Book picks similar to
The Bone Forest by V.J. Chambers
amazon
mystery
crime
mystery-and-or-crime-thrillers
Open House
Katie Sise - 2020
A town still held in the grip of an unsolved mystery. A breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by the bestselling author of We Were Mothers.A decade ago in upstate New York, art student Emma McCullough walked into the woods and was never seen again. It’s a mystery that still haunts her bucolic university town and her broken family, especially her sister Haley, whose need for closure has become an obsession. But now, finally, the first piece of evidence in the vanishing has been found: Emma’s bracelet, lodged in a frozen piece of earth at the bottom of a gorge. For Emma’s three best college friends, for a beloved former teacher, and for Haley, the chilling trinket is more than a clue in a resurrected cold case. It’s a trigger.Then a woman is attacked during an open house, and the connections between the two crimes, ten winters apart, begin to surface. So do the secrets that run as deep and dark as the currents in this quiet river town.
The Good Twin
Marti Green - 2018
Charly got everything she ever wanted. Everything Mallory wanted, too. And now having it all might be easier than Mallory ever imagined. Because Ben has reasons of his own for wanting to help her.It begins with his startling proposal. All Mallory has to do is say yes.But as their devious plan falls into place, piece by piece, Mallory learns more about her sister and herself than she ever meant to—a discovery that comes with an unexpected twist. A chilling deception is about to become a dangerous double cross. And it’s going to change the rules of Ben and Mallory’s game to the very end.
Unsympathetic Victims: A Legal Thriller (Ashley Montgomery Book 1)
Laura Snider - 2021
Following the verdict, a protest breaks out — and the hated defense attorney quickly finds her life in danger.But little does Ashley know, things are about to get worse — much worse. One of her clients turns up dead, and Ashley is arrested for his murder. As local investigators Katie Mickey and George Thomanson dive into the case, they start to suspect that Ashely is being framed — but by whom?With Ashley’s freedom at stake, Katie and George are desperate to find out the truth. And soon, they uncover a sinister plot born of corruption, greed, and misplaced loyalty that will leave the whole town reeling — and questioning their faith in the people they trusted most.
Trance
Adam Southward - 2019
He is in control. This is his revenge—and he’s only just begun.Three university scientists are found dead in a gruesome murder-suicide, and the only suspect in the case, Victor Lazar, is quickly captured. When the spate of violent suicides follows him to prison he is moved to solitary confinement, reserved for the highest-risk inmates. And then his assigned psychologist inexplicably takes his own life.Alex Madison, a former forensic psychologist turned private therapist, is brought in to interview Victor. He suspects that Victor is controlling his victims, somehow coaxing them into a suggestive trance. It seems like science fiction, but as Alex digs deeper he uncovers a frightening reality of secret research and cruel experimentation—and the perpetrators are closer to home than he could ever have imagined.Too late, Alex learns the true extent of what Victor is capable of—and who he’s after. With everything he holds dear at risk, can Alex take control of a dangerous mind—before it takes control of him?
Taboo
Casey Hill - 2011
A first thriller co-written by Melissa Hill and her husband Kevin.The story is set in Dublin and features forensic investigator Reilly Steel who has moved from the US to Dublin to be close to her father.But what should have been a quiet period filled with training and Irish forensics team turns sinister and violent when body after body is found of people killed in what appears to be a twisted game.
In the Dying Minutes
J.A. Baker - 2020
He attempts to help her through the trauma but whenever Leah is in his presence, strange things occur. She suffers from hallucinations that include visions of her dead brother, Ellis. As Leah reveals to Will that her friends Jacob and Chloe wronged her, further flashbacks of her childhood and parts of her life she would sooner forget begin to surface, troubling Leah even more.But what is actually bothering her and what led Leah to be on that train? Nothing is as it seems, and soon she will learn the heart-breaking truth…J.A. Baker is also the author of the bestselling psychological thrillers The Other Mother, The Woman at Number 19 and The Girl I Used to Be. In The Dying Minutes is a tense and completely compelling novel which will keep you guessing until the very end. It will appeal to fans of authors like S.E. Lynes, K.L. Slater and Lucy Dawson.
She's Not There
Marla Madison - 2011
. . Is the rising number of abused women who've gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a serial killer targeting this vulnerable group of women? When the Milwaukee Police Department refuses to investigate because no bodies have been discovered, Lisa Rayburn, the clinical psychologist who discovers the anomaly, is drawn into an investigation to discover the cause after one of her own clients goes missing. She finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, TJ Peacock, and the husbands of two of the missing women who may themselves be murderers. When TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is found murdered, they know . . . someone is willing to kill to protect his secret. Can they reveal the killer before he gets to them?
