The Cuckoo's Calling


Robert Galbraith - 2013
    Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

Complicity


Iain Banks - 1993
    The source is pretty thin, but Cameron senses a scoop and checks out a series of bizarre deaths from a few years ago - only to find that the police are checking out a series of bizarre deaths that are happening right now. And Cameron just might know more about it that he'd care to admit...

The Killing Lessons


Saul Black - 2015
    Two violent predators walk through the door. Nothing will ever be the same.When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper's isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it's the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it's just another stop on a long and bloody journey. And they still have many miles to go, and victims to sacrifice, before their work is done.For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of victims-women abducted, tortured and left with a seemingly random series of objects inside them-has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological destruction. And she's losing hope of making a breakthrough before that happens.But the murders at the Cooper farmhouse didn't quite go according to plan. There was a survivor, Rowena's ten-year-old daughter Nell, who now holds the key to the killings. Injured, half-frozen, terrified, Nell has only one place to go. And that place could be even more dangerous than what she's running from.In this extraordinary, pulse-pounding debut, Saul Black takes us deep into the mind of a psychopath, and into the troubled heart of the woman determined to stop him.

The Animal Factory


Edward Bunker - 1977
    Ron Decker is a newbie, a drug dealer whose shot at a short two-year stint in the can is threatened from inside and outside. He's got to keep a spotless record or it's ten to life. But at San Quentin, no man can steer clear of the Brotherhoods, the race wars, the relentlessness. It soon becomes clear that some inmates are more equal than others; Earl Copen is one of them, an old-timer who has learned not just to survive but to thrive behind bars. Not much can surprise him-but the bond he forms with Ron startles them both; it's a true education of a felon.

Holy Island


L.J. Ross - 2015
    A few days before Christmas, his peace is shattered and he is thrust back into the murky world of murder when a young woman is found dead amongst the ancient ruins of the nearby Priory.When former local girl Dr Anna Taylor arrives back on the island as a police consultant, old memories swim to the surface making her confront her difficult past. She and Ryan struggle to work together to hunt a killer who hides in plain sight, while pagan ritual and small-town politics muddy the waters of their investigation.

The Courier


Gordon J. Campbell - 2019
    They sized him up as someone with potential for strategic deployment, and more importantly, he's under the radar. Gregg's exploits start with what he thinks is a one-off assignment as a courier, and the straightforward task spirals out of control. He's forced to rise to the occasion and use every resource available to survive. Even his family is jeopardized which forces him to return to Japan to settle scores.The Courier is one man’s struggle to fight for survival in a world that he's not been trained for and where violence and retribution are the names of the game.

The Banker’s Wife


Cristina Alger - 2018
    Soon after, it simply drops off the radar, and its wreckage is later uncovered in the Alps. Among the disappeared is Matthew Werner, a banking insider at Swiss United, a powerful offshore bank. His young widow, Annabel, is left grappling with the secrets he left behind, including an encrypted laptop and a shady client list. As she begins a desperate search for answers, she determines that Matthew's death was no accident, and that she is now in the crosshairs of his powerful enemies. Meanwhile, ambitious society journalist Marina Tourneau has finally landed at the top. Now that she's engaged to Grant Ellis, she will stop writing about powerful families and finally be a part of one. Her entry into the upper echelons of New York's social scene is more appealing than any article could ever be, but, after the death of her mentor, she agrees to dig into one more story. While looking into Swiss United, Marina uncovers information that implicates some of the most powerful men in the financial world, including a few who are too close to home. The story could also be the answer to Annabel's heartbreaking search--if Marina chooses to publish it.

Honey in His Mouth


Lester Dent - 2009
    Original.

Nobody's Angel


Jack Clark - 2010
    While Chicago cabbie Eddie Miles drives the city streets at midnight, two killers--one targeting prostitutes, the other cab drivers--are out plying their trade.

Those People


Louise Candlish - 2019
    The houses are beautiful, the neighbors get along, and the kids play together on weekends.But when Darren and Jodie move into the house on the corner, they donʼt follow the rules. They blast music at all hours, begin an unsightly renovation, and run a used-car business from their yard. It doesn't take long for an all-out war to start brewing.Then, early one Saturday, a horrific death shocks the street. As police search for witnesses, accusations start flying--and everyone has something to hide.

The Life We Bury


Allen Eskens - 2014
    His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran--and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder. As Joe writes about Carl's life, especially Carl's valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory. Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?

Mark of Cain


Marcus Hünnebeck - 2014
    But when a disturbing pattern in recent cases begins to emerge, he chooses to postpone his self-imposed retirement in order to help out an old flame.Detective Katharina Rosenberg has a new case and a new cop killer on the run. When two colleagues are murdered in rapid succession, a shocking theory emerges: Is someone killing off the detectives Christian worked alongside solving homicide cases? And is Katharina next?Now, Katharina and Christian must team up once again to catch the murderer before it’s too late. With their buried passion rising to the surface, they give in to their desire while racing against time to find the vengeful cop killer before he finds them.

Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double


Harold Robbins - 2020
    After being kicked out of a Catholic orphanage when it is discovered that he is of Jewish descent, a confused and deeply distraught Frankie turns to a life of crime, the only life he knows, and he’s good at it. Frankie quickly makes a name for himself and becomes one of New York’s most dangerous men, ruling the city with an iron fist and indulging in his passion for sex, power and the best things life has to offer—regardless of whether they’re for sale.In Stiletto, Cesare Cardinale is an amoral, aristocratic Italian playboy—an entrepreneur and race car driver who wants for nothing—whether it’s fast cars, beautiful women, or orgies of debauchery. Cesare, however, has two dirty secrets: First, he has a penchant for violence that borders on the sadistic and sociopathic; second, he owes his extravagant life to a Sicilian Mafia don, creating a seemingly perfect relationship—as he leads a double life as a Mafia assassin.“Robbins’s books are packed with action, sustained by strong narrative drive, and are given vitality by his own colorful life.” —The Wall Street JournalThe Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double includes: Never Love A Stranger and Stiletto.

Dark Places


Gillian Flynn - 2009
    She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

The Yarn Woman


Brooks Mencher - 2014
    The FBI and city police call her the Yarn Woman. She's their textile forensics expert.In her first recorded case, 'Ghosts of the Albert Townsend, ' Ruth has only a blood-soaked nineteenth century shawl to unravel the link between the resurfacing of a ghostly schooner just offshore and the severe wounds on young Hauper Brown's body. A nearby fatal animal mauling only adds to her worry. In her second case in this first Yarn Woman mysteries book, 'The Fisherman's Wife, ' Ruth must decipher the meaning behind a dead man's hand-knit sweater while racing against time to save his otherworldly widow. Finally, Ruth helps identify the body of a playwright by the handwork in his shirt, and finds not only a young friend in Gabriel, a curly-haired boy with unusual abilities, she unearths a network of beggar-masters and their slaves deep in San Francisco's seamy underside.This first book, a trilogy of dramatic novellas, introduces a cast of characters who will recur as the Yarn Woman mystery series continues in 'Wailing Wood' and 'The Rusalka Wheel, ' with more cases on the horiz