Book picks similar to
Detective Maddie Ives #1–4 by Charlie Gallagher


crime
mysteries-thriller-suspense
mystery
uk-author

JP Delaney: Three Thrillers in One


J.P. Delaney - 2020
    

Badge Without Honor


Emily Kendricks - 2017
    Making matters worse, his new love interest, Dianne Lawson, becomes the next target, forcing Bocello to go head-to-head with the most diabolical killer of his career, who has been hiding in plain sight. Unable to trust anyone around him, he tracks the killer who seems to always stay one step ahead of the investigation…until everything comes to a heart-pounding climax as Bocello races against time to reach his love before it’s too late.

Cold Land: A Mystery Thriller


John Oakes - 2017
    The agency has fallen on hard times and jumps at the chance to have a Texas Ranger in its ranks. Jake soon realizes the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is staffed with a collection of undesirables dumped from other state and local agencies, but he has no choice but to help chase down leads on a fraud investigation. An investigation that turns up a freshly murdered corpse. Partnering out of necessity with one of the BCA's odd ducks, Jake doggedly pursues answers in the stabbing death of a local fraudster. His search for truth takes him into rural Minnesota where nothing he encounters is as it first seems. After navigating newly released convicts, illicit affairs and a secretive family pretending to be Native Americans, Jake gets closer to the murderer than he even realizes. After infiltrating a heist teeming with potential suspects, Jake fits the pieces of the puzzle together. But just as he identifies the killer, one last under cover role has his mental state unraveling before his eyes. Cold Land is a slow-burning mystery with a thrilling conclusion, but is also a tale of loss, identity and the will to survive. Its gripping turns and vivid characters will leave you thinking long after the tale is told.

The Complete Detective


Helen H. Durrant - 2020
    Their boss thinks it’s all down to drug lord Ray Fallon, but Calladine’s instincts say something far nastier is happening on the Hobfield housing estate. Can the duo track down the murderer before anyone else dies and before the press publicize the gruesome crimes?BOOK 2: DEAD SILENTA body is found in a car crash, but the victim was already dead . . . Calladine and Ruth Bayliss race against time to catch a vicious serial killer. The first two victims are American university students and both have livestock tags fixed to their earlobes. Who wanted them dead and what’s the connection? The detectives piece together the forensic evidence and track down the witnesses, to reach a shocking conclusion.BOOK 3: DEAD LISTAn unlikely serial killer with a bucket list of victims . . .Calladine and Bayliss battle a murderer who is working their way through a list of victims. Each murder is meticulously planned and unique, and a tarot card is left at the scene of the crime. When two children disappear in the local area, the stakes are raised and the team are baffled by the link between the crimes. Calladine and Bayliss race against time to prevent any more carnage.BOOK 4: DEAD LOSTAn abandoned cotton mill holds horrific secretsBOOK 5: DEAD & BURIEDAnnie Naden and her husband buy a remote country cottage at auction. It’s the home of their own they wanted, but as they begin renovations, Annie discover a schoolgirl’s satchel in a dusty old hidden cupboard. Inside are the usual schoolbooks, now over 40 years old, and a girl’s diary. Among the record of day-to-day crushes and pop concerts, is a secret that may have had terrible consequences. What happened to that girl forty years ago?BOOK 6: DEAD NASTYA GIRL’S BODY IS FOUND IN A DUSTBIN. DEAD MEAT IS WRITTEN ON A NOTE FOUND WITH HER. When another girl goes missing from the same group of friends, Calladine must look elsewhere for the killer and comes across a sinister online predator who was in touch with all the girls.BOOK 7: DEAD JEALOUSTwo mothers have lost their daughters — seventeen years apart. can Detective Calladine bring them justice?BOOK 8: DEAD BADA woman’s body is found in a disused church, a homemade stuffed toy by her side. The victim had been dumped there months ago. The crime has the hallmarks of twenty-year-old case whose alleged perpetrator is in prison.BOOK 9: DEAD GUILTYDetectives Calladine and Bayliss hunt for a missing child in a mystery with a shocking ending.Sophie Alder is the three-year-old daughter of local factory owner, Richard Alder. Richard and his wife Annie are locals from the rough housing estate who’ve made it big.

Absolution


Adam Croft - 2019
    All he wants is to get his work done and enjoy a quiet existence. But when he’s caught up in a terrorist attack on the London Underground, his life is turned upside down.As he lies recovering in his hospital bed, a shadowy figure visits him and tells Sam not only is he a key witness to the attack, but he has unique access to information which could blow open a huge conspiracy and bring down the British government.Will Sam risk everything he knows and loves to save his country?

