Dead Irish


John Lescroart - 1990
    He's left both the police force and his law career behind. Unfortunately it's not as easy to leave behind the memory of a shattering personal loss-but for the time being, he can always take the edge off with a stiff drink and round of darts. But when the news of Eddie Cochran's death reaches him, Hardy is propelled back into all the things he was trying to escape. Now he must untangle a web of old secrets and raw passions, for the sake of Eddie's pregnant widow Frannie--and for the others whose lives may still be at risk.

Under the Lake


Stuart Woods - 1986
    This placid body of water has brought prosperity to an isolated community, and with it, two strangers who intermingle with the insular local folk, strangers probing into crimes against nature from generations past that cannot remain submerged beneath the waters’ surface.Under the Lake marks the eagerly awaited return to the South of Stuart's Edgar Award winning novel, Chiefs. John Howell, once a top investigative journalist, comes to this backcountry town on the run from a once promising personal and professional life that has somehow gone sour. What he finds is a mystery so deep, so complex, so bizarre, that he cannot concentrate on the book he has come here to write.The story begins with his entanglement in a subtle, but relentless battle waged by the autocratic town father and the local sheriff against an outcast family, ravaged by its origins. Howell is further drawn in by his involvement with two women – an ambitious young reporter on the prowl for corruption, and a shy backwoods beauty, forsaken by the world because of her family’s ill kept secret. Then, without warning, visits from an otherworldly young girl haunt Howell as his rustic cabin becomes a spectral theater offering strange and frightening images of a hideous event of long ago.

Missionary Stew


Ross Thomas - 1983
    Haere seeks the information in order to get dirt on his boss's opponent in the 1984 US Presidential election. Haere's pursuit of the truth repeatedly puts Haere's life in danger, as the powers-that-be stop at nothing to keep the episode buried. Along the way, Haere carries on an affair with the wife of his candidate and enlists the aid of Morgan Citron, an almost-Pullitzer winning journalist who has recently been released from an African prison where the prisoners where fed human flesh--the titular missionary stew. Together Citron and Haere face up against cocaine traffickers, Latin American generals, corrupt US officials, and Citron's estranged, tabloid-publisher mother.

Tell Me Your Dreams


Sidney Sheldon - 1998
    She had no idea who it could be, who would want to harm her. She was trying desperately not to panic, but lately her sleep had been filled with nightmares, and she had awakened each morning with a feeling of impending doom.Thus begins Sidney Sheldon's chilling new novel, Tell Me Your Dreams. Three beautiful young women are suspected of committing a series of brutal murders. The police make an arrest that leads to one of the most bizarre murder trials of the century. Based on actual events, Sheldon's novel races from London to Rome to the city of Quebec to San Francisco, with a climax that will leave the reader stunned.

The Priest's Graveyard


Ted Dekker - 2011
    Soon, their paths will cross and lead to one twisted fate.Danny Hansen is a Bosnian immigrant who came to America with hopes of escaping haunted memories of a tragic war that took his other's life. Now he's a priest incensed by the powerful among us who manipulate the law for their own gain, uncaring of thes hattered lives they leave behind. It is his duty to show them the error of their ways, even if he must put them in the grave.Renee Gilmore is the frail and helpless victim of one such powerful man. Having escaped his clutches, she now lives only to satisfy justice by destroying him, regardless of whom she must become in that pursuit.But when Danny and Renee's paths become inexorably entangled things go very, very badly and neither of them may make it out of this hunt alive.

The Golden Orange


Joseph Wambaugh - 1990
    Eversince, he's been fighting a bad back, fighting thebottle, fighting his conscience. But now he's infor a special fight. Never before has he come upagainst anyone like Tess Binder. She's astunningly beautiful, sexually spirited three-timedivorcee from Newport Beach--capital of California'sGolden Orange, where wallets are fat, bikinis areskimpy, and cosmetic surgery is one sure way to abillionaire's bank account. Nearly a year ago TessBinder's father washed up on the beach with a bulletin his ear. The coroner called it suicide, but toTess it means the fear of her own fate. AndWinnie Farlowe is a man willing to follow wherever sheleads--straight into the juicy pulp of the GoldenOrange, a world where money is everything, butnothing adds up . . . where death and chicaneryflourish amidst ranches, mansions, and yachtingparties. In his long-awaited new novel, best-sellingauthor Joseph Wambaugh combines harrowing suspense, scathing humor, and a moving portrait of a man onthe brink ofself-destruction."

The Dawn Patrol


Don Winslow - 2008
    The author of The Winter of Frankie Machine is back with a razor-sharp novel as cool as its California surfer heroes, and as heart-stopping as a wave none of them sees coming.

