Book picks similar to
A Silent Death by Peter May
crime
thriller
mystery
peter-may
Knots and Crosses
Ian Rankin - 1987
Once John Rebus served in Britain's elite SAS. Now he's an Edinburgh cop who hides from his memories, misses promotions and ignores a series of crank letters. But as the ghoulish killings mount and the tabloid headlines scream, Rebus cannot stop the feverish shrieks from within his own mind. Because he isn't just one cop trying to catch a killer, he's the man who's got all the pieces to the puzzle... Knots and Crosses introduces a gifted mystery novelist, a fascinating locale and the most compellingly complex detective hero at work today.
The Naturalist
Andrew Mayne - 2017
So when mutilated bodies found deep in the Montana woods leave the cops searching blindly for clues, Theo sees something they missed. Something unnatural. Something only he can stop.As a computational biologist, Theo is more familiar with digital code and microbes than the dark arts of forensic sleuthing. But a field trip to Montana suddenly lands him in the middle of an investigation into the bloody killing of one of his former students. As more details, and bodies, come to light, the local cops determine that the killer is either a grizzly gone rogue… or Theo himself. Racing to stay one step ahead of the police, Theo must use his scientific acumen to uncover the killer. Will he be able to become as cunning as the predator he hunts—before he becomes its prey?
Tennison
Lynda La Plante - 2015
After leaving the Metropolitan Police Training Academy, 22 year-old Jane Tennison is placed on a probationary exercise in Hackney, London where criminality thrives. At first she struggles to deal with the shocking situations she faces, receiving no help or sympathy from her superiors. Jane feels out of her depth in this male-dominated, chauvinistic environment. Then she is given her first murder case . . .
Don't Wake Up
Liz Lawler - 2017
Ostracised by her colleagues, her family and her partner, she begins to wonder if she really is losing her mind.And then she meets the next victim.So compulsive you can't stop reading.So chilling you won't stop talking about it.A pitch-black and devastatingly original psychological thriller.
The Defense
Steve Cavanagh - 2015
The truth doesn't matter in a trial.The only thing that matters is what the prosecution can prove.Eddie Flynn used to be a con artist. Then he became a lawyer. Turned out the two weren't that different.It's been over a year since Eddie vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again. But now he doesn't have a choice. Olek Volchek, the infamous head of the Russian mafia in New York, has strapped a bomb to Eddie's back and kidnapped his ten-year-old daughter Amy.Eddie only has 48 hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial—and win—if he wants to save his daughter.Under the scrutiny of the media and the FBI, Eddie must use his razor-sharp wit and every con-artist trick in the book to defend his 'client' and ensure Amy's safety. With the timer on his back ticking away, can Eddie convince the jury of the impossible?Lose this case and he loses everything.
The Puppet Show
M.W. Craven - 2018
He leaves no clues and the police are helpless.When his name is found carved into the charred remains of the third victim, disgraced detective Washington Poe is brought back from suspension and into an investigation he wants no part of.Reluctantly partnered with the brilliant but socially awkward civilian analyst, Tilly Bradshaw, the mismatched pair uncover a trail that only he is meant to see. The elusive killer has a plan and for some reason Poe is part of it.As the body count rises, Poe discovers he has far more invested in the case than he could have possibly imagined. And in a shocking finale that will shatter everything he's ever believed about himself, Poe will learn that there are things far worse than being burned alive...
In a Dark, Dark Wood
Ruth Ware - 2015
Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back. There was a dark, dark houseUntil, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her?And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark roomBut something goes wrong. Very wrong.And in the dark, dark room.... Some things can’t stay secret for ever.
Stone Mothers
Erin Kelly - 2019
You can't keep the secret.You can't tell the truth.You can't escape the past...Marianne was seventeen when she fled her home in Nusstead – leaving behind her family, her boyfriend, Jesse, and the body they buried. Now, thirty years later, forced to return to in order to help care for her sick mother, she can feel the past closing around her. And Jesse, who never forgave her for leaving in the first place, is finally threatening to expose the truth.Marianne will do anything to protect the life she's built, the husband and daughter who must never know what happened all those years ago. Even if it means turning to her worst enemy for help... But Marianne may not know the whole story – and she isn't the only one with secrets they'd kill to keep.