Dirty


Robert White - 2013
    He is the enemy.Stewart hatches a plan to destroy the evidence against him, but what he finds inside those files, is evidence of a vile paedophile ring operating under McCauley’s nose.Now three people are dead and Dave Stewart is the prime suspect.

The Tiger Gets New Teeth


Amit Bagaria - 2021
    The NP had done remarkably well in elections in four states. It was the party’s heroic return. It was an even larger triumph for the Dalal family, who had survived several calls for their ouster from party leadership. The fireworks started at 11:59 and four bottles of champagne were uncorked, as the ‘Nationalists’ and few staff members watched the night sky from the garden below.BOOM. Huge explosions razed most of 10, Lokpath, the entire Dalal lineage reduced to body parts and blood splatter on the grass. Though the explosion was restricted to the property, the tremors would soon be felt throughout the country.Naresh Mistri was woken up at 1:08 a.m. His national security team had reached his residence. The PM saw the news on TV. Even BP’s staunchest supporters would suspect the party. First the dreadful electoral performance and now this! It could be the biggest threat to his political career. As the world’s gaze would firmly be on Mistri, would he lose his greatest asset of all, public opinion?The IB and RAW had more often than not failed to provide intelligence on such attacks. And there was no ‘national’ police force that could investigate and solve this crime and bring the culprits to justice quickly. No, the PM had to turn to someone else. He said, “I want ISSCO to investigate this.”Realising that India needed an agency like the USA’s FBI, Russia’s FSB, and UK’s MI5, which could work with surprise, speed, and intensity, Mistri had three months ago approved ISSCO, a covert, privately run but government-funded intelligence and security organisation. He had told ISSCO they were to do everything that IB, RAW, DIA, NIA, and NSG said couldn’t be done, and do it better, faster, and quieter.

The Detective Markham Mysteries


Catherine Moloney - 2020
    Two skeletons are discovered in the grounds of St Mary's Choir School. Detective Inspector Gilbert Markham is a rising talent of the Bromgrove police force. He is on the trail of the murderer when another life is brutally claimed. Who is the savage killer lurking in this innocent place?BOOK 2: CRIME IN THE SCHOOLWhen handsome teacher Ashley Dean is brutally murdered, gossip blames a deranged intruder. DI Markham’s instincts say otherwise. Could this be the work of a student? A member of staff? It seems unthinkable. But somebody in authority is holding out on them. How much more blood will be spilt before their secret is laid bare?BOOK 3: CRIME IN THE CONVENTSister Felicity is found strangled in the confessional box at St Cecilia’s convent. She is only the first victim. Someone has a lethal vendetta against this holy place. And only DI Gilbert Markham can stop them. To uncover the truth, he must delve deep into the sins of the past. Can he unravel the mystery before it’s too late?BOOK 4: CRIME IN THE HOSPITALDr Warr’s decayed corpse is found in the woods. There have always been whispers about the psychiatric hospital where he worked: staff brutality, deliberate misdiagnosis . . . DI Gilbert Markham and DS Noakes begin asking questions. They are met with a chilling silence. How many more victims will be claimed before the killer is found?BOOK 5: CRIME IN THE BALLETChoreographer George Baranov is found in the theatre’s basement with a knife in his back. He was known for his daring routines and his tangled love life. The pressure is on for Detective Markham to wrap up the case. Can he unmask the vicious killer waiting in the wings?BOOK 6: CRIME IN THE GALLERYCurator Helen Melville is found murdered in Bromgrove Art Gallery. She had discovered something troubling in the archives, but the secret died with her. Or did it? Detective Markham races to unravel the connection with a tragic cold case. Who will be next to have a brush with death?BOOK 7: CRIME IN THE HEATA body is found in the refrigerator at a doctor’s office in Bromgrove community centre. The victim is teacher Bex Shawcross and she wasn’t short of enemies, as Detective Markham soon discovers. Her crooked MP father and loose morals are the talk of the town. And no one seems afraid to speak ill of the dead. Then the killer strikes again. And again. Each victim works at the centre. Who will be next on the kill list?BOOK 8: CRIME AT HOMENothing ever happens in New College Close. Until one day a piercing scream shatters the calm. A retired teacher is found asphyxiated beneath a luxury mattress. The only clue: a badge from the school where the dead woman once taught. Detective Markham races to unravel the truth. But no one in the Close is what they seem.