They're Watching


Gregg Andrew Hurwitz - 2009
    They're Watching reminded me what it's like to be in the thrall of a great story: helpless until the end, loving every minute of it."--Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Die for You Patrick Davis is a man with troubles. First his Hollywood dreams crumble and then his storybook marriage hits a snag. Now, DVDs start being delivered to his house--DVDs which show that someone is watching him and his wife, that the two of them are being stalked and recorded by cameras hidden in their house. Then the e-mails start, and someone offers to fix everything, to take the mess his life has become and make it all right. Patrick figures it's the offer of a lifetime. But Patrick couldn't be more wrong. With every step he falls deeper into a web of intrigue that threatens everything he values in this world. Before he knows it, he's in and in deep--and his only escape is to outwit and outplay his unseen opponents at their own game.

Mitigating Circumstances


Nancy Taylor Rosenberg - 1993
    Eager to step into her new role as Chief of the Sex Crimes Division, she is also coping with a foundering marriage and the lure of an extremely attractive man. What keeps her anchored is her quirky, thirteen-year-old daughter, Shana.But when an intruder invades their home and commits a savage attack against them, Lily heads out on a trail of vengeance beyond any law but that of her own rage. And suddenly, with one shattering act, she finds her life is spinning out of control, leaving her nowhere to hide. But even as a circle of danger closes in on her, Lily Forrester knows that she must find a way out, because there's no turning back.

The First Counsel


Brad Meltzer - 2001
    To protect her, the lawyer admits to something he shouldn't. So begin the problems and she may have to do something she shouldn't.

Burnt Sienna


David Morrell - 2000
    He politely refuses, but when he finds his home bulldozed and his gallery sold, he has little choice but to take the job. Bellasar is one of the world's wealthiest and most dangerously twisted arms merchants. He has married a succession of beautiful women -- all of whom mysteriously died after having their portrait painted by a top artist. For Chase, rescuing the madman's current wife is only his first challenge. If he is ever to feel safe again, he must return to Bellasar's turf for a deadly confrontation -- that only one can survive.

The Killer Inside Me


Jim Thompson - 1952
    A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers--the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between--as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday.But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen. An urge that has already claimed multiple lives, and cost Lou his brother Mike, a self-sacrificing construction worker who fell to his death on the job in what was anything but an accident. A murder that Lou is determined to avenge--and if innocent people have to die in the process, well, that's perfectly all right with him.In The Killer Inside Me, Thompson goes where few novelists have dared to go, giving us a pitch-black glimpse into the mind of the American Serial Killer years before Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, in the novel that will forever be known as the master performance of one of the greatest crime novelists of all time.

High Crimes


Joseph Finder - 1998
    No exceptions. The military is a tight, closed fraternity. They take it real serious. Military justice is a deadly serious business." Claire has to realize this as she prepares to defend her husband--the man she knows as Tom Chapman, but who the Army says is Ron Kubik-- on charges that he took part in a massacre of 87 civilians in San Salvador 13 years before. Full of doubts about Tom's innocence and her own ability to prove it in an unfamiliar arena, Claire is brought to exciting, moving life by the extravagantly gifted Joseph Finder, whose previous thrillers (Extraordinary Powers, The Zero Hour) are available in paperback.

Black Lightning


John Saul - 1995
    Now the day of execution has come. A convicted killer will meet his end. Anne believes her long nightmare is over. But she's dead wrong. . . . Within days, a similar murder stuns the city. As the butcher stalks his next victims, creeping ever closer to her, Anne is seized by an icy unease, a haunting sense of connection to these unspeakable crimes. And, relentlessly, she hears the eerie echo of the dead man's last words to her: "Today won't end it. How will you feel, Anne? When I'm dead, and it all starts again, how will you feel?"

Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence


Bill James - 2011
     Celebrated writer and contrarian Bill James has voraciously read true crime throughout his life and has been interested in writing a book on the topic for decades. Now, with Popular Crime, James takes readers on an epic journey from Lizzie Borden to the Lindbergh baby, from the Black Dahlia to O. J. Simpson, explaining how crimes have been committed, investigated, prosecuted and written about, and how that has profoundly influenced our culture over the last few centuries— even if we haven’t always taken notice. Exploring such phenomena as serial murder, the fluctuation of crime rates, the value of evidence, radicalism and crime, prison reform and the hidden ways in which crimes have shaped, or reflected, our society, James chronicles murder and misdeeds from the 1600s to the present day. James pays particular attention to crimes that were sensations during their time but have faded into obscurity, as well as still-famous cases, some that have never been solved, including the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Boston Strangler and JonBenet Ramsey. Satisfyingly sprawling and tremendously entertaining, Popular Crime is a professed amateur’s powerful examination of the incredible impact crime stories have on our society, culture and history.