Book picks similar to
The Bourbon Street Ripper by Leo King


mystery
fiction
horror
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Just Watch Me


Jeff Lindsay - 2019
      From the author of the wildly successful Dexter series comes a new, mesmerizing bad guy we can root for: Riley Wolfe. He’s a master thief, expert at disguise, and not averse to violence when it’s needed. It’s no accident, though, that Riley targets the wealthiest 0.1 percent and is willing to kill them when they’re in his way: he despises the degenerate and immoral rich and loves stealing their undeserved and unearned valuables.   In this series launch, Riley aims for an extraordinary target in a heist that will make history. Riley will try to steal the Crown Jewels of Iran. Yes, these jewels are worth billions, but the true attraction for grabbing them comes down to one simple fact: it can’t be done. Stealing these jewels is absolutely impossible. The collection is guarded by space-age electronics and two teams of heavily armed mercenaries. No one could even think of getting past the airtight security and hope to get away alive, let alone with even a single diamond from the Imperial Collection.   No one but Riley Wolfe. He’s always liked a challenge.   But this challenge may be more than even he can handle. Aside from the impenetrable security, Riley is also pursued by a brilliant and relentless cop who is barely a step behind him.   With the aid of his sometime ally, a beautiful woman who is a master art forger, Riley Wolfe goes for the prize that will either make him a legend—or, more likely, leave him dead.

Who Hates Marigold Flowers? (A Cornwall & Company Mystery Book 1)


Sara M. Barton - 2016
    Her specialty is parties, not crime. But there's no denying that someone with a lot of money and significant resources is out to silence her. What secrets does she hold about international money laundering and a criminal syndicate? How can she save herself when she's accused of trying to murder the U. S. marshal in charge of her safety? Enter the Cornwall brothers. Jackson, Lincoln, and Jefferson all have some special skills that can help untangle Marigold's complicated life. But they're going to have to work fast if they hope to prevent another murder...or before Marigold Flowers permanently disappears!

Before She Knew Him


Peter Swanson - 2019
    Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator and works out of a studio nearby, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, she’s found some stability and peace.But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Hen knows because she’s long had a fascination with this unsolved murder—an obsession she doesn’t talk about anymore, but can’t fully shake either...

The Shark


Mary Burton - 2016
    When she was a teenage runaway, she was kidnapped, drugged, and left unconscious on the streets. She has no memories of what happened, only strange recurring dreams of two men playing cards.Former FBI agent Clay Bowman, Riley’s old flame, is Shield Security’s newest member. He’s plagued by the unsolved case of a serial killer nicknamed the Shark who murdered girls as part of a sadistic poker game. Only one girl survived. With the Shark now bent on evening that score, Clay has a chilling suspicion: Riley is the girl who escaped the Shark’s deadly amusement—and she is his next prey.As the Shark gets ready to play his hand, can Riley and Clay stop him—or will this killer finally claim the one who got away?

When the Tiger Kills


Vanessa Prelatte - 2015
    As a result, she has dedicated her life to law enforcement. Now a homicide detective in her hometown of Mountpelier, Colorado, she and her partner, Sergeant Rafe Melbourne, find themselves in a race against time to save a missing girl from a serial killer who seems to be equally obsessed with visions of an ancient goddess and young girls with long, pale blonde hair. Meanwhile, the two detectives must juggle the kidnapping investigation with another case, this one involving a young man who was stabbed to death, his body left under a tree. At first it looks like a simple drug deal gone wrong. However, after encounters with the victim's angry, bitter stepsister and his self-absorbed, histrionic mother, Dawn and Rafe begin to suspect that there is more to this case than meets the eye. With the help of Dawn's husband Ty, a former Air Force major now in charge of the local unit of the Civil Air Patrol, Cimarron and Melbourne work to bring a murderer to justice, even as they pull out all the stops to find the missing girl - before her time runs out..

The Chalk Man


C.J. Tudor - 2018
    They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he's put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead.That's when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

The Passengers


John Marrs - 2019
    Who lives, who dies? You decide.When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course.The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

The Righteous and the Wicked


Derik Cavignano - 2014
    Known by his followers as the Great Elder, he walks a blurred line between genius and madness and has graced his subjects with the most extraordinary discovery in the history of science. But he'll do anything to keep his discovery a secret, including the use of murderous henchmen like Vic Cappetti.As Jacob's curiosity lures him deeper into a dangerous web, he learns the truth behind the Great Elder's plans and finds himself caught in a life or death struggle that could very well lead to the extinction of mankind."Cavignano brings wonderful characterization of people and places to his lightning-paced fantasy thriller ... Boston neighborhoods are impeccably portrayed ... A gleefully hard-boiled urban fantasy that lights up Boston's mean streets." - Kirkus Reviews"A wildly entertaining book ... [that] delivers a deliciously compelling villain ... [and] plot twists until the very end." -bestthrillers.com

Rings of Smoke


Diane O'Toole - 2012
    Neither has a clue of the devastation and heartbreak their actions have caused. Neither understands the damage they have done to their own offspring; one by deserting her family, one by staying. But both are the same; greedy and demanding. They both wanted more, and they pushed their husbands to the brink to get it. Rings of Smoke is a crime thriller set in 1970's northern England, where the Fallon family, recently emigrated from Ireland, now live. When the mother, Helen, leaves her husband for another man, eldest daughter Erin sets off to search for her, unaware that she has been stalked by a serial killer for the last six weeks. All Erin wants is to find her mother and bring her home. What she encounters is Leonard Fitch, an eminent surgeon with a deep, dark secret. Now, in a secluded forest ranger's lodge, Erin must fight to survive or never see her family again.