Thomas Berrington Books 1-3


David Penny - 2017
     THE RED HILL A killer who can’t be stopped. A request that can’t be refused. In 1482 the Englishman Thomas Berrington is living in the last remnants of Moorish Spain. A physician, he is an unwilling friend to the most powerful man in the kingdom. Bodies are discovered, each showing the marks of a savage attack, and Thomas is asked to investigate. When one of the Sultan’s wives is brutally murdered, what begins as a reluctant task turns into a fight for survival. Together with the eunuch Jorge, Thomas attempts to hunt down the killer before they become his next victims. Except nothing is as it seems—friends turn into enemies and enemies into friends. Thomas’s investigation lays bare the secrets of the Red Hill and the people who inhabit it. His discoveries culminate in a battle not only for his own life, but for the lives of those he loves. BREAKER OF BONES March 1483, and surgeon Thomas Berrington makes a reluctant journey to Qurtuba at the request of his master. He expects only to operate on a Spanish prince and return home to Moorish al-Andalus. But fate has something else in store for him and his companion, the eunuch Jorge. A warped killer has been murdering young women to create twisted creatures from their bodies. When Thomas is tasked by Queen Isabel to hunt down the culprit he is propelled into an unfamiliar world of religious mania where it is impossible to tell the innocent from the guilty. Meanwhile Jorge is on a quest of his own—to track down the family he abandoned twenty years before. When Jorge’s new found niece is taken as the Bonebreaker’s next victim, the pair are faced with their most dangerous challenge yet. Can Thomas and Jorge expose the killer before yet another life has to pay the price for one man’s madness? THE SIN EATER Moorish Spain, 1484, and no-one is innocent. Thomas Berrington, emigre Englishman who has made the doomed city of Garnatah his home, is once again attempting to solve a series of mysterious deaths. Accompanied by his companion, the palace eunuch Jorge, Thomas struggles to discover the truth while those in power seek to distract him. As his investigation continues, his personal life splinters into chaos and he finds the Spanish once more demanding his presence. As Thomas and Jorge draw closer to their quarry, the killer’s attention turns on them and those they love. Will the pair be able to unmask the sin eater before the lives of those close to them become forfeit?

Murder on Christmas Eve (A Dodo Dorchester Mystery Book 6)


Ann Sutton - 2021
    

The Highland Murders: Book 1


J.S. Donovan - 2018
     Homicide Detective Rachel Harroway has her hands full. Forty-three-years-old, she fights to balance raising her adopted daughter, the pressures of a taxing career and the unpredictable nature of the spirits of the dead. Bound up in a new investigation that neither the living nor the dead want solved, Rachel pushes forward, relying on her own wit, expertise and tenacity to overcome. All the while, the Gift grows stronger, further launching her world into chaos.

THE LATCH MAN


John Dean - 2020
    DCI Blizzard attends in person, bemused that a woman who has spent her life evading the law, now seeks its protection.Meeting the tough old bird, he senses a genuine fear. But if suspicions that the unwelcome guest was the infamous Latch Man are true, that fear should be allayed. A ‘gentleman thief’, he has never harmed a soul. But when the woman is later found to have died, DCI John Blizzard senses something is afoot.Dismissing the doctor’s summary conclusion of natural causes, he determines to investigate further. What he discovers will shake the community to its core, scaring criminals and law-abiding folk alike.If it is true The Latch Man has returned, that is only part of the puzzle. Rivalries that have been simmering for years have come to the fore, and Blizzard must stop the case from snowballing into further tragedy.Can Blizzard discover The Latch Man’s identity, and can he collar him for the crime?

Miranda Rijks' Psychological Thriller Box Set


Miranda Rijks - 2021
    But things are different behind closed doors - Lydia is desperately unhappy and wants a divorce. Then, shockingly, her husband Adam dies. When her grief eases, Lydia starts online dating and almost immediately meets Patrick. Handsome, successful, loving, he’ll make the perfect second husband. But is Patrick too good to be true? Can you really find prince charming online? Deserve to DieDom and Stacey have the perfect life. Until they meet Tamara. Brilliant, beautiful, she hides a horrifying plan -- one that may destroy them all. And as her plan unfolds, Dom and Stacey find their lives slipping out of control. Taking them from heaven into the deepest, darkest hell. You Are MineRupert has spent years searching for his perfect wife. Now he’s found her. Her name is Charlotte Aldridge and she’s wonderful. A talented artist, modest and beautiful, she’s everything he ever dreamed of. Her hair, her eyes, her mouth - every little detail is perfect. Rupert is confident that when they meet, she’ll fall in love with him just as he has with her. But what if Charlotte can’t see that they’re a perfect fit, that they’re meant for each other? Well, Rupert can be very, very persuasive.

