Book picks similar to
The Inspector Thanet Mysteries Volume One: The Night She Died / Six Feet Under / Puppet for a Corpse by Dorothy Simpson
mystery
mysteries
mystery-thriller
3-3
Gallows View / A Dedicated Man / A Necessary End
Peter Robinson - 2001
Unfortunately, depravity and violence are not unique to large cities. His new home, the quaint little village of Eastdale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors.In this collection of Inspector Banks's first three cases in Yorkshire, CWA Dagger in the Library and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson introduces a detective as brilliant as he is complex. These intricately plotted, gritty novels of suspense lay the foundation for a remarkably acclaimed detective series.'The Banks novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong.' STEPHEN KING
Forgotten Coast: Books 1-4
Dawn Lee McKenna - 2017
Maggie Redmond is called to a crime scene on St. George Island, where she is met with the body of Gregory Boudreaux. The medical examiner calls it a suicide, but no one knows that Maggie has a horrible connection to the dead man.When Gregory’s uncle, Bennett Boudreaux, the richest and scariest man in town, takes a sudden interest in Maggie, people start to wonder, Maggie included. Maggie knows he may suspect her of killing his nephew, but she finds herself slowly drawn to the man.As Maggie fights to help a young girl escape the clutches of a volatile drug dealer who’d love to see Maggie dead, she also struggles to hide her dark link to a dead man, and her burgeoning relationship with her boss, Sheriff Wyatt Hamilton.Unfortunately, secrets have a way of revealing themselves at low tide.Riptide - Book 2Once again, sinister things are afoot in Apalachicola, FL, and one of them is an actual foot.When a local fisherman finds a severed limb in his net, it sets off a chain of events that no one can anticipate.Lt. Maggie Redmond soon discovers that the foot belongs to the friend of another recently dead guy, Gregory Boudreaux, the man she never told anyone about. Gregory’s death was thought to be a suicide. That seems less likely, now that his best friend Sport’s foot has shown up out of the blue, as it were.When it starts looking like town villain Bennett Boudreaux might be responsible for eliminating Sport, things begin to get a little weird. Especially since Maggie’s started to take a liking to Bennett. She’s also taken a real liking to her boss, Sheriff Wyatt Hamilton, but both her relationship to Bennett and her secret connection to the dead men threaten hers and Wyatt’s relationship.Is Bennett protecting or avenging Maggie for some reason, or does he have something altogether different on his mind?What Washes Up - Book 3Karma’s alive and well in Apalachicola, Florida, and there are several people who are about to meet it face to face. When more than a dozen bodies wash up on the beach on St. George Island, the residents of Apalach are outraged, and none more so than investigator Maggie Redmond and Sheriff Wyatt Hamilton. It’s time for the greedy to answer for the lives of innocents.Meanwhile, a man is found tied to a burning boat in the middle of the bay, and Maggie’s instincts tell her Bennett Boudreaux is behind it. But if he is, Maggie has to decide whether she really wants him punished, or if justice has already been served.Landfall - Book 4Two storms that nobody thought were coming just made landfall. As a hurricane gathers its power just off Apalachicola’s shore, another storm comes to a head in Lt. Maggie Redmond's home.Held prisoner by a man bent on avenging the death of a son, Maggie must find a way to save herself and her two children. No one knows where they are. No one is coming to help.Maggie and her children will have to find a way to survive both the madness inside their home and the madness raging outside.
Sloane Monroe Series,Books 4-5
Cheryl Bradshaw - 2013
But Mrs. Hathaway is too preoccupied to notice her daughter has slipped away. Moments later, a frantic Mrs. Hathaway runs up and down the aisles, desperately searching for her missing daughter. But little Olivia is already in the arms of a stranger. Will PI Sloane Monroe find Olivia before it's too late? ... BED OF BONES (Sloane Monroe Series #5) Sometimes even the deepest, darkest secrets find their way to the surface… Summer 1956 Thirteen-year-old Willie Compton and his younger brother Leonard stumble upon a mine shaft while hiking the hills of Park City, Utah. The shaft is unsealed, abandoned. While Leonard stares at the hole in wonderment, a Slinky he’s been flipping back and forth between his hands slithers through his fingers, tumbling toward the mouth of the shaft. Leonard bolts forward, reaches out to grab it, but he slips, then he falls. Present Day Up-and-coming filmmaker Melody Sinclair stirs in her chair, nervously awaiting the debut of her film at the Sundance Film Festival. Based on a true story, Bed of Bones tells a tale of murder, shining a big, bold light on Park City’s tragic past. A past that’s about to revisit the present.
