecy remained, too, and the time has come for it to be fulfilled. Those who remember must ask themselves: who will be next? For sacrifices must be made. And as the dark waters begin to inexorably rise, the demand for a fresh sacrifice emerges from the deep...
Neighborly
Ellie Monago - 2018
Minutes from the city, affluent without pretension, low crime with a friendly vibe—it’s everything Kat never had, and that she’s determined to provide for her infant daughter. Snagging a nice bungalow in this exclusive enclave was worth all the sacrifice. But everything changes overnight when Kat finds a scrawled note outside their front door.That wasn’t very neighborly of you.As increasingly sinister and frighteningly personal notes arrive, each one stabs deeper into the heart of Kat’s insecurities, paranoia, and most troubling, her past. When the neighbors who seemed so perfect reveal their open secret, the menace moves beyond mean notes. Someone’s raising the stakes.As suspicious as she is of every smiling face and as terrified as she’s become of being found out, Kat is still unprepared for the sharp turn that lies just ahead of her on Bayberry Lane.
Spare Change
Bette Lee Crosby - 2011
A boy running for his life. A town defending them both.From award-winning USA TODAY Bestselling Author BETTE LEE CROSBY, the first book of a gritty, small-town, family saga in the tradition of the finest Southern fiction.Small-town gossip never much bothered Olivia Westerly. As a single career woman, she's weathered her share. It's easy to ignore the raised eyebrows over her late-in-life marriage to Charlie Doyle. But after he drops dead on their honeymoon, the whispers are salt on her raw grief. Especially when an orphaned, eleven-year-old-boy shows up on her doorstep, looking for the grandfather he never met.Behind Ethan Allen Doyle's wary blue eyes lie heavily guarded emotions that unexpectedly tug on Olivia's heart, and she finds herself wanting to win his trust. But when his murderous secret comes looking for him, the entire town embraces the lonely widow and desperate child to show its true heart when danger threatens one of its own.A heartwarming tale of love, loss and unexpected gifts, featuring a woman you'd like to call friend, a boy you will ache to hug, and a town you wish you could call home. USA TODAY BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF FIVE LITERARY AWARDS - Royal Palm Literary Award, Reviewer's Choice Award, FPA President's Book Award, IAN Outstanding Fiction Award, Eadon Contemporary Fiction Award
The Cabin at the End of the World
Paul Tremblay - 2018
Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, "None of what’s going to happen is your fault". Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: "Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world."
The Fix-it Man
Donald Wells - 2010
But when he's forced by the actions of a madman to make an unthinkable choice, he soon finds that the one thing he can't mend, is his own broken heart.Sixteen year old Johnny has a dream. He wants to build an engine that can get a hundred miles to the gallon. While working in his grandfather's fix-it shop, he meets Felicia Delgado, and the young girl steals his heart.Meanwhile, there's a killer hunting down young women and getting away with murder.Years later, when circumstances conspire to tear Johnny and Felicia apart, John is rescued from heartache by a new love.With his dream in sight and his new love at his side, John is ready to put the past behind him and marry.However, the killer now has him in his sights and seeks revenge against John for exposing him to the police.When the killer strikes, his attack leaves John unscathed, but places both his new love and Felicia square in the ravenous maw of imminent death.With a daring, near suicidal act, John may be able to save one of the women he loves, but which one?Will he sacrifice Felicia, or choose to save the woman who brought him back from despair, a woman who loves him more than life.It's an unthinkable choice and its resolution will shape John's life forever.
THE FIX-IT MAN - A story of true love and revenge
********************************************************************************************"The Fix-It Man is a love story for the ages.""I read Double or Nothing and loved it, but this one, oh man, I can't stop thinking about it."-"This is the first book from Donald Wells that I've read, but it won't be my last."-"That horrible choice that Johnny had to make made me cry, and the ending, it was just so perfect. I loved this book!"-"The Fix-It Man rocks, read it." -From YEAR ZERO PUBLISHING-By Donald Wells, the author of THE MANY AND THE ONE & DOUBLE OR NOTHING********************************************************************************************
DOUBLE OR NOTHING
David Manning suddenly realizes that he's being watched. The woman, not much more than a girl really, appears to be homeless.David tries to ignore her but the girl soon follows him wherever he goes and so David decides to confront her. What happens next will send his life spiraling out of control in ways that he could never have imagined and, that in the end, will either unite him with his soul mate, or send him to an untimely and violent death.THE REYNOLDS FAMILY SAGATHE MANY AND THE ONE is Book One of THE REYNOLDS FAMILY SAGA SERIES-When Lindsay Parker catches her boyfriend Derek Stern cheating, she wants only one thing--Revenge! Knowing of Derek's hatred for Jason Reynolds, she begins dating Jason simply as a way to hurt Derek. However, something happens that Lindsay didn't count on. She falls in love. Derek schemes to get Lindsay back into his life, however, his obsession goes too far and leads to a violent and life-altering confrontation with Jason.
Girl in the Walls
A.J. Gnuse - 2021
She knows which boards will creak. She knows where the gaps are in the walls. She knows which parts can take her in, hide her away. It’s home, after all. The home her parents made for her, before they were taken from her in a car crash. And home is where you stay, no matter what.Eddie is a teenager trying to forget about the girl he sometimes sees out of the corner of his eye. But when his hotheaded older brother senses her, too, they are faced with the question of how to get rid of someone they aren’t sure even exists. And as they try to cast her out, they unwittingly bring an unexpected and far more real threat to their doorstep. Written with grace and enormous heart, Girl in the Walls is a novel about carrying on through grief, forging unconventional friendships, and realizing, little by little, that we don’t need to fear what we do not understand.
The Gemini Effect
Chuck Grossart - 2012
By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance.Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop.As Carolyn and Garrett race to stop the plague, a battered and broken government prepares to release the fury of America’s nuclear arsenal on its own soil and its own citizens.
The Gemini Effect was originally published as The Mengele Effect. This edition has been completely edited and revised, including significant plot changes.