The Woman Before Me


Ruth Dugdall - 2010
    Luke had been dead for just three days.Rose Wilks' life is shattered when her newborn baby Joel is admitted to intensive care. Emma Hatcher has all that Rose lacks. Beauty. A loving husband. A healthy son. Until tragedy strikes and Rose is the only suspect.Now, having spent nearly five years in prison in Ipswich, Rose is just weeks away from freedom. Her probation officer Cate must decide whether Rose is remorseful for her crime, or whether she remains a threat to society. As Cate is drawn in, she begins to doubt her own judgement.Where is the line between love and obsession, can justice be served and, if so... by what means?

Arrowood


Mick Finlay - 2017
    Everyone else goes to Arrowood.The Afghan War is over and a deal with the Irish appears to have brought an end to sectarian violence, but Britain's position in the world is uncertain and the gap between rich and poor is widening. London is a place where the wealthy party while the underclass are tempted into lives of crime, drugs and prostitution. A serial killer stalks the streets. Politicians are embroiled in financial and sexual scandals. The year is 1895.The police don't have the resources to deal with everything that goes on in the capital. The rich turn to a celebrated private detective when they need help: Sherlock Holmes. But in densely populated south London, where the crimes are sleazier and Holmes rarely visits, people turn to Arrowood, a private investigator who despises Holmes, his wealthy clientele and his showy forensic approach to crime. Arrowood understands people, not clues.

The Other Widow


Susan H. Crawford - 2016
    This time it could be theirs . . .It isn’t safe. That’s what Joe tells her when he ends their affair—moments before their car skids off an icy road in a blinding snowstorm and hits a tree. Desperate to keep her life intact—her job, her husband, and her precious daughter, Lily—Dorrie will do everything she can to protect herself, even if it means walking away from the wreckage. Dorrie has always been a good actress, pretending to be someone else: the dutiful daughter, the satisfied wife, the woman who can handle anything. Now she’s going to put on the most challenging performance of her life. But details about the accident leave her feeling uneasy and afraid. Why didn’t Joe’s airbag work? Why was his car door open before the EMTs arrived? And now suddenly someone is calling her from her dead lover’s burner phone. . . .Joe’s death has left his wife in free fall as well. Karen knew Joe was cheating—she found some suspicious e-mails. Trying to cope with grief is devastating enough without the constant fear that has overtaken her—this feeling she can’t shake that someone is watching her. And with Joe gone and the kids grown, she’s vulnerable . . . and on her own.Insurance investigator Maggie Devlin is suspicious of the latest claim that’s landed on her desk—a man dying on an icy road shortly after buying a lucrative life insurance policy. Maggie doesn’t believe in coincidences. The former cop knows that things—and people—are never what they seem to be.As the fates of these three women become more tightly entwined, layers of lies and deception begin to peel away, pushing them dangerously to the edge . . . closer to each other . . . to a terrifying truth . . . to a shocking end.

The Girlfriend


Sarah J. Naughton - 2017
    The perfect boyfriend. The perfect lie.Mags doesn't believe her brother's fall was an accident. In that forty-foot stairwell, he didn't just slip over the edge.But there is only one witness, Jody, the girlfriend grieving at his bedside.Which is another story Mags doesn't believe.Because Jody likes telling stories, and this may be her most twisted one yet.As Mags begins to unearth the secrets hidden in her brother's wake, she finds she isn't just looking for the truth. For Mags, this is more than a simple tragedy. This is an opportunity for revenge.

Twisted


Steve Cavanagh - 2019
    The police are looking to charge me with murder.2. No one knows who I am. Or how I did it.3. If you think you've found me. I'm coming for you next.After you've read this book, you'll know: the truth is far more twisted...

Moon Music


Faye Kellerman - 1998
    Taking a brief hiatus from her mystery series featuring LAPD Homicide Detective Peter Decker and his Orthodox Jewish wife, Rina Lazarus, Kellerman delivers a masterful stand-alone crime novel that crackles with suspense and tantalizes with a touch of the paranormal. The horribly savaged body of a once-beautiful Vegas showgirl is discovered in the desert not far from the world-famous Strip, plunging Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe into the heart of a bizarre, full moon-soaked mystery that could cost him everything he holds dear in life, including his sanity.