Polar Bear Dawn
Lyle Nicholson - 2013
But not with employees of the same company in Oil Camps in the high Arctic and Northern Canada. Two detectives, one from Alaska and one from Canada, are given the case. They find the murders are connected. Now, they have to work together to find out why the victims were silenced. What secrets did their deaths conceal?Frank Mueller, the Alaskan Detective, is close to retirement. He’s been through three marriages and two stints in rehab. He is on probation with the force. He knows the Anchorage Police department has given him this case because they don’t want it investigated fully and there’s no booze in the Arctic oil camps.Bernadette Callahan, the Canadian Detective, is in her mid thirties with a lot to prove on the force. She is Cree Indian and Irish, raised on a native reservation in Northern Canada. She’s been ingrained with the ways of the ‘people,’ by her grandmother that have given her instincts. Her instincts tell her there is something more than four dead people—someone is settling a score. The real crime will happen soon.The oil companies think the deaths are bad for publicity and they want them solved quickly. The detectives are under pressure to come up with a verdict they know is wrong.Callahan begins to unravel a series of unlikely suspects. A Chemistry Professor with a grudge against big oil, a Mexican low life gangster and Wall Street Executives. How are they connected?Something is about to happen to oil supplies in the Arctic. The two Detectives can sense it. They know it’s real—can they convince others to act?
The Hunting Party
Lucy Foley - 2018
. . and murder and mayhem ensue.All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?
The Last Call
George Wier - 2011
She has taken a North Texas quarter horse racer and liquor baron named Archie Carpin--the last of a dynasty of criminals from the 1920's--for a ride and cleaned him out of a neat two million bucks. And thus begins the adventure of Bill’s life.Ensues a chase north across Texas to recover the money and shake the pursuit of a couple of rednecks with a penchant for rifles and rigged explosives. Yet, through all this action the compelling tale of yet another mystery—an 80-year old missing person’s case—begins to unravel.
The Boat Man
Dustin Stevens - 2015
Switching to the K-9, taking over the graveyard shift, moving to a farmhouse miles outside of Columbus, his every move has become predicated on putting as much distance between himself and the outside world as possible.That distance is shattered though when bodies begin turning up in The Bottoms, the poverty-stricken section of town he is assigned to patrol. Grisly, horrific scenes start to pop up in the middle of the night and the overburdened precinct has no choice but to put Reed on it.Now operating far outside of his comfort zone with a Belgian Malinois for a partner that attracts attention wherever they go, Reed is forced to unravel the murders, taking him clear across the city and back years in time, to an event that some very influential people will do anything to keep buried...
Letter From The Dead
Jack Gatland - 2020
A Prime Ministerial Leadership Campaign... A paranoid, homeless ex-minister... A TV Evangelist with a murderous secret...Detective Inspector Declan Walsh has had better days...Recently blacklisted from the police for punching a priest on live TV (long story),
D.I Declan Walsh
is one step away from quitting the force for good - and privately investigating the mysterious death of his father, Chief Superintendent Patrick Walsh, who died shortly after writing a tell-all memoir of his time on the force.But when his father's old partner,
Detective Chief Inspector Alex Monroe
arrives with an offer, Declan is forced to take it. For Monroe now leads a City of London task force that concentrates on cold cases, and filled with officers just like Declan; officers that are too valuable to lose, but at the same time have a history in the force. Nicknamed 'The Last Chance Saloon', it's currently investigating a decades old murder - and one that Declan's father supposedly solved.When Victoria Davies was pushed off her stately home's roof in 2001, all evidence pointed to her husband, Michael. But now, twenty years later a letter has appeared, written by Victoria before her death; a letter that was never received, and a letter that brings new suspects into the fray;
Labour MPs Shaun Donnal, Andrew MacIntyre
and
Charles Baker
.But two decades on, life has changed for these men. Donnal is now a paranoid alcoholic living on the streets of London, 'Andy Mac' is a popular YouTube Evangelist and Charles Baker is the current Conservative Secretary of State, and the bookie's choice for next Prime Minister in the upcoming Leadership Election.Now Declan and his new team must navigate a minefield filled with political intrigue, adulterous affairs, money laundering aristocrats and brutal, bloody murder, as each suspect leads them to a new problem and another skeleton to fall out of the closet.And at the same time, as he investigates Patrick Walsh's death, Declan learns that not only was his father connected to an old school London crime family, but also that Patrick (and by default Declan's new boss, Monroe) might not have been as clean as people believed...
The debut book in a new series of procedural crime thrillers, Letter from the Dead is perfect for fans of J.D Kirk, Ian Rankin, Damian Boyd and D.S Butler, among others.
Dead Man's Hand
Luke Murphy - 2012
…and the cards don't fall your way? When the brutal slaying of a prominent casino owner is followed by the murder of a well-known bookie, Detective Dale Dayton is thrown into the middle of a highly political case and leads the largest homicide investigation in Vegas in the last twelve years. What if you're dealt a Dead Man's Hand? Against his superiors and better judgment, Dayton is willing to give Calvin one last chance. To redeem himself, Calvin must prove his innocence by finding the real killer, while avoiding the LVMPD, as well as protect the woman he loves from a professional assassin hired to silence them.
The Stranger
Harlan Coben - 2015
His identity is unknown. His motives are unclear. His information is undeniable. Then he whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world. Adam Price has a lot to lose: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, and all the trappings of the American Dream: a big house, a good job, a seemingly perfect life. Then he runs into the Stranger. When he learns a devastating secret about his wife, Corinne, he confronts her, and the mirage of perfection disappears as if it never existed at all. Soon Adam finds himself tangled in something far darker than even Corinne’s deception, and realizes that if he doesn’t make exactly the right moves, the conspiracy he’s stumbled into will not only ruin lives—it will end them.