Book picks similar to
The Butcher's Daughter by Jane E. James


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The Catch


T.M. Logan - 2020
    Ryan appears to be the perfect future son-in-law. There's just one problem. There's something off about Ryan. Something hidden in the shadows behind his eyes. And it seems that only Ed can see it.Terrified that his daughter is being drawn in by a psychopath, Ed sets out to uncover her fiancé's dark past - while keeping his own concealed. But no-one believes him. And the more he digs, the more he alienates her and the rest of the family who are convinced that Ryan is 'the one'.Ed knows different. For reasons of his own, he knows a monster when he sees one...

What You Did


Claire McGowan - 2019
    A devastating accusation. Who should she trust, her husband or her best friend?It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.When Karen staggers in from the garden, bleeding and traumatised, she claims that she has been assaulted—by Ali’s husband, Mike. Ali must make a split-second decision: who should she believe? Her horrified husband, or her best friend? With Mike offering a very different version of events, Ali knows one of them is lying—but which? And why?When the ensuing chaos forces her to re-examine the golden era the group shared at university, Ali realises there are darker memories too. Memories that have lain dormant for decades. Memories someone would kill to protect.

Act of Vengeance


Michael Jecks - 2012
     Cut adrift and superfluous in a changing world, he was discarded by British Intelligence. Then, after 9/11, rapid recruitment brought in a rash of new, talented young men and women. They were trained and put into the field swiftly - often too swiftly. And then the mistakes started to happen. Mistakes that should have been avoided. Mistakes that could be embarrassing to Her Majesty's Government. Thus, Jack was brought back into the intelligence fold, heading up a new team of "Scavengers" - experienced agents who could be sent to clear up the messes left behind by newer recruits before evidence incriminating MI5 and MI6 could be discovered. Jack is sent to tidy up one last case. In a quiet Alaskan backwater, a man named Danny Lewin has committed suicide with a handgun. But this was no ordinary suicide. This was an agent who held secrets. A man haunted by his past interrogating prisoners in Iraq. And British Intelligence fear that he put his secrets down on paper. For Jack, his mission is straightforward. He must travel to Alaska and retrieve Lewin’s journal before someone else can lay their hands on it. Before long, Jack realises that there are individuals just as skilled and determined as himself searching for the journal - individuals who are willing to kill in order to get what they want. Case is drawn into a manhunt that drags him into the murky underworld of contemporary espionage and leaves him questioning who his allies and who is enemies are. The rules of the game have changed since the days of the Cold War. Now Case must impose his own rules. Scavenger rules. Praise for Michael Jecks: 'An instant classic British spy novel - mature, thoughtful, and intelligent ... but also raw enough for our modern times. Highly recommended.' - Lee Child, author of the Reacher series 'More magic by the master of the medieval' - Quintin Jardine 'Michael Jecks is a national treasure' - Scotland on Sunday 'A textbook example of how to blend action and detection in a historical' - Publishers Weekly Michael Jecks is the author of the bestselling Knights Templar series, comprising thirty-two novels starring Baldwin de Furnshill. Fields of Glory is the first novel in a new trilogy, set around the Hundred Years' War. A regular speaker at library and literary events, he is a past Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Exeter University. He was shortlisted for the Harrogate/Theakston’s Old Peculier prize for the best crime novel of the year 2007, the year Allan Guthrie won. He lives with his wife, children and dogs in northern Dartmoor. To find out more visit his website http://www.michaeljecks.com, follow him on twitter @michaeljecks, or find him on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Michael.Jecks...

Sick Girl


Rachel Hargrove - 2018
    Until now. 25-year-old scrappy Aubrey is fed up with her boyfriend, Tom, a married man with two children. When he's not shoving their affair on the back burner, he's canceling their dates. With a frightening health diagnosis looming over her shoulder, Aubrey concocts a desperate plan to have Tom forever. Kill his wife. Take her place. Befriending Tom's successful, kind wife comes easily to Aubrey. However, the closer they become, the more doubts Aubrey has about following through. Then a shocking discovery changes everything... Sick Girl is an addicting psychological thriller that explores mental illness with a compelling unreliable narrator from debut author Rachel Hargrove. Read the gripping novel readers are calling "better than Gone Girl" and "unputdownable!"

Worst Case (Charley Gallagher Mystery)


Jack Parker - 2014
    So he is completely unprepared for when he is assigned the case of a murdered high school gym teacher who was found beaten to death and wrapped up in a volleyball net. Encountering the likes of a compulsive overeater, a female gym teacher with an attitude, and an advice-giving dog, Charley's life gets a little crazy.

Renatus


John A. Saunders - 2013
    Detective Superintendent Eddie Kilminster, a junior detective on the earlier case, now leads the current investigation. He enlists the help of Sean Moses, an ex colleague from the first case, and now an investigative profiler operating outside of the force. Eddie and Sean find themselves on a journey and a race against time before the killer strikes again. Will Eddies mind be opened to the forces of nature that lie beneath the killings, and will Sean discover a new path in his life before events push him beyond the edge of his own sanity.