The Power of the Dog


Don Winslow - 2005
    This novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. Art Montana is an obsessive DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Parada is a powerful and incorruptible Catholic priest. Callan is an Irish kid from Hell’s Kitchen who grows up to be a merciless hitman. And they are all trapped in the world of the Mexican drug Federaci. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tijuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you’ve never seen it.

Disordered Minds


Minette Walters - 2003
    When a local councillor and an anthropologist re-investigate the controversial murder conviction of a mentally retarded 20-year-old, they're unprepared for the disturbing facts that come to light--and the personal demons with which they must come to terms.

The Eight


Katherine Neville - 1988
    Before she goes, a mysterious fortune teller warns her of danger, and an antique dealer asks her to search for pieces to a valuable chess set that has been missing for years...In the South of France in 1790 two convent girls hide valuable pieces of a chess set all over the world, because the game that can be played with them is too powerful....

The Double Eagle


James Twining - 2005
    . .Only a handful still exist, each one worth millions . . .Now they have vanished from an impenetrable fortress . . .and the killings have begun.Somehow, impossibly, someone has invaded Fort Knox and stolen five of the world's last remaining Double Eagles -- the $20 gold coin ordered destroyed by President Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Now, one has resurfaced during an autopsy in France -- in the stomach of a murdered priest.Disgraced FBI agent Jennifer Browne needs to recover the priceless coins to resuscitate her stalled career -- and her investigation is pointing her toward Tom Kirk, a brilliant international art thief who wants to get out of the game. But Kirk's only chance for freedom -- and survival -- is to find the missing coins, joining Browne, an unlikely ally, on a breakneck race across the globe and into the lethal heart of a shocking conspiracy of greed and power . . . and death.

Land of the Living


Nicci French - 2002
    She is hooded and bound, with no idea where she is or how she got there. Kept alive by a man she never sees, his only promise is that eventually he will kill her - like the others.

A Walk Across the Sun


Corban Addison - 2011
    With almost everyone they know suddenly erased from the face of the earth, the girls set out for the convent where they attend school. They are abducted almost immediately and sold to a Mumbai brothel owner, beginning a hellish descent into the bowels of the sex trade.Halfway across the world, Washington, D.C., attorney Thomas Clarke faces his own personal and professional crisis-and makes the fateful decision to pursue a pro bono sabbatical working in India for an NGO that prosecutes the subcontinent's human traffickers. There, his conscience awakens as he sees firsthand the horrors of the trade in human flesh, and the corrupt judicial system that fosters it. Learning of the fate of Ahalya and Sita, Clarke makes it his personal mission to rescue them, setting the stage for a riveting showdown with an international network of ruthless criminals.

Monstrum


Donald James - 1997
    Provincial police inspector Constantin Vadim is plucked from backwater Murmansk to head up a murder investigation in the decaying, crime-ridden Red Presnya district of Moscow. His task: to solve a succession of unspeakable crimes committed by a serial killer who has become a terrifying local legend, almost a cult symbol: Monstrum. Vadim unwittingly discovers governmental intrigue and conspiratorial deceptions so terrible they threaten to undermine the revamped Russia. And when his past - in the form of his estranged wife, Julia Petrovna, a general in the defeated Anarchist army - collides with his ongoing current hunt for the killer, these two forces threaten to crush the detective and Russia itself.

The Guilty Wife


Elle Croft - 2017
    MISTRESS. MURDERER.If you were being framed for murder, how far would you go to clear your name?The debut psychological thriller that reads as Apple Tree Yard meets Behind Closed Doors, by way of Double Jeopardy.I'm not guilty of murder.Bethany Reston is happily married. But she's also having an affair with a famous client.And no one can ever know.But that doesn't make me innocent.When Bethany's lover is brutally murdered, she has to hide her grief from everyone.But someone knows her secret. And then one day the threats begin.With an ever-growing pile of evidence pointing to her as the murderer, the only way she can protect her secrets is to prove her innocence. And that means tracking down a killer.An incredibly taut, tense game of cat and mouse - with a twist you'll never see coming.

The Gun Seller


Hugh Laurie - 1996
    Within hours Lang is butting heads with a Buddha statue, matching wits with evil billionaires, and putting his life (among other things) in the hands of a bevy of femmes fatales, whilst trying to save a beautiful lady ...and prevent an international bloodbath to boot.