Book picks similar to
Asking for Trouble by Simon Wood


thriller
short-stories
mystery
mystery-suspense

Road Rash


Simon Janus - 2010
    He's on the run with the proceeds of a botched bank robbery. It's all he has. His crew is dead and his getaway car just died on him. He's on foot with the cash when he comes across a two-car pileup. There's no saving the drivers, but he can save himself by stealing one of the wrecked cars. Unfortunately, he boosts the wrong set of wheels. Within an hour of driving off, he develops a rash that eats away at his flesh. No doctor can help him—only the car's original owner. If Straley wants his skin back, he must journey on the road to redemption, which ends in the heart of Central America. Road Rash first appeared in the anthology Butcher Shop Quartet 2. Simon Janus is the horror identity for the award winning thriller writer, Simon Wood. What They Are Saying About Road Rash: "Road Rash is a wild collision of crime caper and supernatural thriller that works on every level. Lightning-paced, darkly funny, deeply creepy, and highly recommended." — Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of THE DRAGON FACTORY “Simon Janus understands the darkness inside us all and nails it to the page. Fast-paced and gut-wrenching, pedal-to-the-metal thrills." — Scott Nicholson, author of THE RED CHURCH

The Cuban Affair


Nelson DeMille - 2017
    At age thirty-five he’s living in Key West, owner of a forty-two-foot charter fishing boat, The Maine. Mac served five years in the Army as an infantry officer with two tours in Afghanistan. He returned with the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, scars that don’t tan, and a boat with a big bank loan. Truth be told, Mac’s finances are more than a little shaky.One day, Mac is sitting in the famous Green Parrot Bar in Key West, contemplating his life, and waiting for Carlos, a hotshot Miami lawyer heavily involved with anti-Castro groups. Carlos wants to hire Mac and The Maine for a ten-day fishing tournament to Cuba at the standard rate, but Mac suspects there is more to this and turns it down. The price then goes up to two million dollars, and Mac agrees to hear the deal, and meet Carlos’s clients—a beautiful Cuban-American woman named Sara Ortega, and a mysterious older Cuban exile, Eduardo Valazquez.What Mac learns is that there is sixty million American dollars hidden in Cuba by Sara’s grandfather when he fled Castro’s revolution. With the “Cuban Thaw” underway between Havana and Washington, Carlos, Eduardo, and Sara know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the stash—by accident or on purpose. And Mac knows if he accepts this job, he’ll walk away rich…or not at all.Brilliantly written, with his signature humor, fascinating authenticity from his research trip to Cuba, and heart-pounding pace, Nelson DeMille is a true master of the genre.

Flytrap


Simon Kernick - 2016
    His solitary life sailing the Caribbean is the only way he can survive. That is, until, he meets…HerA widow with nothing left to lose, she finds herself on his sleek forty-foot yacht. He’s handsome and charming; exactly what she’s been looking for.But the night doesn’t go exactly as they had planned, and only one of them will get out alive.

The Professionals


Owen Laukkanen - 2012
    And then, suddenly, it's no joke.

Lying in Judgment


Gary Corbin - 2016
    Following her suspected boyfriend one night, he erupts into a rage, beats him and leaves him to die – or so he thought. Soon he discovers that he has killed the wrong man – a perfect stranger.Six months later, impaneled on a jury, he realizes he realizes that the murder being tried is the one he committed. After wrestling with his conscience, he works hard to convince the jury to acquit the accused man. But the prosecution’s case is strong as the accused man had both motive and opportunity to commit the murder. As the pressure builds, Peter begins to slip up and reveal things that only the murderer would know – and Christine, a pretty and intelligent alternate juror, suspects something is amiss.Meanwhile, Peter’s wife leaves him, his mother suffers a series of debilitating strokes, and his best friend and employee, accused of sexual harassment, needs Peter’s help that he’s too preoccupied to give. As jurors one by one declare their intention to convict, Peter’s conscience eats away at him and he careens toward nervous breakdown, revealing details about the crime that had not been disclosed in court.“Lying in Judgment” is a 95,000-word story about a good man’s search for redemption for his one unfortunate mistake, pitted against society’s search for justice.

The Intern's Handbook


Shane Kuhn - 2014
    That’s the mantra behind HR, Inc., an elite "placement agency" that doubles as a network of assassins-for-hire, taking down high-profile executives who wouldn't be able to remember an intern’s name if their lives depended on it.At the ripe old age of twenty-five, John Lago is already New York City’s most successful hit man. He’s also an intern at a prestigious Manhattan law firm, clocking eighty hours a week getting coffee, answering phones, and doing all the grunt work no one else wants to do. But he isn't trying to claw his way to the top of the corporate food chain. He was hired to assassinate one of the firm’s heavily guarded partners. His internship is the perfect cover, enabling him to gather intel and gain access in order to pull off a clean, untraceable hit.The Intern’s Handbook is John Lago's unofficial survival guide for new recruits at HR, Inc. (Rule #4: "Learn how to make the perfect cup of coffee: you make an exec the best coffee he’s ever had, and he will make sure you’re at his desk every morning for a repeat performance. That’s repetitive exposure, which begets access and trust. 44% of my kills came from my superior coffee-making abilities.")Part confessional, part how-to, the handbook chronicles John’s final assignment, a twisted thrill ride in which he is pitted against the toughest—and sexiest—adversary he’s ever faced: Alice, an FBI agent assigned to take down the same law partner he’s been assigned to kill.

