Book picks similar to
Detached by Wendy Weiss


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Blackbird Fly


Lise McClendon - 2009
    That’s the delicious underpinning of this sprawling, exuberant, generous-spirited cozy mystery with a yummy side of international adventure.It might be sadder except that once Harry dies, his widow, Merle Bennett realizes almost immediately it was no wonder she didn't know anything about him. They’d pretty much been leading separate lives. Still, the will’s a shock. And so is an intriguing surprise—Harry left her a family home in a tiny French village. But who was Harry’s family? Finding out is half the fun.Merle sets out to claim her inheritance, adolescent son in tow, and thus begins a sojourn reminiscent of A Year in Provence, or perhaps Under The Tuscan Sun all mixed up with something by Carolyn Hart, maybe, or M.C. Beaton. Because Malcouziac, Merle’s tiny Dordogne town, is the quintessential village—just perfect for a murder. And a rollicking good time.Once Merle gets there, she finds…well, France! An unexpected romance! Mystery galore! Murder! And not just murder, but the unnerving experience of being a suspect. Once her passport is confiscated, what can she do but stay and restore her ancient battered house? While enjoying the tender attention of the unusually well-educated, handsome and…yes, quite mysterious roofer she’s hired.

Knight & Culverhouse Box Set


Adam Croft - 2015
     Too Close for Comfort Gritty. Fast-paced. Compelling. As the newest murder squad recruit for Mildenheath CID, DS Wendy Knight knows that she will face the unthinkable, but what she does not anticipate is that a sadistic killer may be too close for comfort. When a known prostitute is found dead, Wendy is assigned to the case. Solving it means that she will have to outwit and outsmart an elusive serial killer. As her investigation unfolds, so too does a sinister plot that will turn her world upside down and make it increasingly difficult to distinguish friend from foe in her tightknit world. Could the murderer be hiding in plain sight? Will the answers she seeks be more than she can bear? Guilty as Sin A missing teenager. A murdered businessman. A huge, earth-shattering secret. When seventeen-year-old Danielle Levy goes missing one lunchtime, DS Wendy Knight and DCI Jack Culverhouse believe they have a routine case on their hands. When a prominent local businessman is found dead in his warehouse, however, the case takes a whole new disturbing turn as Knight and Culverhouse begin to unravel the connections between the two cases which lead to a dark and disturbing secret that will make them question everything they thought they knew. Jack Be Nimble They know when he will kill again... but not who he will kill A killer is loose on the streets of Mildenheath, and his barbaric crimes seem a little too familiar...As the body count begins to rise, DS Wendy Knight and DCI Jack Culverhouse start to realise that the killer is emulating the gruesome, grisly murders of the world's most famous and elusive serial killer: Jack the Ripper.With Culverhouse struggling to come to terms with his ex-wife's dramatic return after she disappeared eight and a half years earlier and Knight trying to cope with the trauma she’s suffered following devastating events of two previous cases, the race is on to stop the killer before he completes his final kill and retreats back into the darkness.They know he's going to kill again, but they don't know where or who his next victim will be. And what's worse, they don't know who he is either...

Unforeseen


Nick Pirog - 2008
    After all, it was his case, and he doesn t need to be reminded of the gruesome details. The book dubbed the serial killer, Tristen Grayer, The MAINEiac. Grayer is allegedly dead, but only Prescott knows the truth, Grayer is alive and lurking in the shadows. On October 1st, the anniversary of the first murder, Tristen resurfaces, killing someone special from Prescott's past. Suddenly, it s deja vu for Prescott except this time the women closest to him begin to fall victim at the hands of Grayer. With the help of former flame, medical examiner Dr. Caitlin Dodds, and Eight in October author, Alex Tooms, Prescott must race against the clock to stop Tristen from completing his encore.

Loss of Reason


Miles A. Maxwell - 2015
     Enter the nightmare. A nuclear bomb is detonated in New York. Banker, wife, mother, Cynthia lives in New York. And her brothers are determined to find her.