A Very Funny Murder Mystery


Paul Mathews - 2018
    And when Lady Peculiar’s butler – a part-time comedian – is found drowned in his own mango chutney, Detective Inspector Clinton Trump comes blundering onto the scene – ready to shun logic, breach protocol and trust in his own gut instincts. What will South East England’s greatest detective uncover? Is her ladyship a murderess? Was the killer a comedy rival? Or are darker forces at work in this particular corner of Brokenshire? Join our self-proclaimed British detective genius, as he races against time to solve this very funny murder mystery – so he can play golf at the weekend! The first novel in the ‘Clinton Trump Detective Genius’ series This riotous English detective spoof is murderously good fun from first page to last, as Inspector Trump and his unwanted sidekick, Constable Dinkel, encounter a procession of crazy comedy characters in the Great British countryside. Stuffed solid with British humour (or ‘humor’, if you’re one of the many American tourists who visit Upper Goosing), its mix of black comedy, British farce, funny one-liners and downright silliness is guaranteed to generate tremendous titters across the very civilised world.More amateur sleuth than professional investigator, Clinton Trump will bring a smile to your face like no other Trump has before, or probably ever will. So, jump aboard the Trump detection train, blow your Clinton trumpet and join the movement – Make Murder-Mystery Great Again! A Word from Detective Inspector Clinton Trump: “Greetings from Upper Goosing – the murder capital of Europe. You’ll find the scenery, tea rooms and cake shops are well worth the risk of a premature, grisly death. But before purchasing this novel, please note that it only employs British English, as spoken by Her Majesty the Queen. I don’t want anyone griping about me saying ‘per cent’ instead of ‘percent’, ‘metre’ instead of ‘meter’ or ‘tea’ instead of ‘coffee’. If you must grumble, please do as the English do and complain only to yourself. And if you’re planning on enjoying a cup of Earl Grey with this quality e-book, please remember: it’s tea first, milk second. Finally, don’t be afraid to laugh thunderously when reading this novel. Just don’t laugh yourself to death – we have enough fatalities around here as it is. Thank you.”

The Complete Detective Kate Hamblin Mystery Series


David Hodges - 2020
    YOU GET *SEVEN* BREATH-TAKING CRIME THRILLERS, FROM THE PEN OF A FORMER POLICEMAN.IN THIS SEVEN-BOOK BOX SET:BOOK 1: MURDER ON THE LEVELSDetective Kate Hamblin is doing surveillance on the Somerset Levels, on the trail of a crazed arsonist. She leaves the van for a moment. Then it goes up in flames, killing her colleagues. Kate is accused of abandoning them. There’s nothing she won’t risk to clear her name. But can she nail the killer before he takes out the only witness?BOOK 2: REVENGE ON THE LEVELSTwo years ago Larry “Twister” Wadman vanished without a trace. Kate Hamblin is the sole survivor of his murderous rampage. Then a prostitute dressed as a policewoman is found brutally slain, and Kate realizes her old enemy is back. Can she catch him before he has his revenge?BOOK 3: FEAR ON THE LEVELSA teenage girl last seen leaving a party at the height of a local scarecrow festival is found strangled and stripped in her own barn. The crime is an exact copy of the murder of peasant girl, Martha Tinney. But Martha died 150 years ago at the hands of a spectral scarecrow named Strawfoot. Or so legend has it. Can Kate track down the flesh-and-blood copycat before he adds to his kill list?BOOK 4: KILLER ON THE LEVELSJournalist Ellie Landy is found drowned in the River Parrett. The only clue: a cryptic line about “Sandman” jotted in a paperback by her bed. Everyone assumes her death was an accident. And then the Sandman strikes again. Can Kate unmask the killer before he puts anyone else to sleep?BOOK 5: SECRETS ON THE LEVELSDetective Kate finds herself staring down the wrong end of a shotgun out on the lonely marshes. She’s hunting escaped con Lenny Stallard. He should be serving time for a botched burglary that ended in murder. Revenge appears to be the motive. But it’s all a bit too convenient for Kate. Can she uncover the truth before her own number is up?BOOK 6: DEATH ON THE LEVELSA man writes to the police station, threatening to kill his aunts. No one takes him seriously — until an elderly woman is found strangled in her home. “RIP Auntie” is written on the floor in red lipstick. As the body count rises, Kate realizes she is up against a deadly foe. Can she stay one step ahead? If not, whose aunt will be next on the kill list?BOOK 7: POISON ON THE LEVELSA young woman snatched from a festival. A poison pen letter writer driving people to take their own lives. Kate has her work cut out solving the two cases. Probing deeper, she finds herself caught up in a dark, complicated web of deceit, wagging tongues and false trails. Then she realizes she’s being watched. By a shady figure who knows her every move. Can she find the missing girl in time to save both their lives?