Book picks similar to
The Doom Murders by Brian O'Hare
crime
reviewed
abandoned
thriller
Impostor
L.J. Ross - 2019
Forensic psychologist Doctor Alexander Gregory has a reputation for being able to step inside the darkest minds to uncover whatever secrets lie hidden there and, soon enough, he finds himself drawn into the murky world of murder investigation.In the beautiful hills of County Mayo, Ireland, a killer is on the loose. Panic has a stranglehold on its rural community and the Garda are running out of time. Gregory has sworn to follow a quiet life but, when the call comes, can he refuse to help their desperate search for justice?Murder and mystery are peppered with dark humour in this fast-paced thriller set amidst the spectacular Irish landscape.“LJ Ross keeps company with the best mystery writers” – The Times“A literary phenomenon” – Evening Chronicle“LJ Ross is the Queen of Kindle” – Sunday Telegraph
The Ghosts of Belfast
Stuart Neville - 2009
Every night, on the point of losing his mind, he drowns their screams in drink. His solution is to kill those who engineered their deaths.From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all are called to account. But when Fegan's vendetta threatens to derail a hard-won truce and destabilise the government, old comrades and enemies alike want him dead.Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Thriller.
The Saints Go Dying
Erik Hanberg - 2010
Every two months, a new body turns up--and the world is left with one less good person.Against him is an unscrupulous reality TV show, whose sole premise is that the police are corrupt and incompetent. As the intensifying public reaction pushes all of Freeman's resources to the limits, he dusts off his old habits--computer hacking--to dig up evidence he couldn't find legally.But when he accidentally leaves a cyber-trail, he finds himself targeted by a member of his own department, who doesn't know the hacker she's tailing is in the office next door.It's a deadly cat-and-mouse game set against the lights of Hollywood.
The Legend of Devil's Creek
D.C. Alexander - 2012
More abductions and killings soon follow. Justin Riddley, recently transferred to the island’s small college, faces growing evidence that one of his new friends and fellow students may be the murderer. John Marshall, redemption-seeking captain of the local police force, leads the frantic murder investigation and struggles to figure out whether the killings are tied to the island's dark and violent past. Tormented by tragic wartime memories, and more convinced with each day that it is humanity’s fate to destroy itself, Marshall races against both the murderer and the specter of his own mental breakdown. As blood continues to spill, Riddley and Marshall wonder whether there may be a dark, universal force that drives evil deeds great and small, and whether the nature of one’s childhood might sometimes, in the end, be all that separates the saint from the psychopath.
A Dangerous Talent
Charlotte Elkins - 2012
She has it all…or does she? Only Alix knows that the image she presents to the world is a carefully constructed mirage that veils an embarrassing truth. A brilliant, once-promising art student, the daughter of a prominent New York art conservator, her world was left in ruins when her father went to prison for art forgery. Now a Harvard dropout with an emptied bank account, she is languishing in a career that has produced little more than a lucky house-sitting gig. But all of that changes when Alix meets Christine Lemay, a novice art collector with money to burn and a hot tip on a recently discovered painting by American master Georgia O’Keeffe. Chris hires Alix to perform the authentication, an assignment that finally could launch Alix into the big leagues. But soon after her arrival in Santa Fe, she finds herself tangled up in a web of forgery, deceit—and murder. Anxious to avoid becoming the next victim, she teams up with FBI Special Agent Ted Ellesworth—and gets a little unlikely help from her roguish father—to uncover the truth behind the painting and those who would kill to have it. Sharp, witty, and devilishly fun, A Dangerous Talent offers an insider’s look into the surprisingly treacherous contemporary art world.
Blood Ties
Lori G. Armstrong - 2005
Lack of public interest in finding his murderer, or the killer of several other transient Native American men, has left Julie with a bone-deep cynicism she counters with tequila, cigarettes, and dangerous men. The one bright spot in her mundane life is the time she spends working part-time as a PI with her childhood friend, Kevin Wells. When the body of a sixteen-year old white girl is discovered in nearby Rapid Creek, Julie believes this victim will receive the attention others were denied. Then she learns Kevin has been hired, mysteriously, to find out where the murdered girl spent her last few days. Julie finds herself drawn into the case against her better judgment, and discovers not only the ugly reality of the young girl’s tragic life and brutal death, but ties to her and Kevin’s past that she is increasingly reluctant to revisit. On the surface the situation is eerily familiar. But the parallels end when Julie realizes some family secrets are best kept buried deep. Especially those serious enough to kill for.
Ashes to Ashes
Tami Hoag - 1999
He has already claimed three lives, and he won’t stop there. Only this time there is a witness. But she isn’t talking. Enter Kate Conlan, former FBI agent turned victim/witness advocate. Not even she can tell if the reluctant witness is a potential victim or something more troubling still. Her superiors are interested only because the latest victim may be the daughter of Peter Bondurant, an enigmatic billionaire. When Peter pulls strings, Special Agent John Quinn gets assigned to the case. But the FBI’s ace profiler of serial killers is the last person Kate wants to work with, not with their troubled history. Now she faces the most difficult role of her career—and her life. For she’s the only woman who has what it takes to stop the killer . . . and the one woman he wants next.
Fragile
Lisa Unger - 2010
It's a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another's kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows's insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients' lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie's intuitive gift proves useful to the case--and also dangerous.The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father.Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene's disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret--one that could destroy everything she holds dear.