Invisible


Lorena McCourtney - 2004
    So when vandals romp through the local cemetery, she takes advantage of her newfound anonymity and its unforeseen advantages as she launches her own unofficial investigation.Despite her oddball humor and unconventional snooping, Ivy soon becomes discouraged by her failure to turn up any solid clues. And after Ivy witnesses something ominous and unexplained, she can't resist putting her investigative powers to work again. Even the authorities' attempts to keep Ivy out of danger and her nosy neighbor's match-making schemes can't slow her down. But will the determination that fuels this persistent, quirky sleuth threaten her very safety?

Critical Decision


Richard L. Mabry - 2020
    A voice that called Dr. Kathy Hoover by name said that her husband had been kidnapped. To get him back she would have to poison one of her patients. At first, she didn’t believe that her husband had been taken from the conference he was attending, but soon she discovered that the kidnappers really had Darren. If she wanted to see him again, she had to give medication that would murder Kelton Rush, former Vice-President. What was she to do? How would she handle this critical decision?

The King Tides


James Swain - 2018
    And that of strangers, too. Wherever she goes, she’s being watched. Each stalker is different from the last, except for one thing—their alarming obsession with Nicki.Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Nicki’s father is turning to someone who can protect her: retired private detective and ex–Navy SEAL Jon Lancaster. Teaming up with FBI agent and former abduction victim Beth Daniels, Lancaster can help—his way. He’s spent most of his career dispatching creeps who get off on terrorizing the vulnerable. Unlicensed, and unrestricted, he plays dirty…But this case is unusual. Why so many men? Why this one girl? Does Nicki have something to hide? Or do her parents?Trawling the darkest depths of southern Florida, Lancaster faces a growing tide of secrets and deception. And the deeper he digs, the more he realizes that finding the truth won’t be easy. Because there’s more to this case than meets the eye.

The Penal Colony


Richard Herley - 1987
    There are no warders. Satellite technology is used to keep the convicts under watch. New arrivals are dumped by helicopter and must learn to survive as best they can. To Sert, one afternoon in July, is brought Anthony John Routledge, sentenced for a sex-murder he did not commit. Routledge knows he is here for ever. And he knows he must quickly forget the rules of civilized life. But not all the islanders are savages. Under the charismatic leadership of one man a community has evolved. A community with harsh and unyielding rules, peopled by resourceful men for whom the hopeless dream of escape may not be so hopeless after all ...

The 13th Fellow


Tracy Whiting - 2015
    AND PROVENCE! American Professor Havilah Gaie has always seen herself as “an academic version of Pam Grier’s characters: smart, quick on their feet, loyal with a keen sense of purpose.” Now she’s got a chance to suit up for action because suddenly she’s a witness in a murder, having spoken with the victim on her phone moments before he was attacked. Against the panoramic backdrop of the Cassis cliffs of Provence, France, the beautiful people of poetry--poets, academics, and patrons of the arts--are assembling at a centennial honoring the founder of the Félibrige Foundation. Finding itself with a surplus of talent, the Foundation has awarded one more than its customary dozen fellowships, but even before the gathering can get underway, the unlucky 13th fellow has fetched up dead. But what's the motive? Professional jealousy? Romantic rivalry? Or something to do with a dark secret about the Félibrige’s founder? Havilah’s at the center of the mystery, and so is Thierry Gasquet, a dashing French agent who doesn't care much for amateur detectives. A specialist in several academic disciplines, fluent in several languages, honored for her academic achievements by the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, and equally appreciated for her accomplishments in filling out a bikini, Havilah is shocked by her colleague’s murder and determined to ferret out the truth. But she’ll have to stay a few steps ahead of Gasquet, who’s been assigned to protect her and avert an international scandal. He’s bossy, but he’s certainly enjoying keeping her in his sights, which isn't easy—she moves pretty fast! The 13th Fellow introduces a uniquely contemporary heroine--a worldly academic female sleuth (fashionable as well!) who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, but who solves her mysteries with a blend of action and zee justly famous leetle gray cells. (As well as a lot of well-placed nosiness.) She’ll appeal to fans of Attica Locke and of African-American sleuths like Charlotte Justice, Talba Wallis, Tamara Hayle, and especially Frankie Bailey’s Professor Lizzie Stuart—not to mention Pam Grier! Those who enjoy international settings will love the Provence setting, and everyone who loves a mystery will appreciate this perfect blend of cozy mystery and action-adventure thriller.

