Book picks similar to
Too Late to Call Texas by Trent Zelazny
fiction
thriller
crime_fiction
mysteries
Rumrunners
Eric Beetner - 2015
They're not criminals. They're outlaws. They have made a living by driving anything and everything for the Stanleys, the criminal family who has been employing them for decades. It's ended with Tucker. He's gone straight, much to the disappointment of his father, Webb. When Webb vanishes after a job, and with him a truck load of drugs, the Stanleys want their drugs back or their money. With the help from his grandfather, Calvin-the original lead foot-Tucker is about to learn a whole lot about the family business in a crash course that might just get him killed.Praise for RUMRUNNERS:“A killer. If you dug Bull Mountain, you’ll love it.”—Brian Panovich, author of Bull Mountain“The best word to sum up this book is ’FUN’, in capital letters.”—Stuart MacBride, author of The Missing and the Dead“Buckle up...RUMRUNNERS is a fast and furious read.”—Samuel W. Gailey, author of Deep Winter“Few contemporary writers do justice to the noir tradition the way Eric Beetner does. Others try to emulate and mimic; Beetner just takes the form and cuts his own jagged, raw and utterly readable path.”—Gar Anthony Haywood, author of Assume Nothing, Cemetery Road and the Aaron Gunner series“Rumrunners just never lets up. It's a fuel-injected, mile-a-minute thrill ride. I had a blast.”—Grant Jerkins, author of A Very Simple Crime and Done In One
Kiss Me, Judas
Will Christopher Baer - 1998
Red dress, black hair, body like a knife. He takes her back to his room and wakes the next morning in a bathtub full of blood and ice, missing a kidney.Dragging himself from a hospital bed, Phineas discovers he wants to be with Jude like a hunger -- and he wants to find her and kill her. Falling for her is the start of a twisted love story that takes him from the snowy streets of Denver to the high plains of Texas where the boundaries between torturer and victim, killer and accomplice, become nightmarishly distorted.
BONES OF THE DEMON KING (Demon King Series Book 1)
S.E. Grayson - 2015
He's a serial killer that brutally murders women. Eva Lewis is the reporter that named him...but is she also his next victim? The FBI must race against time to catch this Demon King before he claims his queen.
Queenpin
Megan Abbott - 2007
Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protégée the ropes, ushering her into a glittering demimonde of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlors, inside heists, and big, big money. Suddenly, the world is at her feet--as long as she doesn't take any chances, like falling for the wrong guy. As the roulette wheel turns, both mentor and protégée scramble to stay one step ahead of their bosses and each other.
Graveland
Alan Glynn - 2013
On a bright Saturday morning, a Wall Street investment banker is shot dead while jogging in Central Park. Hours later, one of New York City's savviest hedge-fund managers is gunned down outside a restaurant. Are these killings a coordinated terrorist attack, or just a coincidence? Investigative journalist Ellen Dorsey has a hunch they're neither, and when an attempt is made on the life of another CEO, her theory is confirmed. The story blows wide open, and as Ellen races to stay ahead of the curve, her path collides with that of a recession-hit architect, Frank Bishop, whose daughter's disappearance may be tied to the murders.Set deep in a shadow world of corrupt business deals and radical politics—with a plot that echoes today's headlines in haunting and unexpected ways—Graveland is a mind-blowing thriller that intensifies with every page.
Slow Fire
Ken Mercer - 2010
Fresh out of rehab but jobless and estranged from his wife, Will now lives alone in an old Airstream trailer on the fringes of L.A.Out of options, Will accepts the job. After moving to Haydenville, he discovers that the once postcard-perfect town is being corrupted by a criminal influence that threatens to destroy it.Haydenville’s normally law-abiding citizens begin to erupt in acts of unspeakable violence. Pets are going missing at an alarming rate. Stately Victorian homes are falling into disrepair. With only a rookie officer at his disposal, Will risks everything in his quest to save Haydenville—entering a labyrinth of dark secrets that have remained buried for almost 40 years.An emotionally complex and literate page-turner, Slow Fire marks the electrifying debut of a new series featuring Will Magowan.
The Fields
Erin Young - 2022
It starts with a body—a young woman found dead in an Iowa cornfield, on one of the few family farms still managing to compete with the giants of Big Agriculture.When Sergeant Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations for the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office, arrives on the scene, an already horrific crime becomes personal when she discovers the victim was a childhood friend, connected to a dark past she thought she’d left behind.The investigation grows complicated as more victims are found. Drawn deeper in, Riley soon discovers implications far beyond her Midwest town.