Kill Game: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery
Dean Wesley Smith - 2014
Retired Detective Bayard Lott hosts the weekly poker games at his home. The group calls themselves the Cold Poker Gang. And they succeed at closing old cases. Lott’s very first homicide case as a brand-new detective had gone cold more than twenty years earlier. But retired Reno detective Julia Rogers, new to the Cold Poker Gang, suggests they look at that case again for personal reasons. From that simple suggestion spins one of the strangest and most complicated murder mystery puzzles the gang has ever seen. “Dean Wesley Smith does for poker what James Patterson does for serial killers.” —Sheldon McArthur, former owner of Mysterious Books in Los Angeles “[An] exhilarating political poker thriller.” —Harriet Klausner, Genre Go Round Reviews on Dead Money
Innocence
Karen Novak - 2003
Her experience has left her haunted by hallucinatory echoes of kids who are not coming back. But when Leslie's own thirteen year-old daughter, Molly, attempts to hire her to find a vanished friend, the echoes start to take their form from Leslie's own troubled childhood. As the search for Molly's friend Lydia gets underway, it becomes apparent that there's much more to the story: a party of eighth graders at Lydia's home got out of hand and has resulted in charges of sexual assault against five thirteen-year-old boys. The once-rural town and now burgeoning suburb of Swifton Woods. Swifton has labored for decades under the stigma of an unsolved series of abductions and rapes of eleven young girls, who came to be known as the Nightingales. An incidental connection between Lydia's party and Swifton's past only fans the public response to an ugly rage. The boys' conviction seems all but inevitable.Molly, however, knows more than she's telling. In trying to honor a solemn promise while negotiating her inherent sense of right and wrong, she finds herself despised by those she most wants to help. At the same time, Leslie's increasing worry for the depth of Molly's involvement begins to weave into her own secret knowledge of the Nightingales' history. In the end, she is left uncertain of every instinct but the one that demands she protect her child. Even if that means she has to betray her own childhood by telling everything.
Ring Around the Rosie
Jullian Scott - 2016
The Homecoming Dance is just one night away and she can already feel the weight of the crown upon her head. But when she leaves her home that Friday night, it’s for the very last time. When her body is found in a park the next morning, a whole town is turned upside down and a family is torn apart. Fifteen years later, Olivia still hasn’t moved on from her sister’s murder. Not only does she still see the ghost of her dead sister, she is pursuing a career studying the very monsters that destroyed Rosie and hundreds of other helpless victims. Olivia is desperate to find closure, but a new murder with connections to her past has reopened old wounds. Nate Tucker is a successful Chicago detective. He also happens to be Olivia’s best friend. Nate has been fascinated by the Thompson case since the first time Olivia mentioned her dead sister to him. When a dead girl shows up in the city under circumstances eerily similar to Rosie’s murder, he is quick to make the connection. Now, with stale evidence and fifteen-year-old memories to guide him, Nate has the chance to solve the current murder case, as well as the death of the Homecoming Queen that refuses to stop haunting the people she left behind. Dark and haunting, Ring Around the Rosie is utterly suspenseful and surprising to the end.
Prejudicial Error
Bill Blum - 1995
district attorney’s office finds a second home at Swanson’s Bar and Grille. Since his resignation from the D.A’s office, he’d done his best with small-time criminal cases. So, finding a place to drown his sorrows seemed appropriate. Lead dancer, Sally Sutton, kept the Mustang Club ahead of its competition. Fully packed until the lights went out, the Mustang Club was popular amongst business men and general party-animals. But ‘Mustang Sally’ hadn’t always lived her life in the limelight. Coming from a small Nebraska farm, her career aspirations had taken her along several small-time roles, before she was noticed. Sally was tight with some of the local police. Particularly Jim Rowinski, a SWAT team specialist who was gearing himself to becoming a homicide detective. Hot-headed and rash, he would do anything to get his way. When Joe Richards, a fifteen-year veteran is shot dead outside the Mustang Club, in Sally’s presence, Juan Javahn Thomas, notorious for his gang-banging lifestyle, is arrested. Homicide Lieutenant Tom Gallagher, Rowinski and Mary Delgado, the only female member of the arrest team, are present at the time of the arrest. To Solomon’s surprise, Judge Burton Lawler and D.A. Simon Lasker appoint him as the public defender in the case of Richards’s murder. Worse still, he was to go up against the prosecutor, Howard Ainsworth, the man who had taken his place as chief deputy, his arch-nemesis! In a bid to redeem himself, Solomon takes on the case. Ignoring all the insecurities that engulf him, he launches himself into the electrifying thrill of the courtroom. Working with his ally, Jimmy Johnson and going up against his former lover, Mary, Solomon’s task is taken up a notch. In the courtroom, as the trial unfolds, Solomon races against his opponent. Determination driving him, the details that unfold point to Sally knowing more than she originally let on. Bringing Sally back in under the heat of scrutiny, she breaks. It is all Solomon needs, yet the outcome is one no one was expecting…Prejudicial Error is a legal thriller filled with suspense that will keep you gripped until the very end. Bill Blum is an experienced attorney. Familiar with the ins and outs, and the pitfalls of criminal procedures, he presents a riveting, hard-hitting and authentic legal thriller, one that offers a fascinating insider’s look at the shifting political dynamics within the criminal justice system. Bill Blum has also written for a wide array of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, ABA Journal, The Nation and California Lawyer , hosted a radio talk show, and lectured widely. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family.