The Frozen Dead
Bernard Minier - 2011
On the same day as the gruesome discovery, a young psychiatrist starts her first job at a secure asylum for the criminally insane, just a few miles away. Commandant Servaz, a Toulouse city cop, can't believe he has been called out over the death of an animal. But there is something disturbing about this crime that he cannot ignore. Then DNA from one of the most notorious inmates of the asylum is found on the corpse... and a few days later the first murder takes place. In this snowbound valley, deep in the Pyrenees, a dark story of madness and revenge is unfolding. It will take all of Servaz's skill to solve it.
The Crucifix Killer
Chris Carter - 2009
Naked, strung from two parallel wooden posts, the victim was sadistically tortured before meeting an excruciatingly painful death. All the skin has been ripped from her face - while she was still alive. On the nape of her neck has been carved a strange double-cross: the signature of a psychopath known as the Crucifix Killer. But that's impossible. Because two years ago, the Crucifix Killer was caught and executed. Could this therefore be a copycat killer? Or could the unthinkable be true? Is the real killer still out there, ready to embark once again on a vicious and violent killing spree, selecting his victims seemingly at random, taunting Robert Hunter with his inability to catch him? Hunter and his rookie partner are about to enter a nightmare beyond imagining.
Gallows View
Peter Robinson - 1987
Investigating these cases is Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, a perceptive, curious and compassionate policeman recently moved to the Yorkshire Dales from London to escape the stress of city life. In addition to all this, Banks has to deal with the local feminists and his attraction to a young psychologist, Jenny Fuller. As the tension mounts, both Jenny and Banks’s wife, Sandra, are drawn deeper into the events. The cases weave together as the story reaches a tense and surprising climax."--Author's website.
The Profiler's Daughter
P.M. Steffen - 2012
A six-year-old eyewitness. A gun from the grave.The Profiler's Daughter is a psychologically haunting thriller that combines murder mystery, love triangle, and family intrigue in one satisfying page burner.Sky Stone was born into the wealth and privilege of Boston's oldest Brahmin family but chooses instead to follow in the footsteps of her deceased father, legendary FBI profiler Monk Stone. In the chilly morning hours before the Boston Marathon, when a beautiful university student is found strangled and mutilated, her body left at the base of Heartbreak Hill, Sky returns from self-imposed exile to investigate. Thirty-six hours into the investigation, Sky's world turns upside down when she is fired from the Homicide team. They pin the murder on an innocent man, forcing Sky into a life-threatening game of cat and mouse with the real killer. From the stately mansions of Beacon Hill to the flat scrubland of central Texas, Sky keeps the reader on a razor's edge, culminating in a no-holds-barred shoot-out.The Profiler's Daughter, the first in the Sky Stone Thriller series, introduces a moody, enigmatic, and brilliant female heroine with the fierce bite of Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander. As adeptly written as Martin Cruz Smith's complex Arkady Renko novels, this thriller offers an intriguing plot, richly detailed characters, and an astonishing conclusion guaranteed to leave the reader begging for more.
She Lies in Wait
Gytha Lodge - 2019
Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and the youngest of the group—Aurora Jackson—is delighted to be allowed to tag along. The evening starts like any other—they drink, they dance, they fight, they kiss. Some of them slip off into the woods in pairs, others are left jealous and heartbroken. But by morning, Aurora has disappeared. Her friends claim that she was safe the last time they saw her, right before she went to sleep. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found.Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. Back in 1983, as a young cop in their small town, he had known the teenagers—including Aurora—personally, even before taking part in the search. Now he’s determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. Sheens’s investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead, and all of them profoundly changed forever.
Summer People
Aaron Stander - 2000
The summer residents are settling in for the season and the tourists are beginning to flood the highways and beaches. But the idyllic vision of a summer at the shore is suddenly shattered by a gangland-style shooting. This murder is quickly followed by the deaths of three more summer residents, each taking place under suspicious circumstances. At times hindered by local politics and the proverbial tension between the summer people and the natives, Sheriff Ray Elkins searches for the possible links between the four victims. As he probes into their tangled lives and dark histories, he finds both the motive and the possible murderer.
The Rock: Murders In The Sun
Robert Daws - 2012
Gibraltar. 1966. In a fading colonial house overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, the dead body of a beautiful woman lays dripping in blood. The steel handle of a knife protrudes from her chest, its sharpened tip buried deep within her heart. The Rock. Present day. Detective Sergeant Tamara Sullivan arrives on The Rock on a three-month secondment from the London Metropolitan Police Service. Her reasons for being here are not happy ones and she braces herself for a tedious and wasteful twelve weeks in the sun. After all, murders are rare on the small, prosperous and sun-kissed sovereignty of Gibraltar and catching murderers is what Sullivan does best. It is a talent she shares with her new boss, Chief Inspector Gus Broderick of the Royal Gibraltar Police Force. He's an old-fashioned cop who regards his new colleague with mild disdain. But when a young police constable is found hanging from the ceiling of his apartment, Sullivan and Broderick begin to unravel a dark and dangerous secret that will test their skills and working relationship to the limit. "Elegant storytelling, an original location and a fine sense of place. Robert Daws is a very promising addition to the exciting canon of 21st Century crime writers" Peter James, No 1 bestselling author of the 'Roy Grace' crime novels.