Total Victim Theory


Ian Ballard - 2013
    Puzzling over the document's sinister entries, Jake pieces together a story of mass murder near the Texas-Mexico border two decades before. If Jake's theory is correct, the names listed on the ledger's final page are the victims of a previously unknown serial killer. Leads are scarce until a gruesome new crime scene, deep in the Mexican desert, shows a chilling connection to the border deaths of long ago.

Sydney Rye Mysteries Books 1-3 Box Set


Emily Kimelman - 2013
    This left him unconscious on the floor of my home. Amazingly, this bullet did not kill him.Ten years ago I adopted Blue as a present to myself after I broke up with my boyfriend one hot, early summer night with the windows open and the neighborhood listening. The next morning I went straight to the pound in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Articles on buying your first dog tell you never to buy a dog on impulse. They want you to be prepared for this new member of your family, to understand the responsibilities and challenges of owning a dog. Going to the pound because you need something in your life that's worth holding onto is rarely, if ever, mentioned.I asked the man at the pound to show me the biggest dogs they had. He showed me some seven-week-old Rottweiler-German shepherd puppies that he said would grow to be quite large. Then he showed me a six-month-old shepherd that would get pretty big. Then he showed me Blue, the largest dog they had.The man called him a Collie mix and he was stuffed into the biggest cage they had, but he didn't fit. He was as tall as a Great Dane but much skinnier, with the snout of a collie, the markings of a Siberian husky, the ears and tail of a shepherd and the body of a wolf, with one blue eye and one brown. Crouched in a sitting position, unable to lie down, unable to sit all the way up, he looked at me from between the bars, and I fell in love."He's still underweight," the man in the blue scrubs told me as we looked at Blue. "I'll tell you, lady, he's pretty but he's skittish. He sheds, and I mean sheds. I don't think you want this dog." But I knew I wanted him. I knew I had to have him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.Blue cost me $108. I brought him home, and we lived together for years. He was, for most of our relationship, my only companion. But when I first met Blue, a lifetime ago now, I had family and friends. I worked at a crappy coffeehouse. I was young and lost; I was normal.Back then, at the beginning of this story, before I'd ever seen a corpse, before Blue saved my life, before I felt what it was like to kill someone in cold blood, I was still Joy Humbolt.I'd never even heard the name Sydney Rye.P.S. The dog does not die.**Beware: If you can’t handle a few f-bombs, you can’t handle this series.**

Sara's Game


Ernie Lindsey - 2012
    His car was found. He wasn't. Unbelievably, the police report said, "No foul play suspected." There were a few unreliable sightings over the following months, but little else.Now, on the last day before summer break, her three children have gone missing from their schools, all at the same time.And the note under her windshield wiper asks one simple question: Are you ready to play the game?

The Two Minute Rule


Robert Crais - 2006
    Requiem unleashes his most powerful novel to date--a brilliantly plotted tale about justice, love, and the sins of a father and son.

Noble Beginnings


L.T. Ryan - 2013
    A Marine in name only, Jack is on-loan to the CIA. Normally an integral part of the team, he finds that he is nothing more than a security detail in Iraq.Jack and his partner Bear have a run-in with four CIA special agents over the treatment of an Iraqi family. Within hours Jack and Bear are detained.All Jack wanted was to finish his enlistment and move on with his life. All he did was intervene and save a family from unwarranted violence at the hands of four CIA agents. But he soon discovers that he did far more than intervene. He has placed himself dead square in the middle of a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Not One of Us


Debbie Herbert - 2021
    Now, after moving back home to Alabama to care for her ailing grandmother and autistic brother, she comes face-to-face with the deadly mystery behind his disappearance.Jori has a rare form of synesthesia, meaning she can “hear” colors; to her, tones of voice are as unique as fingerprints. With the help of this ability and a sympathetic cop, Jori comes dangerously close to uncovering the truth. But those responsible will go to any length—including murder—to keep their dark secrets buried.Soon, it seems that no one in the sleepy bayou town is safe, and after Jori’s brother is kidnapped, she knows she must drop the investigation or risk losing her family. But when protecting them means letting an evil deed go unpunished, putting family first may be the last thing she’ll ever do.

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.

My Sister's Grave


Robert Dugoni - 2014
    She doesn’t believe that Edmund House — a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder — is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.When Sarah’s remains are finally discovered near their hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Tracy is determined to get the answers she’s been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship to her past — and open the door to deadly danger.

