Book picks similar to
Blood In The Sand by Kelly Clayton
mystery
crime
thriller
suspense
The Sister
Max China - 2013
Suspenseful, and thrilling, it is a mystery that unravels over time, following the lives of a group of seemingly unconnected people, as they struggle to bring an unusually talented serial killer to justice. CORNWALL, ENGLAND. In the summer of love, 1967, two children witness a murder. One, a seven-year old boy, views it from fifty yards - the other, a young Irish girl, from miles away... LONDON, 2006. With retirement looming, DCI John F Kennedy reopens the only unresolved case in his career, the disappearance of a young nurse, Kathy, twenty-three years earlier. The broadcast appeal for information on the missing teenage runaway, Eilise; is followed by a cold-case reconstruction of Kathy's last known movements. A new witness comes forward, and Kennedy - now set on the trail of a serial killer - unwittingly sparks a sequence of events that lead back to himself, threatening his own, very private existence. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes apparent that the murderer is no ordinary adversary. Resourceful and cunning, he has been operating undetected for over forty years, and it seems that only the original witnesses from 1967 can stop him. But they have yet to meet... The Sister is much more than just an ordinary thriller. It is the story of a lifetime...The book is a two part pilot episode with resolution, but left open to a series of planned spin-off self-contained episodes involving a selection of characters from the original story, the first of which is due for release in late spring.
The Crossing Places
Elly Griffiths - 2009
Ruth Galloway is in her late thirties and lives happily alone with her two cats in a bleak, remote area near Norfolk, land that was sacred to its Iron Age inhabitants—not quite earth, not quite sea. But her routine days of digging up bones and other ancient objects are harshly upended when a child’s bones are found on a desolate beach. Detective Chief Inspector Nelson calls Galloway for help, believing they are the remains of Lucy Downey, a little girl who went missing a decade ago and whose abductor continues to taunt him with bizarre letters containing references to ritual sacrifice, Shakespeare, and the Bible. Then a second girl goes missing and Nelson receives a new letter—exactly like the ones about Lucy. Is it the same killer or a copycat murderer, linked in some way to the site near Ruth’s remote home?
A Field of Red
Greg Enslen - 2013
Harper is visiting the small Ohio town of Cooper's Mill, trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter and a grandson he's never met. But he finds the town gripped in fear-two young girls have gone missing, taken in broad daylight from a busy street. And the police are coming up blank. But once Harper is drawn reluctantly into the investigation, he'll stop at nothing to find the girls. And he doesn't care who gets in the way.
Little Boy Lost
J.D. Trafford - 2017
But when eight-year-old Tanisha Walker offers him a jar full of change to find her missing brother, he doesn’t have the heart to turn her away.Justin had hoped to find the boy alive and well. But all that was found of Devon Walker was his brutally murdered body—and the bodies of twelve other African American teenagers, all discarded like trash in a mass grave. Each had been reported missing. And none had been investigated.As simmering racial tensions explode into violence, Justin finds himself caught in the tide. And as he gives voice to the discontent plaguing the city’s forgotten and ignored, he vows to search for the killer who preys upon them.
Gone the Next
Ben Rehder - 2012
He's working a routine case, complete with hours of tedious surveillance, when he sees something that shakes him to the core. There, with the subject, is a little blond girl wearing a pink top and denim shorts—the same outfit worn by Tracy Turner, a six-year-old abducted the day before. When the police are skeptical of Ballard's report—and with his history, who can blame them?—it's the beginning of the most important case of his life.
No Game For a Dame
M. Ruth Myers - 2011
Moving through streets where people line up at soup kitchens, Maggie draws information from sources others overlook: The waitress at the dime store lunch counter where she has breakfast; a ragged newsboy; the other career girls at her rooming house. Her digging gets her chloroformed and left in a ditch behind the wheel of her DeSoto. She makes her way to an upscale bordello and gets tea – and information – from the madam herself. A gunman puts a bullet through Maggie’s hat. Her shutterbug pal on the evening paper warns her off. A new cop whose presence unsettles her thinks she’s crooked. Before she finds all the answers she needs, she faces a half-crazed man with a gun, and a far more lethal point-blank killer. If you like Robert B. Parker's hard boiled Spencer series and strong women sleuths, don't miss this one-of-a-kind Ohio detective from a time in United States history when dames wore hats -- but seldom a Smith & Wesson.
It Ends with Her
Brianna Labuskes - 2018
She’ll end it.FBI special agent Clarke Sinclair doesn’t give up easily. She’s spent years tracking serial killer Simon Cross, forced to follow his twisted clues and photographs across the country. Clarke knows that Cross selects only redheaded women and that he doesn’t target another victim until Clarke discovers the previous one.He’s never broken pattern…until now.A girl has already gone missing in upstate New York when a second one is kidnapped—a blonde. The killer’s MO has changed, sending Clarke back to the drawing board. The closer she gets to the truth, the deeper she’s drawn into an inescapable trap made just for Clarke. Whatever Cross’s ultimate game is, it ends with her.
Case Histories
Kate Atkinson - 2004
Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack. Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge . . .
The Greenway
Jane A. Adams - 1995
The Greenway lingered in my mind for days. It takes the psychological suspense novel into new realms of mystery.” Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News “A haunting debut.” Minette Walters “Compellingly told and rich with psychological insight.” Independent “Nail-biting stuff.” Ms London “An assured first novel, with a strong cast and a plot which twists and turns without a glitch.” Yorkshire Evening Post “Adams has a distinctive voice, which I predict will be heard by the majority of mystery fans.” Shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Award and for the Author's Club Best First Novel Award. AUGUST 1975: Cassie Maltham’s life changes forever one scorching day. She and her twelve-year-old cousin Suzie take a shortcut through the Greenway, an ancient pathway steeped in Norfolk legend. Somewhere along this path Suzie simply vanishes . . . TWENTY YEARS LATER: Cassie is still tormented by nightmares, parts of her memory completely erased. With her husband Fergus and friends Anna and Simon, she returns to Norfolk, determined to confront her fears and solve a mystery that won’t let her rest. Then another young girl goes missing at the entrance to the Greenway, and Cassie is pushed once more into the darkest recesses of her mind. John Tynan, the retired detective who’d been in charge of Suzie’s case, is still haunted by her disappearance. He offers his help to Detective Inspector Mike Croft who is leading the increasingly frantic search for the missing child. Has evil returned? And what really happened all those years ago and who can be believed? Perfect for fans of Nualla Ellwood, Kl Slater, Gillian Flynn, and Lucy Clarke. ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS YOU WILL READ THIS YEAR, FULL OF ASTONISHING TWISTS.
Special Agent Francesca
Mimi Barbour - 2014
On arrival, multiple obstacles challenge her. She needs to approach a father she’s never met, a man who doesn’t even know she exists. Then she must play the role of a loving fiancée with a stranger. One who makes her question every unexpected emotion he provokes. Craving the chance for real undercover work, she grabs the opportunity to be involved in cleaning up gang corruption in a nasty neighborhood. When she poses as the new owner of a hotel, the deadly-dangerous situation ramps up and she’s forced to fight her way from one conflict to the next.Sean Collins, Psychiatrist and LVPD Profiler, has never known anyone like Francesca Donovan. From first sight, he believes her to be a screwball but her beauty and maddening personality attracts him. Despite her prickly disposition, which gets them into a load of trouble, her rotten driving skills and her constant battles, he’s hooked. Once he’s roped into a mock engagement with her, his desire to make it real takes precedence over everything else in his world.
Kill Sight
Geoffrey Saign - 2020
Attracted to Megan on many levels, old wounds and new hopes rise for Alex, but Megan has a hidden past.Stalked by a hired killer, Alex discovers a treacherous secret that will turn everything upside down.Desperate to save the victims, he may have more trouble saving himself…
Devil Dealing
Ian Patrick - 2015
Lead detective Jeremy Ryder is a physically powerful, quiet and meticulous investigator. His partner Navi Pillay is a small and exceptionally strong Tamil martial arts instructor, and she provides the speed and physical power to complement Ryder's incisive sleuthing abilities. Together with their other detective colleagues Ryder and Pillay crack open two interwoven criminal operations. There are two key villains. One is a corrupt murderous senior police officer at the heart of the illegal gambling operation and the other is a sinister and violent gangster dealing in drugs and murder. Each of them presides over lesser criminals and each of them controls separate domains of corruption until their paths cross in a spectacular climax.
An Accidental Death
Peter Grainger - 2013
As a matter of routine, or so it seems, the case passes across the desk of Detective Sergeant Smith, recently returned to work after an internal investigation into another case that has led to tensions between officers at Kings Lake police headquarters. As an ex DCI, Smith could have retired by now, and it is clear that some of his superiors wish that he would do so. The latest trainee detective to work with him is the son of a member of his former team, and together they begin to unravel the truth about what happened to Wayne Fletcher. As the investigation proceeds, it becomes clear that others are involved - some seem determined to prevent it, some seem to be taking too much interest. In the end Smith operates alone, having stepped too far outside standard procedures to ask for support. He knows that his own life might be at risk but he has not calculated on the life of his young assistant also being put in danger. He might still get his man but at what cost?
The Detective's Daughter
Lesley Thomson - 2013
Her murder shocked the nation. Her husband never pressed charges and moved abroad under a cloud of suspicion. Her son, just four years old, grew up in a loveless boarding school. And Detective Inspector Darnell, vowing to leave no stone unturned in the search for her killer, began to lose his only daughter. The young Stella Darnell grew to resent the dead Kate Rokesmith for capturing her father's attention in a way she never could.Thirty years later, Stella is dutifully sorting through her father's attic after his sudden death. The Rokesmith case papers are in a corner gathering dust: the case was never solved. Stella knows she should destroy them. Instead, she opens the box, and starts to read...
Talking to the Dead
Harry Bingham - 2012
. . . At first, the murder scene appears sad, but not unusual: a young woman undone by drugs and prostitution, her six-year-old daughter dead alongside her. But then detectives find a strange piece of evidence in the squalid house: the platinum credit card of a very wealthy--and long dead--steel tycoon. What is a heroin-addicted hooker doing with the credit card of a well-known and powerful man who died months ago? This is the question that the most junior member of the investigative team, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, is assigned to answer.But D.C. Griffiths is no ordinary cop. She's earned a reputation at police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, for being odd, for not picking up on social cues, for being a little overintense. And there's that gap in her past, the two-year hiatus that everyone assumes was a breakdown. But Fiona is a crack investigator, quick and intuitive. She is immediately drawn to the crime scene, and to the tragic face of the six-year-old girl, who she is certain has something to tell her . . . something that will break the case wide open.Ignoring orders and protocol, Fiona begins to explore far beyond the rich man's credit card and into the secrets of her seaside city. And when she uncovers another dead prostitute, Fiona knows that she's only begun to scratch the surface of a dark world of crime and murder. But the deeper she digs, the more danger she risks--not just from criminals and killers but from her own past . . . and the abyss that threatens to pull her back at any time.