Ranchero
Rick Gavin - 2011
But Percy Dwayne wouldn't give in. Nope, instead he saw fit to go all white-trash philosophical and decided that since the world was stacked against him anyway, he might as well fight it. He hit Nick over the head with a fireplace shovel, tied him up with a length of lamp cord, and stole the mint-condition calypso coral-colored 1969 Ranchero that Nick had borrowed from his landlady. And he took the TV with him on a rowdy ride across the Mississippi Delta.Nick and his best friend Desmond, fellow repo man in Indianola, Mississippi, have no choice but to go after him. The fact that the trail eventually leads to Guy, a meth cooker recently set up in the Delta after the Feds ran him out of New Orleans, is of no consequence—Nick will do anything to get the Ranchero back. And it turns out he might have to.An original and ballsy road-trip of a crime novel—most of it in Desmond's ex-wife's Geo—Ranchero is an unforgettable read and a fantastic series debut.
The Way Home
George Pelecanos - 2009
After years of trouble and rebellion that enraged his father and nearly cost him his life, he has a steady job in his father's company, he's seriously dating a woman he respects, and, aside from the distrust that lingers in his father's eyes, his mistakes are firmly in the past.One day on the job, Chris and his partner come across a temptation almost too big to resist. Chris does the right thing, but old habits and instincts rise to the surface, threatening this new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With his father and his most trusted friends, he takes one last chance to blast past the demons trying to pull him back. Like Richard Price or William Kennedy, Pelecanos pushes his characters to the extremes, their redemption that much sweeter because it is so hard fought. Pelecanos has long been celebrated for his unerring ability to portray the conflicts men feel as they search and struggle for power and love in a world that is often harsh and unforgiving but can ultimately be filled with beauty.
Killer Mine
Hammond Innes - 1947
He is soon plunged into a hazardous world of crooks,contraband, madness and mysteries underneath the rocky cliffs.
Remorse
Stephen Edger - 2011
But behind closed doors, his wife is cheating on him; his daughter’s relentless screaming deprives them of sleep; and he drinks heavily.Struggling to maintain balance in his life, cracks start to appear. Unable to deal with the mounting pressure, he hires a private investigator to spy on his wife. He is prepared to do anything to maintain the idyll.As the conclusion of Duggan’s trial looms, he must come to terms with what he has done and why he is facing a life behind bars. He is about to learn a valuable lesson: not every fairy tale has a happy ending…Betrayal, revenge, regret and suspense: TELL NO LIES is a heart-breaking thriller, exploring what fathers will do when driven to desperation.(Also considered a standalone novel.)
High Water
Lynn Hightower - 2002
A daughter's intuition. A father's terrifying secret. High WaterBeaufort, South Carolina: When the matriarch of the Smallwood family dies of mysterious causes, everybody in town has their eyes on the widower. An ex-marine involved in a local scandal years before, Fielding Smallwood is known as a fierce man with a powerful sense of discipline. He was neglectful of his wife and three children, including Georgie, the youngest, who is convinced her father is the killer...until another tragedy occurs and her sister Claire becomes a prime suspect. Now it's up to Georgie to find the evidence needed to clear her sister's name -- even if what she discovers threatens the survival of the only family she has left.Lynn Hightower entwines deadly deceptions and startling revelations in this rich, intricate work of suspense.
Darkness Falls
David Mark - 2020
In a landscape at once tender and brutal, McAvoy must tread the path between the darkness and the light, before facing an enemy who will brand him for life. Set in Hull, 2011, Darkness Falls invites readers to see where it all began for Aector McAvoy, in a dark, disturbing mystery thriller that will keep you reading late into the night.Perfect for McAvoy fans and new readers to the addictive, internationally bestselling series.
The Long and Faraway Gone
Lou Berney - 2015
Six movie-theater employees were killed in an armed robbery, while one inexplicably survived. Then, a teenage girl vanished from the annual State Fair. Neither crime was ever solved.Twenty-five years later, the reverberations of those unsolved cases quietly echo through survivors’ lives. A private investigator in Vegas, Wyatt’s latest inquiry takes him back to a past he’s tried to escape—and drags him deeper into the harrowing mystery of the movie house robbery that left six of his friends dead. Like Wyatt, Julianna struggles with the past—with the day her beautiful older sister Genevieve disappeared. When Julianna discovers that one of the original suspects has resurfaced, she’ll stop at nothing to find answers.As fate brings these damaged souls together, their obsessive quests spark sexual currents neither can resist. But will their shared passion and obsession heal them, or push them closer to the edge? Even if they find the truth, will it help them understand what happened, that long and faraway gone summer? Will it set them free—or ultimately destroy them?