Book picks similar to
The Bourbon Street Ripper by Leo King


mystery
fiction
horror
first-reads-giveaways

Back to Lazarus


Judy K. Walker - 2014
    He beat and choked her to death. I'm told that he was found hanging from a homemade noose in his cell. I want to know why he waited so long to do it." Sydney Brennan isn't sure how to answer her client's question, short of holding a séance, and the Tallahassee detective has some questions of her own. Why does Noel Thomas remember so little about her childhood? Why is she delving into her father's suicide now? And, most importantly, why isn't Noel telling her the truth?Sydney crisscrosses the Florida Panhandle, reconstructing the tragic Thomas family history. The violence that destroyed the Thomas family connects to a present-day web of deceit and corruption through a desperate man willing to do anything to keep his secrets safe. To discover his identity, Sydney must go Back to Lazarus, back to the town where Noel's beautiful but troubled mother began her inevitable descent over twenty years ago. But by following in the footsteps of the murdered woman, does Sydney risk sharing her fate?Rooted in bars and back roads and Panhandle prisons, forgotten towns and forgotten people, at its heart Back to Lazarus is about stories: the stories people tell us, the stories we tell ourselves, and what happens when we realize it's all a lie.

The Cannibal's Daughter


Mitchell Nelson - 2014
    She’s a nobody. And that’s the way she likes it. Her father, on the other hand — Hank Keeling, the serial killer and occasional cannibal better known as the Pork Chop Killer — has just gone viral. Thanks to a prison guard’s error, a cell phone video of Keeling’s botched execution is quickly becoming an internet sensation. After watching her father die in all his pixelated glory, Caroline is taken off-guard when Keeling himself shows up at her front door, looking very much not dead. And he has a plan. A plan involving Caroline. A plan Caroline is going to take part in whether she wants to or not. Success means wealth beyond her dreams. Failure means death. Soon Caroline is whisked away from her bland life to face down killers, gangsters and a well-meaning cop in a hunt for long-lost fortune. Deceit, avarice and unrelenting violence collide in a coming-of-age story like none you’ve ever read.

Snowbound


Blake Crouch - 2010
    Will under suspicion, they flee. Suddenly a hard-edged FBI agent appears on their doorstep. “I know you’re innocent, because Rachael wasn’t the first ... or the last.”

I Know Who You Are


Alice Feeney - 2019
    Except one person. Someone who knows Aimee very well—and what she’s done. . .When Aimee comes home and discovers her husband is missing, she doesn’t seem to know what to do or how to act. The police think she’s hiding something and they’re right, she is—but perhaps not what they thought. Aimee has a secret she’s never shared, and yet, she suspects that someone knows. As she struggles to keep her career and sanity intact, her past comes back to haunt her in ways more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.

Altered Life


Keith Dixon - 2006
    Then he finds that the skills he does have - tenacity, aggression, street-smarts - are exactly the ones he needs for his next case - hunting down a cold-blooded murderer who seems to know what his every step will be.To solve the case Sam must negotiate with his ex-wife, cement a relationship with a new love, unravel an office-based financial fraud and fight off an arrogant murderer armed only with a pen-knife.

Daddy Soda


Mira Gibson - 2015
    For years, Hannah has hardly spoken to her overbearing mother or the half-sisters she barely knows: shy Candice, and Mary, a stunning fifteen year old with an eerie grip on the town. But when she learns her mother has been kidnapped, she returns home to the shack on Hermit Lake and the step-father she's never trusted. Detective Cody McAlister has never seen a case like this. The kidnapper has planned every detail with exquisite precision and when body parts begin to arrive at his department, the glaring reality becomes all too clear: Kendra won't be alive for long. The key to the deranged kidnapper's motive and identity may be held in the unsteady hands of a twelve-year old girl. But Candice hasn't spoken a word since that tragic night.As Hannah and Cody's investigation takes them from abandoned strip malls to the outer reaches of the marsh, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Hannah finds herself reliving hellish memories of the shack she thought she'd never have to face. If she doesn't unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past, she won't find her mother in time. In small-town New Hampshire where what you see is what you get, no one is who they seem.

The Entrepreneurs


Patrick Kelly - 2014
    . . Amateur boxer turned executive Joe Robbins moves his family to Austin, Texas, to join a startup and get rich. At his first company party, Joe witnesses a young woman commit suicide. She leaves no note . . . no motive . . . and the image haunts his dreams.But the company is busy writing software and making sales and everyone is going to get rich! Employees careen around Austin like bats.When the market crashes, the company falls apart, and the paper riches evaporate. Then a director is found murdered, and the police figure Joe for a prime suspect. Two more executives are murdered, and Joe might be next.Forced into the role of an amateur detective, Joe falls back on what he knows: facts, logic, and analysis. If the going gets rough, he’ll use his fists. Whatever the approach, he’d better work fast because he’s facing a long stay in prison or a short trip to the morgue.

