Book picks similar to
Crawfish Mountain: A Novel by Ken Wells
louisiana
mystery
fiction
satire
The Lonestar Collection: Lonestar Sanctuary, Lonestar Secrets, Lonestar Homecoming, and Lonestar Angel
Colleen Coble - 2014
But with a stalker out for revenge, all Allie can think about now is their safety. She heads to the peaceful Bluebird Ranch, nestled in Texas hill country. Ranch owner Elijah DeAngelo eagerly welcomes the duo. But Rick Bailey—the ranch foreman—hasn't decided to let his guard down. Promises made long ago soon force Rick and Allie to work together to escape danger.
Lonestar Secrets
Shannon Astor returns to southwest Texas to serve as the town's veterinarian—and to get her life back on track. Then she catches a glimpse of Jack MacGowan, the man who ruined her life years before. Even more shocking is the sight of Jack's five-year-old daughter Faith, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Shannon's own daughter Kylie. Could Faith be the daughter that Shannon has believed to be dead for all these years?
Lonestar Homecoming
Gracie Lister escapes with her daughter to the West Texas country where her family fell apart years ago. There, Lieutenant Michael Wayne gives Gracie the refuge she needs and a job caring for his two children. When Gracie’s ex-fiancé catches up to her, her impulse is to flee the danger—and the father she lacks the courage to confront. Together Gracie and Michael must find the strength they need in each other to protect their newly forged family.
Lonestar Angel
Five years ago Eden and Clay Larson’s baby was stolen and never found. The tragedy ended their young and rocky marriage. Now Eden’s moved to a new town to rebuild her life. But Clay arrives and delivers news: he never signed their divorce papers. And Clay has been searching for Brianna all this time. He believes he’s found her in Bluebird, Texas, at a youth ranch. All five little girls there are the right age. Eden and Clay sign on as counselors, but as danger closes in, Eden, Clay, and all their young charges are in jeopardy. As they fight to save their family, Eden realizes that God has been fighting for them all along.
All is Calm
The Bluebird Ranch is the perfect place for Lauren Everman to hide. As the witness to a murder, she needs protection and the ranch’s owners offer her sanctuary. She lends a hand with the foster kids who visit the ranch to learn how to ride horses. Little Carly is her first student. Brendan Waddell is recovering from a gunshot wound at Bluebird Ranch. His friends’ welcoming home is the perfect place for him to rest during the holiday season. Lauren intrigues him, even though she says she’s not interested in romance. When Lauren and Brendan conspire to give young Carly a happy Christmas, love blooms. But first the couple must race against time to find the killer before he strikes again.
Disruption
Clair M. Poulson - 2021
But when he returns home from an evening out with his older sister, Lilia, Timmy is faced with his greatest challenge yet: the house has been ransacked, and their parents have disappeared without a trace. With the help of two detectives who take a special interest in the case, Timmy and Lilia embark on a unique investigation guided by Timmy’s photographic memory and relying on one subtle clue from the night of their parents’ disappearance: the unusual presence of an old Ford Bronco. Using that single piece of information, Timmy and Lilia are drawn into a deadly conspiracy spanning the globe and are staying just ahead of a mysterious foe who has no patience for their meddling. The success of this unlikely team of investigators rests with Timmy’s intrepid problem-solving skills as the siblings race to find their parents before time runs out.
Nothing More Dangerous
Allen Eskens - 2019
He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn’t being pushed around, he is being completely ignored. Even his beloved woods, his playground as a child and his sanctuary as he grew older, seem to be closing in on him, suffocating him.Then Thomas Elgin moves in across the road, and Boady’s life begins to twist and turn. Coming to know the Elgins--a black family settling into a community where notions of “us” and “them” carry the weight of history--forces Boady to rethink his understanding of the world he’s taken for granted. Secrets hidden in plain sight begin to unfold: the mother who wraps herself in the loss of her husband, the neighbor who carries the wounds of a mysterious past that he holds close, the quiet boss who is fighting his own hidden battle.But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of Lida Poe, the African-American woman who keeps the books at the local plastics factory. Word has it that Ms. Poe left town, along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. Although Boady has never met the missing woman, he discovers that the threads of her life are woven into the deepest fabric of his world.As the mystery of her fate plays out, Boady begins to see the stark lines of race and class that both bind and divide this small town, and he is forced to choose sides.
The Bird Eater
Ania Ahlborn - 2014
He abandoned his rural Arkansas hometown vowing never to return, until his seven-year-old son died in an accident, plunging Aaron into a nightmare of addiction and grief. Desperate to reclaim a piece of himself, he returns to the hills of his childhood, to Holbrook House, where he hopes to find peace among the memories of his youth. But solace doesn’t come easy. Someone—or something—has other plans. Like Aaron, Holbrook House is but a shell of what it once was, a target for vandals and ghost hunters who have nicknamed it “the devil’s den.” Aaron doesn’t believe in the paranormal—at least, not until a strange boy begins following him wherever he goes. Plagued by violent dreams and disturbing visions, Aaron begins to wonder if he’s losing his mind. But a festering darkness lurks at the heart of Holbrook House… a darkness that grins from within the shadows, delighting in Aaron’s sorrow, biding its time.
How Lucky
Will Leitch - 2021
He considers himself to be a mostly lucky guy—despite the fact that he’s suffered from a debilitating disease since he was a small child, one that has left him unable to speak or to move without a wheelchair. Largely confined to his home, Daniel spends the hours he’s not online communicating with irate air travelers observing his neighborhood from his front porch. One young woman passes by so frequently that spotting her out the window has almost become part of his daily routine. Until the day he’s almost sure he sees her being kidnapped.