Hairpin Bridge


Taylor Adams - 2021
    J. Finn) No Exit—a riveting new psychological page-turner featuring a fierce and unforgettable heroine.Three months ago, Lena Nguyen’s estranged twin sister, Cambry, drove to a remote bridge sixty miles outside of Missoula, Montana, and jumped two hundred feet to her death. At least, that is the official police version.But Lena isn’t buying it.Now she’s come to that very bridge, driving her dead twin’s car and armed with a cassette recorder, determined to find out what really happened by interviewing the highway patrolman who allegedly discovered her sister’s body.Corporal Raymond Raycevic has agreed to meet Lena at the scene. He is sympathetic, forthright, and professional. But his story doesn’t seem to add up. For one thing, he stopped Cambry for speeding a full hour before she supposedly leapt to her death. Then there are the sixteen attempted 911 calls from her cell phone, made in what was unfortunately a dead zone.But perhaps most troubling of all, the state trooper is referred to by name in Cambry’s final enigmatic text to her sister: Please Forgive Me. I couldn’t live with it. Hopefully you can, Officer Raycevic.Lena will do anything to uncover the truth. But as her twin’s final hours come into focus, Lena’s search turns into a harrowing, tooth-and-nail fight for her own survival—one that will test everything she thought she knew about her sister and herself...

Killer Instinct


S.E. Green - 2014
    urges.Lane is a typical teenager. Loving family. Good grades. Afterschool job at the local animal hospital. Martial arts enthusiast. But her secret obsession is studying serial killers. She understands them, knows what makes them tick.Why?Because she might be one herself.Lane channels her dark impulses by hunting criminals—delivering justice when the law fails. The vigilantism stops shy of murder. But with each visceral rush the line of self-control blurs.And then a young preschool teacher goes missing. Only to return... in parts.When Lane excitedly gets involved in the hunt for “the Decapitator,” the vicious serial murderer that has come to her hometown, she gets dangerously caught up in a web of lies about her birth dad and her own dark past. And once the Decapitator contacts Lane directly, Lane knows she is no longer invisible or safe. Now she needs to use her unique talents to find the true killer’s identity before she—or someone she loves—becomes the next victim...

These Toxic Things


Rachel Howzell Hall - 2021
    When her latest client, Nadia Denham, a curio shop owner, dies from an apparent suicide, Mickie honors the old woman’s last wish and begins curating her peculiar objets d’art. A music box, a hair clip, a key chain―twelve mementos in all that must have meant so much to Nadia, who collected them on her flea market scavenges across the country.But these tokens mean a lot to someone else, too. Mickie has been receiving threatening messages to leave Nadia’s past alone.It’s becoming a mystery Mickie is driven to solve. Who once owned these odd treasures? How did Nadia really come to possess them? Discovering the truth means crossing paths with a long-dormant serial killer and navigating the secrets of a sinister past. One that might, Mickie fears, be inescapably entwined with her own.

The Legend of Devil's Creek


D.C. Alexander - 2012
    More abductions and killings soon follow. Justin Riddley, recently transferred to the island’s small college, faces growing evidence that one of his new friends and fellow students may be the murderer. John Marshall, redemption-seeking captain of the local police force, leads the frantic murder investigation and struggles to figure out whether the killings are tied to the island's dark and violent past. Tormented by tragic wartime memories, and more convinced with each day that it is humanity’s fate to destroy itself, Marshall races against both the murderer and the specter of his own mental breakdown. As blood continues to spill, Riddley and Marshall wonder whether there may be a dark, universal force that drives evil deeds great and small, and whether the nature of one’s childhood might sometimes, in the end, be all that separates the saint from the psychopath.

Gone... But Not Missed


A.R. Kennedy - 2013
    She is held captive in her kidnapper's basement apartment, summoned upstairs once a week for a chaste dinner. But will his kindness last, and more importantly, why isn’t anyone looking for her? Lillian’s story is interwoven with that of Nathan, a NYPD officer, who is intrigued by Lillian’s disappearance- how can a young woman be gone for two weeks before a Missing Person Report is filed? Local police believe Lillian has voluntarily abandoned a life she didn’t like. Lillian’s best friend convinces Nathan the authorities are wrong. With no jurisdiction, no resources, and no witnesses, he is compelled by the pictures of Lillian with her sweet smile and sparkling green eyes to obsessively take up the case. Armed with Lillian’s keys and personal information, he spends hours, then days in her home trying to find clues that will lead him to her.

Act Of Contrition


Dominic Milne - 2015
    Eddie is a reckless and dissolute operator, under investigation by the force and in debt to local mob chief, Vincent Mullis. When a killer starts targeting prostitutes in north London, Mullis is unusually keen for Eddie to solve the crime, but why? A serial killer is targeting prostitutes in Islington, the victims having a number of unusual links. The killings begin the same week that convicted killer and local man, Paddy Graham, is released from prison following a life sentence for murder. DS Eddie Kane has inadvertently found himself under the thumb of Vincent Mullis, who has taken ownership of a debt Eddie has built up with terminally-ill bookmaker, Arnie Duggan. Eddie’s troubles begin to spiral out of control when he is placed under investigation following a drugs-bust gone wrong. While suspended, he is forced to investigate the murders for Mullis, who wants to get to the murderer before the police. He then reluctantly hears a murder confession from his former bookmaker... In this heart-stopping, gripping crime drama, Eddie’s investigations lead him into a murky world of pornography, murder and revenge, all of which seems to centre around a local church and the charismatic vicar, Jonathan Carter. Eddie is feeling the pressure from all sides, but will there be any chance of salvation?