Lost Girls


Celina Grace - 2012
    She was never seen again.In the present day, Maudie is struggling to come to terms with the death of her wealthy father, her increasingly fragile mental health and a marriage that’s under strain. Slowly, she becomes aware that there is someone following her: a blonde woman in a long black coat with an intense gaze. As the woman begins to infiltrate her life, Maudie realises no one else appears to be able to see her. Is Maudie losing her mind? Is the woman a figment of her imagination or does she actually exist? Have the sins of the past caught up with Maudie’s present... or is there something even more sinister going on?Lost Girls is the new novel from the author of The House on Fever Street: a dark and convoluted tale which proves that nothing can be taken for granted and no-one is as they seem

The Night Shift


Alex Finlay - 2022
    Y2K is expected to end in chaos: planes falling from the sky, elevators plunging to earth, world markets collapsing. A digital apocalypse. None of that happens. But at a Blockbuster Video in Linden, New Jersey, four teenage girls working the night shift are attacked. Only one survives. Police quickly identify a suspect who flees and is never seen again.Fifteen years later, in the same town, four teenage employees working late at an ice cream store are attacked, and again only one makes it out alive. Both surviving victims recall the killer speaking only a few final words... “Goodnight, pretty girl.”In the aftermath, three lives intersect: the survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who’s forced to relive her tragedy; the brother of the original suspect, who’s convinced the police have it wrong; and the FBI agent, who’s determined to solve both cases. On a collision course toward the truth, all three lives will forever be changed, and not everyone will make it out alive.Twisty, poignant, and redemptive, The Night Shift is a story about the legacy of trauma and how the broken can come out on the other side, and it solidifies Alex Finlay as one of the new leading voices in the world of thrillers.

Entanglement of Fate


Chris Brookes - 2013
    With the help of Mary O' Driscoll, a sharply perceptive nurse, Elliott reveals the prisoner to be Walter Stanford, a man with a blemished past and who is about to change their lives forever. As Elliott tries to understand the significance of a mysterious note found in a locket on the cell floor, Mary becomes haunted by a series of lucid dreams about Walter's life and a dark harrowing crime. But why have they all been brought together? Is it simply fate? Or could it be strange intervention to bring closure to a chilling past? One thing is certain…the answers have consequences!

The Whisper Man


Alex North - 2019
    A new beginning, a new house, a new town: Featherbank.But Featherbank has a dark past. Twenty years ago, a serial killer abducted and murdered five residents. Until Frank Carter was finally caught, he was nicknamed "The Whisper Man," for he would lure his victims out by whispering at their windows at night.Just as Tom and Jake settle into their new home, a young boy vanishes. His disappearance bears an unnerving resemblance to Frank Carter's crimes, reigniting old rumors that he preyed with an accomplice. Now, detectives Amanda Beck and Pete Willis must find the boy before it is too late, even if that means Pete has to revisit his great foe in prison: The Whisper Man. And then Jake begins acting strangely. He hears a whispering at his window.

Doll House


John Hunt - 2017
    She will be on her own, in a new place hopeful to meet new friends. On the night she moves in, she is taken off the street by two masked men. She is placed in a room which is little more than a cell. A pink cell. A room made for a doll. She is now part of their collection.

The Dead Room


Robert Ellis - 2002
    The atrocity kicks off an investigation into a bizarre string of increasingly disturbing murders, all believed to be perpetrated by someone of unprecedented savagery and cunning.As the city's panic rises, civil attorney Teddy Mack is thrown headlong into the grisly homicide case—and into a world of dirty politics and corrupt justice, where deceptions are as deadly as a killer's twisted secrets. Now, another woman is about to meet the same horrific fate as the others. To end a madman's reign, Teddy must enter his maze—a place of unimaginable terror…and shocking revelations.With his second thriller, and more than 375 FIVE STAR Amazon reviews, L.A. Times bestselling author Robert Ellis delivers an explosive read with full-blown characters, a world stacked with twists and turns, and an emotional intensity that burns white hot.

The Sound Of Footsteps


Diane Patterson - 2014
    Ghosts are easy to deal with. Ghosts aren’t real. Reality is where the trouble starts. Drusilla Thorne and her sister Stevie need a place to live in San Antonio while Drusilla sets up her new identity. The place they find is definitely cheap — the landlord can’t find tenants because it’s supposedly haunted. That’s fine with Drusilla, because she knows ghosts aren’t real. But something is making enough noise to keep her awake at night. And if it’s not ghosts making those noises, what is? Sometimes Drusilla needs to remember asking questions might bring answers nobody wants to hear.

Since She Went Away


David Bell - 2016
    But when Jenna arrived late, she found that Celia had disappeared—and hasn’t been seen again. Jenna has blamed herself for her friend’s disappearance every single day since then.The only piece of evidence is a lone diamond earring found where Celia and Jenna were planning to meet, leading the national media to dub Celia “The Diamond Mom.” And even though Jenna has obsessively surfed message boards devoted to missing persons cases, she is no closer to finding any answers—or easing her guilt.But when her son’s new girlfriend—who suddenly arrived in town without a past—disappears, a stricken Jenna begins to unwind the tangled truth behind Celia’s tragedy. And as long-buried secrets finally come to light, she discovers how completely lives can be shattered by a few simple lies.