Book picks similar to
The Murder of Eleanor Pope by Henry Kuttner
mystery
digital
thriller
crime-mystery
A Map of the Dark
Karen Ellis - 2018
A teenage girl has gone missing from Forest Hills, Queens, and during the critical first hours of the case, a series of false leads hides the fact that she did not go willingly.With each passing hour, as the hunt for Ruby deepens into a search for a man who may have been killing for years, the case starts to get underneath Elsa's skin. Everything she has buried - her fraught relationship with her sister and niece, her self-destructive past, her mother's death - threatens to resurface, with devastating consequences.In order to save the missing girl, she may have to lose herself...and return to the darkness she's been hiding from for years.
The Heatwave
Katerina Diamond - 2020
One stranger. One killer…Two bad things happened that summer:A stranger arrived. And the first girl disappeared. In the wake of the crime that rocked her community, Felicity fled, knowing more than she let on. But sixteen years later, her new life is shattered by the news that a second girl has gone missing in her hometown. Now Felicity must go back, to face the truth about what happened all those years ago. Only she holds the answers – and they’re more shocking than anyone could imagine. The heatwave is back. And so is the killer.
Pretty Corpse
Linda Berry - 2019
The startling revelation hits the news and sends a shockwave through the city. A serial rapist with a “death” fetish is at large in San Francisco. The attack is intensely personal to Lauren. Not only did she find the victim, but the girl is a close friend of her daughter, Courtney. Lauren feels compelled to do some off-duty investigation. The perpetrator is keenly intelligent and methodical, and essentially, invisible. But Lauren has uncanny skills for detection, and routinely finds evidence missed by the detectives. She earns official trouble for her effort, but the warnings from her superiors don’t keep her from tugging at elusive clues. As she gets closer to the predator, he takes notice. Taunting Lauren, he demonstrates that he can get close to her, and to Courtney, without a trace. Lauren has put her daughter right in his crosshairs, and put herself on a collision course. Stressed and sleep-deprived, she is determined to find him and bring him down. But can she succeed before her daughter becomes his next victim?
Canary
Duane Swierczynski - 2015
Even more dangerous when she's smarter than the killer, kingpins, and cops who control her.
Honors student Sarie Holland is busted by the local police while doing a favor for her boyfriend. Unwilling to betray him but desperate to avoid destroying her future, Sarie has no choice but to become a "CI"--a confidential informant.Philly narcotics cop Ben Wildey is hungry for a career-making bust. The detective thinks he's found the key in Sarie: her boyfriend scores from a mid-level dealer with alleged ties to the major drug gangs.Sarie turns out to be the perfect CI: a quick study with a shockingly keen understanding of the criminal mind. But Wildey, desperate for results, pushes too hard and inadvertently sends the nineteen-year-old into a death trap, leaving Sarie hunted by crooked cops and killers alike with nothing to save her--except what she's learned during her harrowing weeks as an informant.Which is bad news for the police and the underworld. Because when it comes to payback, CI #1373 turns out to be a very quick study...
Code for Murder
Eliot Parker - 2017
Six months later, Stacy’s first case back from medical leave involves the murder of Cleveland Browns football player Devon Baker. With little forensic evidence connecting anyone to the crime, Stacy sets out to find the killer. As Stacy comes very close to unraveling the tangled threads of the case, the killer wants her, and those close to her, to suffer for another impulsive decision she made in the line of duty. The killer just may be more familiar to Stacy than she realizes.
Cicada Spring
Christian Galacar - 2015
. .On a warm May evening in the spring of 1979, the people of Heartsridge, Massachusetts, are living the American dream. Families are gathered for barbecues. Kids are playing in front yards. Gardens are being kept. Meanwhile, Kara Price stumbles home through the woods, raped and beaten, her life shattered by a wicked act of violence, perpetrated by one of the town’s most beloved and public figures. Surrounding Kara is a cast of compelling and nefarious characters—a violent-tempered mayor who can do no wrong in the eyes of the town, a sheriff bound by the rules and plagued by a guilty conscience, a father bent on revenge, a serial killer in the midst of an identity crisis. And at the center of it all there's Kara, who just wants to move on with her life and forget everything that happened to her. But how can she do that when everyone thinks she is a liar who is only out for attention? With plot and emotion braided together by a careful hand, this haunted group of people all acting on behalf of their own interests begs the question: How far would you go to protect your own?
The Killing Lessons
Saul Black - 2015
Two violent predators walk through the door. Nothing will ever be the same.When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper's isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it's the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it's just another stop on a long and bloody journey. And they still have many miles to go, and victims to sacrifice, before their work is done.For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of victims-women abducted, tortured and left with a seemingly random series of objects inside them-has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological destruction. And she's losing hope of making a breakthrough before that happens.But the murders at the Cooper farmhouse didn't quite go according to plan. There was a survivor, Rowena's ten-year-old daughter Nell, who now holds the key to the killings. Injured, half-frozen, terrified, Nell has only one place to go. And that place could be even more dangerous than what she's running from.In this extraordinary, pulse-pounding debut, Saul Black takes us deep into the mind of a psychopath, and into the troubled heart of the woman determined to stop him.
72 Hours
William Casey Moreton - 2011
He has few possessions and few friends. He works part-time in the little shop downstairs, and spends most of his free hours out on the open water with just his board and the waves. But he is about to be pulled back into action by a voice out of one of his former lives. He is asked to keep a woman named Lindsay Hammond alive for the next 72 hours, as an army of street thugs, career criminals and professional assassins press in around them from every direction. As they go off the grid, surviving minute to minute, cutting off all contact with the outside world, Lindsay learns to trust Archer in a way she has never trusted anyone before.
The Darkest Secret
Alex Marwood - 2016
Coco is three years old.
When identical twin Coco goes missing during a family celebration, there is a media frenzy. Her parents are rich and influential, as are the friends they were with at their holiday home by the sea. But what really happened to Coco?Over two intense weekends - the first when Coco goes missing and the second twelve years later at the funeral of her father - the darkest of secrets will gradually be revealed...
Taut, emotive and utterly compelling, an unputdownable 'ripped from the headlines' novel that you will want to talk about with everyone you know.
Are You Sleeping
Kathleen Barber - 2017
After her father's murder thirteen years prior, her mother ran away to join a cult and her twin sister Lanie, once Josie’s closest friend and confidant, betrayed her in an unimaginable way. Now, Josie has finally put down roots in New York, settling into domestic life with her partner Caleb, and that’s where she intends to stay. The only problem is that she has lied to Caleb about every detail of her past—starting with her last name.When investigative reporter Poppy Parnell sets off a media firestorm with a mega-hit podcast that reopens the long-closed case of Josie’s father’s murder, Josie’s world begins to unravel. Meanwhile, the unexpected death of Josie’s long-absent mother forces her to return to her Midwestern hometown where she must confront the demons from her past—and the lies on which she has staked her future.
Gray Justice
Alan McDermott - 2011
But when the killer is let off with time served on remand, Gray knows there is something fundamentally wrong with the justice system. Engaging the help of his ex-SAS buddies, he kidnaps five repeat offenders and asks the public to vote on their fate: Should they be allowed to continue their criminal ways with inadequate punishment, or has Britain had enough?His website attracts a worldwide audience and, although the authorities know where he is, they are powerless to stop him.Can Gray carry out his audacious plan? Will Andrew Harvey and his fellow MI5 operatives find a way to stop him?Gray Justice is more than a simple tale of revenge: it’s a rollercoaster ride with an ending you’ll never forget.