Stone of Fire


J.F. Penn - 2011
    Morgan Sierra, an Oxford University psychologist with a deadly past, doesn’t know the answer to that question — and doesn’t care. All she knows is that her sister and niece have been abducted, held hostage for the stone pendants that Morgan and her sister wear: two of twelve relics once owned by the original Apostles.Forged in fire and wind, drowned in the blood of martyrs, the twelve Pentecost stones have been kept secret for two thousand years. But now the Keepers of the stones are being murdered, and the relics stolen by Thanatos, a shadowy group dedicated to remaking the world into a living Hell. The authorities are clueless; the world lies helpless. And Thanatos grows more powerful with each stone they take. Enter Jake Timber — agent of ARKANE, the British agency tasked with investigating the supernatural. Jake knows some of the secrets Morgan needs to save her family, but can’t stop Thanatos without her help. Only together can they stop Thanatos before the stones are captured, before Morgan’s family is murdered, and before the world is changed forever.From flooded ruins in Italy, to religious sites in Israel, to the far reaches of Iran and Tunisia, Morgan and Jake must race across the world to find the stones before Thanatos gathers the relics and uses their power to turn Earth into a living Hell.But every step they take brings Morgan and Jake closer to the end. To the knife edge between salvation and madness. To the moment when Morgan will have to decide whether she will save her family… or save the world.Time is running out. Thanatos draws near. And the day of Pentecost is at hand.Stone of Fire is the first book in the ARKANE series by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author J.F. Penn.

To Kill For


A.J. Carella - 2014
    do you trust yours?Money and a handsome fiancé from a good family. What more could a girl want?Jamie McKay appears to have the perfect life, but things suddenly start to go horribly wrong. A sudden death and a run-in with a would-be killer leave her alone, afraid and a long way from home.Kat McKay, long estranged from her family, returns to the small town she hasn't been back to since she walked away as a teenager. Determined to find out what happened to her niece, she must face the demons from her past and enlist the help of the man she left behind.Can the McKays survive the explosive results?

Shadowline Drift


Alexes Razevich - 2014
    Alternate cover edition for ASIN B00JEP2GBI2015 Reader's Choice Award NomineeAn Amazonian tribe that may or may not exist; a dangerous teenage sorceress; a beautiful anthropologist - and madness - conspire to stop Jake Kendricks from revealing the truth about a mysterious substance that will end world hunger.Perfect for lovers of psychological thrillers in the vein of Lost and Inception.

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.

First to Kill


Andrew Peterson - 2008
    Now he utilizes his unique skill set in the private sector—until the night Frank Ortega, former director of the FBI, calls in a favor. A deep-cover federal agent has vanished, along with a ton of Semtex explosives, and Ortega needs them found—fast. Because for him, this mission is personal: the missing agent is his grandson. And Nathan McBride is the only man he trusts to save him.But it quickly becomes clear that something bigger than even Ortega could have imagined is at stake. Within days of accepting the assignment, McBride finds himself trapped between a ruthless adversary hell-bent on revenge and a group of high-ranking federal officials who will stop at nothing to reap their own brand of justice. Here there are no rules, no protocol, no backup. Only McBride…

Gray Justice


Alan McDermott - 2011
    But when the killer is let off with time served on remand, Gray knows there is something fundamentally wrong with the justice system. Engaging the help of his ex-SAS buddies, he kidnaps five repeat offenders and asks the public to vote on their fate: Should they be allowed to continue their criminal ways with inadequate punishment, or has Britain had enough?His website attracts a worldwide audience and, although the authorities know where he is, they are powerless to stop him.Can Gray carry out his audacious plan? Will Andrew Harvey and his fellow MI5 operatives find a way to stop him?Gray Justice is more than a simple tale of revenge: it’s a rollercoaster ride with an ending you’ll never forget.

Moving Day


Jonathan Stone - 2014
    A life he could have easily lost long ago.When a con man steals his houseful of possessions in a sophisticated moving-day scam, Peke wanders helplessly through his empty New England home, inevitably reminded of another helpless time: decades in Peke’s past, a cold and threadbare Stanislaw Shmuel Pecoskowitz eked out a desperate existence in the war-torn Polish countryside, subsisting on scraps and dodging Nazi soldiers. Now, the seventy-two-year-old Peke—who survived, came to America, and succeeded—must summon his original grit and determination to track down the thieves, retrieve his things, and restore the life he made for himself.Peke and his wife, Rose, trace the path of the thieves’ truck across America, to the wilds of Montana, and to an ultimate, chilling confrontation with not only the thieves but also with Peke’s brutal, unresolved past.