Saving Grace


D.M. Barr - 2020
    When she secretly quits her meds, she begins to suspect that once her father passes, her husband will murder her for her inheritance. Realizing that no one will believe the ravings of a supposed psychotic, she devises a creative way to save herself—she will write herself out of danger, authoring a novel with the heroine in exactly the same circumstances, thus subtly exposing her husband's scheme to the world. She hires acclaimed author Lynn Andrews to help edit her literary insurance policy, but when Lynn is murdered, Grace is discovered standing over the bloody remains. The clock is ticking: can she write and publish her manuscript before she is strapped into a straitjacket, accused of homicide, or lowered six feet under?With a cast of secondary characters whose challenges mirror Grace's own, Saving Grace is, at its core, an allegory for the struggle of the marginalized to be heard and live life on their own terms.

A Lily in the Light


Kristin Fields - 2019
    People Esme has known her whole life suddenly become suspects, each new one hitting closer to home than the last.Unable to cope, Esme escapes the nightmare that is her new reality when she receives an invitation to join an elite ballet academy in San Francisco. Desperate to leave behind her chaotic, broken family and the mystery surrounding Lily’s disappearance, Esme accepts.Eight years later, Esme is up for her big break: her first principal role in Paris. But a call from her older sister shatters the protective world she has built for herself, forcing her to revisit the tragedy she’s run from for so long. Will her family finally have the answers they’ve been waiting for? And can Esme confront the pain that shaped her childhood, or will the darkness follow her into the spotlight?

Harm None


Will North - 2014
    When an American archaeological team stumbles upon the skeletal remains of a missing child beneath a Stone Age burial quoit, irascible CID Detective Sergeant Morgan Davies and her Scene of Crimes partner, Calum West, unearth a growing list of suspects. Within days, another body is discovered. Is the killer the mind-reading village witch—who has long been a suspect in the child’s disappearance? Is it the drug-dealing partner of the child’s heroin-addicted mother? Or is it someone even closer to the investigation? Just as Davies and West close in on their prime suspect, another child disappears.

The Girl Who Ran Away


Tikiri Herath - 2017
    A forced goodbye. A treacherous plot. She was only 12……when she stopped trusting.The day she loses her parents to a fiery car crash, Asha’s life is thrown into chaos.She has no choice but to join an extended family, she never knew existed. Then, one day, when a strange man visits, she realizes nothing is what it seems in her new home. In a world where girls are a commodity, evil can wear many faces and can be even your own kin. Can she outwit those coming after her?She’ll need all her guile to escape her fate in time. But Asha’s a ferocious fighter who’ll never back down.This is an edge-of-your-seat, gritty tale of crime and deceit that will take you on a mad dash from the heart of Tanzania to a seaside village in India, to a ritzy North American city where evil can hide in the most unexpected of places. Like Lisbeth Salander? You’ll love Asha from the Red Heeled Rebels. Get it now. The Girl Who Ran Away is the first novel of The Red Heeled Rebels international thriller series. Formerly titled Betrayed / Disowned. If you like gripping tales with flawed but gutsy heroines, vigilante action in exotic locales and twists that leave you at the edge of your seat, you’ll love these books by multiple award-winning Canadian novelist, Tikiri Herath.