Goblin
Josh Malerman - 2017
But with the master storyteller Josh Malerman as your tour guide, you'll discover the secrets that hide behind its closed doors. These six novellas tell the story of a place where the rain is always falling, nighttime is always near, and your darkest fears and desires await. Welcome to Goblin. . . .A Man in Slices: A man proves his "legendary love" to his girlfriend with a sacrifice even more daring than Vincent van Gogh's--and sends her more than his heart.Kamp: Walter Kamp is afraid of everything, but most afraid of being scared to death. As he sets traps around his home to catch the ghosts that haunt him, he learns that nothing is more terrifying than fear itself.Happy Birthday, Hunter!: A famed big-game hunter is determined to capture--and kill--the ultimate prey: the mythic Great Owl who lives in Goblin's dark forests. But this mysterious creature is not the only secret the woods are keeping.Presto: All Peter wants is to be like his hero, Roman Emperor, the greatest magician in the world. When the famous magician comes to Goblin, Peter discovers that not all magic is just an illusion.A Mix-Up at the Zoo: The new zookeeper feels a mysterious kinship with the animals in his care . . . and finds that his work is freeing dark forces inside him.The Hedges: When his wife dies, a man builds a hedge maze so elaborate no one ever solves it--until a little girl resolves to be the first to find the mysteries that wait at its heart.
Bearskin
James A. McLaughlin - 2018
He’s found a job protecting a remote forest preserve in Virginian Appalachia where his main responsibilities include tracking wildlife and refurbishing cabins. It’s hard work, and totally solitary—perfect to hide away from the Mexican drug cartels he betrayed back in Arizona. But when Rice finds the carcass of a bear killed on the grounds, the quiet solitude he’s so desperately sought is suddenly at risk.More bears are killed on the preserve and Rice’s obsession with catching the poachers escalates, leading to hostile altercations with the locals and attention from both the law and Rice’s employers. Partnering with his predecessor, a scientist who hopes to continue her research on the preserve, Rice puts into motion a plan that could expose the poachers but risks revealing his own whereabouts to the dangerous people he was running from in the first place.James McLaughlin expertly brings the beauty and danger of Appalachia to life. The result is an elemental, slow burn of a novel—one that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.
The Peyton Brooks, FBI Box Set: Volume One: Books 1-5
M.L. Hamilton - 2018
Over 1,000 pages of action and adventure from San Francisco’s top special agent. The Peyton Brooks, FBI series follows the career of Special Agent Peyton Brooks and her team, the Ghost Squad, as they tackle crimes around the world. This compilation includes titles: Zombies in the Delta, Mermaids in the Pacific, Werewolves in London, Vampires in Hollywood, and Mayan Gods in the Yucatan.
Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes
Denise Grover Swank - 2011
She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen-- do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty of secrets of his own.Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all.
Drowning With Others
Linda Keir - 2019
Did one of them kill to get it?Prep school sweethearts Ian and Andi Copeland are envied by everyone they know. They have successful businesses, a beautiful house in St. Louis, and their eldest daughter, Cassidy, is following in their footsteps by attending prestigious Glenlake Academy. Then, a submerged car is dredged from the bottom of a swimming hole near the campus. So are the remains of a former writer-in-residence who vanished twenty years ago—during Ian and Andi’s senior year.When Cassidy’s journalism class begins investigating the death, Ian and Andi’s high school secrets rise to the surface. Each has a troubled link to the man whose arrival and sudden disappearance once set the school on edge. And each had a reason to want him gone. As Cassidy unwittingly edges closer to the truth, unspoken words, locked away for decades, will force Ian and Andi to question what they really know—about themselves, about the past, and about a marriage built on a murderous lie.
The Lost Story
Amit Goyal - 2012
Together, they imagine an epic battle between balance and chaos, a tale of a haunted house, a simple journey home that turns into a man's greatest nightmare, and even the end of the world.As the stories take shape, Sandy gets curious about Saleem's past and the several unanswered questions that he encounters… Why did Saleem stop writing? Why can he no longer finish stories? What is behind the locked door in his house? And… what is The Lost Story?Written like the premise, the stories in this book have each been done in two halves. One part by one author, and the second by the other, never discussing the story in between.
Shoot the Moon
Billie Letts - 2004
In 1972, windswept DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the murder of a young mother, Gaylene Harjo, and the disappearance of her baby, Nicky Jack. When the child's pajama bottoms were discovered on the banks of Willow Creek, everyone feared that he, too, had been killed, although his body was never found.Nearly thirty years later, Nicky Jack mysteriously returns to DeClare, shocking the town and stirring up long-buried memories. But what he discovers about the night he vanished is more astonishing than he or anyone could have imagine. Piece by piece, what emerges is a story of dashed hopes, desperate love, and a secret that still cries out for justice...and redemption.
The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator
Joakim Palmkvist - 2017
When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on—except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime—and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden. But not for Therese Tang. For two years, this case was her obsession.A hard-working ex-model, mother of three, and Missing People investigator, Therese was willing to put her own safety at risk in order to uncover the truth. What she found was a nest of depraved secrets, lies, and betrayal. All she had to do now, in her relentless and dangerous pursuit of justice, was prove that it led to murder.