Danger in Plain Sight: A Callie James Thriller


Burt Weissbourd - 2020
     Celebrated Seattle restaurateur Callie James is more than a little thrown when her ex-husband, French investigative reporter Daniel Odile-Grand, shows up after fourteen years asking for her help. Even more disturbing: as she throws him out, Daniel is deliberately hit by a car, hurled through the front window of her restaurant--broken, bloody and unconscious. He flees from the hospital and breaks into Callie's apartment, where he passes out. Reluctantly, Callie hides him. When she gets back to her restaurant, two assassins walk in, insisting that she find Daniel for them by tonight or pay the consequences. Overwhelmed and hopelessly out of her depth, Callie hires the only man she knows who can help her: Cash Logan, her former bartender, a man she had arrested for smuggling ivory through her restaurant two years earlier, and who still hasn't forgiven her. The assassins blow up her restaurant. It's Callie's nightmare. And the worst is yet to come as she and her unlikely, incompatible ally discover that the most perilous dangers are far closer to home than they'd imagined.

The Girl Beneath the Sea


Andrew Mayne - 2020
    An auxiliary officer for Lauderdale Shores PD, she’s the go-to diver for evidence recovery. Then Sloan finds a fresh kill floating in a canal—a woman whose murky history collides with Sloan’s. Their troubling ties are making Sloan less a potential witness than a suspect. And her colleagues aren’t the only ones following every move she makes. So is the killer.Stalked by an assassin, pitted against a ruthless cartel searching for a lost fortune, and under watch within her ranks, Sloan has only one ally: the legendary DEA agent who put Sloan’s uncle behind bars. He knows just how deep corruption runs—and the kind of danger Sloan is in. To stay alive, Sloan must stay one step ahead of her enemies—both known and unknown—and a growing conspiracy designed to pull her under.

The Short Drop


Matthew FitzSimmons - 2015
    Still unsolved, the mystery remains a national obsession.For legendary hacker and marine Gibson Vaughn, the case is personal—Suzanne Lombard had been like a sister to him. On the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, the former head of Benjamin Lombard’s security asks for Gibson’s help in a covert investigation of the case, with new evidence in hand.Haunted by tragic memories, he jumps at the chance to uncover what happened all those years ago. Using his military and technical prowess, he soon discovers multiple conspiracies surrounding the Lombard family—and he encounters powerful, ruthless political players who will do anything to silence him and his team. With new information surfacing that could threaten Lombard’s bid for the presidency, Gibson must stay one step ahead as he navigates a dangerous web to get to the truth.

Good Behavior


Blake Crouch - 2013
    While on the job, she overhears a man hiring a hit man to kill his wife. Letty may not be winning any morality awards, but even she has limits. Unable to go to the police, Letty sets out to derail the job, putting herself on a collision course with the killer that entangles the two of them in a dangerous, seductive relationship.Good Behavior comprises three interlinked novellas (The Pain of Others, Sunset Key, and Grab), which together form a novel-length portrait of Blake Crouch’s all-time favorite character creation, Letty Dobesh. This edition is the complete Letty Dobesh collection.

The Perfect Roommate


Minka Kent - 2018
    I know what she did.

Divine Justice


David Baldacci - 2008
    Men in the highest circles of power want him dead, and quickly, because he knows too many of their deepest secrets. On the other hand, the members of the secretive Camel Club not only want Stone alive, but they are willing to risk their own lives to save their leader and friend. Get ready for a David Baldacci thriller with relentless intensity, a perfect follow-up to his acclaimed "Stone Cold" - Camel Club #3.We begin with Oliver Stone taking drastic action to deal with individuals who have imposed injustices on him in his past life. He soon resorts to necessary flight and lands accidently in Divine, Virginia with a new young friend, Danny Riker. It's a strange place, fraught with secrets, criminal activities, and so much danger for Stone.Librarian's note: this is one of five volumes in the author's Camel Club series.

Vanishing Act


Thomas Perry - 1995
    She is in the one-woman business of helping the desperate disappear. Thanks to her membership in the Wolf Clan of the Seneca tribe, she can fool any pursuer, cover any trail, and then provide her clients with new identities, complete with authentic paperwork. Jane knows all the tricks, ancient and modern; in fact, she has invented several of them herself. So she is only mildly surprised to find an intruder waiting for her when she returns home one day. An ex-cop suspected of embezzling, John Felker wants Jane to do for him what she did for his buddy Harry Kemple: make him vanish. But as Jane opens a door out of the world for Felker, she walks into a trap that will take all her heritage and cunning to escape....

Little White Lies


Rita Herron - 2018
    LITTLE WHITE LIES…can lead to big troubleAll Detective William Flagler ever wanted was to be a cop,Yet in his obsession to protect and serve, his marriage and family fell apart.Now, on New Year’s Eve, three teenage girls disappear without a trace, creating panic and fear in the locals.His search for the Darling sisters leads to family secrets and lies that make him evaluate his role as a father.Secrets and lies that make him wonder if a serial predator called the Punisher is targeting the young girls on the island –girls just like his own daughter…Can he save the sisters and his family, or will this case destroy him?

Q&A


Ben H. WintersJohn Zdrojeski - 2021
    or is he? And somewhere within those recordings is the truth about a murder trial and a web of lies stretching back three decades.Written by Ben H. Winters, the best-selling author of Underground Airlines, The Last Policeman, and the Audible OriginalInside Jobs, Q&A is a tantalizing puzzle and a gripping tale of obsession and revenge.Because you can never really know the truth of a conversation—even when it's all on tape.Length: 2 hrs and 8 mins