A Good Marriage


Stephen King - 2014
    Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It's a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends a good marriage.Listening Length: 3 hours and 33 minutes

A Deadly Game


Joanne Griffiths - 2017
    However, on the evening before she returns home, her body is discovered in Aston park. She is the first victim of several murders that will rock the city of Birmingham.DS James "Jim" Wardell, who has his own issues to contend with, is given the case.When Eddie Carter, a popular talk show host on Birmingham's radio station, is contacted by someone claiming to be the killer, it is the start of a cat and mouse game between a deranged killer and the police.After a second body is discovered the pressure mounts on the police to capture the person responsible.Who is killing these women and why?Can Jim apprehend the twisted killer before more innocent women are murdered?

Watching You


Lynda Renham - 2018
    Libby Owen is scared. Fifteen years earlier she saw Ewan murder her aunt and uncle with their own shotgun, and now he’s coming for her.

Her Greatest Mistake


Sarah Simpson - 2018
    which has become the perfect lie. Gone is the charming, attentive Gregg - instead Eve wakes up each morning beside a manipulative and sinister man who controls his wife's every move. So Eve flees her immaculate marital home to keep herself, and young son Jack safe. Yet no matter how careful she has been, she knows Gregg will be relentless in his pursuit of his missing family. And that one day, when she's least expecting it, he will find them... What was Eve's greatest mistake? Marrying Gregg? Leaving him? Or leaving him alive...?

Afraid


Jack Kilborn - 2008
    . . Welcome to Safe Haven, Wisconsin. Miles from everything, with one road in and out, this peaceful town has never needed a full-time police force. Until now . . . A helicopter has crashed near Safe Haven and unleashed something horrifying. Now this merciless force is about to do what it does best. Isolate. Terrorize. Annihilate. As residents begin dying in a storm of gory violence, Safe Haven's only chance for survival will rest with an aging county sheriff, a firefighter, and a single mom. And each will have this harrowing thought: Maybe death hasn't come to their town by accident . . .

The Rules


Nancy Holder - 2015
    No one is safe and everyone is a suspect. It's Saw meets I Know What You Did Last Summer.Junior Robin Brisset has no idea what she's in for when she accepts an invitation to one of Callabrese High's most exclusive parties. And when the trademark scavenger hunt begins, Robin must go against every rule she's lived by to survive.

Sidekick to Memory Man


Anna Gooding-Call - 2015
     Warning: This is an independent companion to Memory Man, meant to enhance your experience of the novel. If you have not yet bought David Baldacci’s novel, make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial Sidekick. A knock to the head left Detective Amos Decker with an unusual medical condition: he can’t forget anything. Over a year has passed since he came home to discover the bodies of his wife and daughter, but he still sees their images vividly in his mind. Now, a new case which seems related to the murders offers him the chance to find out what really happened—but to do so, he’ll have to peer directly into the agony of his past. A master of suspense, David Baldacci has published twenty-nine novels, all of them bestsellers. Memory Man is the first novel in his new Amos Decker series. With this Sidekick, you’ll: • Learn what you might have missed on your first read of Baldacci’s novel • Discover some of the book’s secret gems and underlying themes • Explore possible alternate endings and imagine ideas for a prequel • Spend some more time with the characters you’ve come to know and love, delving deep into their psyches and hidden motives • Get a chance to discuss Memory Man with other savvy readers Sidekicks are entertaining and insightful reading companions, filled with delightful commentary and thought-provoking questions. What are readers saying about Anna Call's Sidekicks? "Makes the book much more interesting," "a real eye-opener," a "beautifully written perspective into what is actually happening between the lines." Designed to be read side by side with the novels they complement, they’ll give you even more reasons to love some of today’s best books.

Why She Left


Leah Mercer - 2021
    Why are they here? What do they want? And why did my daughter leave in the first place? Am I finally, after all of these years, going to find out? I take a deep breath and usher them in…Ruth has spent every day of the last fifteen years wondering why her daughter Isobel left. Walking around the school to which she has given her life, every child she sees reminds her of her family’s bright future which vanished in an instant.So when Ruth opens the door to find Isobel and a teenage grandson she never knew existed, she feels a rush of relief. Despite the years of hurt she never stopped loving Isobel and wants to help rebuild her life. Enrolling her grandson at the school, Ruth wants to make sure they stay for good.Isobel has spent her life running from a painful secret. A secret which could have destroyed her family. Now, as she flees a bad relationship, she knows that her childhood home is the only place where she can be safe.But as Isobel looks at her son in his crisp new uniform, she is taken straight back to the reason she ran all those years ago. Soon it becomes clear that she is not the only one tormented by the past. Someone is prepared to destroy everything Ruth and Isobel hold dear. Can Isobel confront her darkest secret before it is too late?From the bestselling author of Who We Were Before comes a powerful and emotional page-turner about devastating family secrets. Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Emily Bleeker and Imogen Clark.

Her Perfect Family


Teresa Driscoll - 2021
    The perfect family? Or the perfect lie?It’s their daughter’s graduation and Rachel and Ed Hartley are expecting it to be one of their family’s happiest days. But when she stumbles and falls on stage during the ceremony, a beautiful moment turns to chaos: Gemma has been shot, and just like that, she’s fighting for her life.PI Matthew Hill is one of the first on the scene. A cryptic message Gemma received earlier in the day suggests someone close to her was about to be exposed. But who? As Matthew starts to investigate, he finds more and more layers obscuring the truth. He even begins to suspect the Hartleys are hiding something big—from him and from each other.While Gemma lies in hospital in a coma, her would-be killer is still out there. Can Matthew unravel the family’s secrets before the attacker strikes again?