The Unburied Dead
Douglas Lindsay - 2012
A city lives in fear. The police fall into chaos. A woman is savagely murdered, her body stabbed over a hundred times, and the police recognise that the perpetrator will likely strike again. DCI Bloonsbury, the once-feted detective, is put in charge of the investigation, but when an officer is slain, and an old police conspiracy begins to unravel, Bloonsbury slides further into morose, intoxicated depression. And here, somewhere in the midst of the horror, is Detective Sergeant Thomas Hutton, lost in a sea of love, lust, deception, alcohol, and murdered colleagues. But the dead will not rest, the past will not be buried, and DS Hutton must find his way, as the killer kills, and kills again…
The First Shot
E.H. Reinhard - 2016
If a single award existed for sinking himself into his work, he’d have two.But the latest crime scene he’s called to, an old abandoned factory, leaves him with more bodies than leads. Three drug dealers are found shot to death—not an uncommon sight in the least. The problem lies with the pair of middle-aged women—bound, gagged, and executed—found at the same location.Before he can sink his teeth into the initial investigation, Kane is called out to another multiple homicide. He comes up with only more questions when the second group of murders appears connected to the first. As the lieutenant tracks down the few leads, he begins to get a clearer picture of those he seeks. That picture quickly turns crystal clear when Kane finds himself face-to-face with someone that “armed and dangerous” doesn’t even begin to describe.
The Engine House
Rhys Dylan - 2022
But as the killer scrambles to cover up the truth, the body count rises.Working with a new young team, Warlow peels away the layers to reveal the dark and rotten heart that beats beneath the chocolate box tranquillity of an area renowned for its quiet beauty.But does he still have what it takes to root out the monstrous truth before all hell lets loose?The Engine House is the gripping debut crime thriller set in the heart of wild Wales from author Rhys Dylan. Perfect for fans of LJ Ross, JD Kirk. JM Dalgliesh and Simon McCleave. Celtic noir with a spatter of dark humour.
Deadly Trio: 3 English Mysteries: Ice Blue, Blue Murder, Something Blue
Emma Jameson - 2014
Here are the first three Lord and Lady Hetheridge Books in one collection! In ICE BLUE, meet Lord Anthony Hetheridge, chief superintendent for New Scotland Yard. A bachelor approaching his sixieth birthday, Baron Hetheridge has a neat, orderly personal life that his new subordinate, the impetuous and beautiful Kate Wakefield, turns upside down. And their first murder case together reveals not only a powerful attraction, but a secret from Hetheridge's own past. In book 2, BLUE MURDER, Hetheridge and his detectives, DS Kate Wakefield and DS Deepal "Paul" Bhar, seek the culprit of a deadly Halloween bash while Hetheridge, ever more enamored of Kate, is determined to put an heirloom engagement ring on her finger. In book three, SOMETHING BLUE, East Ender Kate is finally ready to marry her blue-blooded guv and become Lady Hetheridge at long last. But with Downing Street pressuring them to solve a case in the shortest time frame ever, and serial killer Sir Duncan Godington back in the mix, can the wedding actually go off without a hitch?
9 Scorpions
Paul Levine - 1998
The airline CEO calls in a favor from a newly appointed Supreme Court clerk -- a former stripper he put through law school and took as a mistress. To what lengths will she go to secure the swing vote and keep her past a secret?
The Grave Man
David Archer - 2015
Sam Prichard was a cop, and a good one, until the bullets took out the joint of his right hip. Now he's trying to learn to live without being a cop, and getting to know his neighbors, learning to walk again and even ride a motorcycle. Life is bearable, barely, but then he gets asked to find a missing child, and the lure of getting back into some kind of police work is too much for him to resist. When he teams up with computer whiz Indiana Perkins, he suddenly becomes one of the best investigators he's ever even known. Now, he's found the missing child, but it's thrown him right into the middle of something that may be a drug war--or could be a chance to stop the next 911! There's no way out for Sam, so he's in for the ride of his life, but when the girl he's becoming fond of is suddenly drawn into the line of fire with her own little daughter, Sam is ready to forget all the rules and do whatever is necessary to win the day.
Next to Disappear
Malcolm Richards - 2015
Until disgraced ex-teacher Emily Swanson moves into the couple’s former home.Emily’s life is in ruins and she’s meant to be making a fresh start. But when she learns about the missing nurse, she sees a chance for redemption. Because finding Alina could help right the wrongs of Emily’s past. It could even mark the start of a new career in private investigation.But what Emily doesn’t know is that Alina had a horrifying secret. One about the care foundation where she worked. And the closer Emily gets to uncovering the truth, the closer she gets to terrible danger.Inspired by a shocking true crime, Next To Disappear introduces a thrilling, twist-filled series and a refreshingly different take on the private investigator genre.Revised edition: Previously published as Lost Lives.