The Other Daughter
Lisa Gardner - 1999
Gifted with a loving family, Melanie has always considered herself lucky. Until tonight.Tonight, a has-been reporter turns up investigating her past. Tonight the first note arrives, saying, "You Get What You Deserve." And tonight, Melanie has her first, horrifying vision of the past.Melanie has no memory of her life before the adoption. Now someone wants to give it back, even if it includes the darkest nightmare the Stokes family ever faced: the murder of their first daughter in Texas. As Melanie desperately searches for her real identity, two seemingly unrelated events from the past will come together in a dangerous explosion of truth.
The Girl in the Ice
Robert Bryndza - 2016
Her lips parted as if to speak. Her dead body frozen in the ice…She is not the only one.When a young boy discovers the body of a woman beneath a thick sheet of ice in a South London park, Detective Erika Foster is called in to lead the murder investigation.The victim, a beautiful young socialite, appeared to have the perfect life. Yet when Erika begins to dig deeper, she starts to connect the dots between the murder and the killings of three prostitutes, all found strangled, hands bound and dumped in water around London.What dark secrets is the girl in the ice hiding?As Erika inches closer to uncovering the truth, the killer is closing in on Erika.The last investigation Erika led went badly wrong… resulting in the death of her husband. With her career hanging by a thread, Erika must now battle her own personal demons as well as a killer more deadly than any she’s faced before. But will she get to him before he strikes again?A #1 international bestseller, The Girl in the Ice is a page-turning thriller packed with suspense. If you like Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott and Karin Slaughter, discover Rob Bryndza’s series today.
The Hiding Place: A Thriller
David Bell - 2012
After his body was found in a shallow grave in the woods two months later, the repercussions were felt for years.Janet Manning has been haunted by the murder since the day she lost sight of her brother in the park. Now, with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Justin’s death looming, a detective and a newspaper reporter have started to ask questions, opening old wounds and raising new suspicions. Could the man convicted of the murder — who spent more than two decades in prison — really be innocent? Janet’s childhood friend and high school crush, who was in the park with her that day, has returned to Dove Point, where he is wrestling with his own conflicted memories of the events. And a strange man appears at Janet’s door in the middle of the night, claiming to know the truth.Soon, years of deceit will be swept away, and the truth about what happened to Janet’s brother will be revealed. And the answers that Janet has sought may be found much closer to home than she ever could have imagined.
The Liar's Girl
Catherine Ryan Howard - 2018
John's College-and Ireland's most prolific serial killer. Having stalked his four young victims, he drowned them in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal. Sentenced to life imprisonment when he was just nineteen, Will is locked away in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital. Freshman Alison Smith moved to the Big Smoke to enrol in St. John's and soon fell hard for Will Hurley. Her world bloomed ... and then imploded when Liz, her best friend, became the latest victim of the Canal Killer-and the Canal Killer turned out to be the boy who'd been sleeping in her bed. Alison fled to the Netherlands and, in ten years, has never once looked back. When a young woman's body is found in the Grand Canal, Garda detectives visit Will to see if he can assist them in solving what looks like a copycat killing. Instead, Will tells them he has something new to confess-but there's only one person he's prepared to confess it to. The last thing Alison wants is to be pulled back into the past she's worked so hard to leave behind. Reluctantly, she returns to the city she hasn't set foot in for more than a decade to face the man who murdered the woman she was supposed to become. Only to discover that, until now, Will has left out the worst part of all ...
It Ends with Her
Brianna Labuskes - 2018
She’ll end it.FBI special agent Clarke Sinclair doesn’t give up easily. She’s spent years tracking serial killer Simon Cross, forced to follow his twisted clues and photographs across the country. Clarke knows that Cross selects only redheaded women and that he doesn’t target another victim until Clarke discovers the previous one.He’s never broken pattern…until now.A girl has already gone missing in upstate New York when a second one is kidnapped—a blonde. The killer’s MO has changed, sending Clarke back to the drawing board. The closer she gets to the truth, the deeper she’s drawn into an inescapable trap made just for Clarke. Whatever Cross’s ultimate game is, it ends with her.
The Hunting Party
Lucy Foley - 2018
. . and murder and mayhem ensue.All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?
The Ghosts of Belfast
Stuart Neville - 2009
Every night, on the point of losing his mind, he drowns their screams in drink. His solution is to kill those who engineered their deaths.From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all are called to account. But when Fegan's vendetta threatens to derail a hard-won truce and destabilise the government, old comrades and enemies alike want him dead.Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Thriller.