Book picks similar to
Breaking Dead by Corrie Jackson


mystery
thriller
mystery-thriller
fiction

Some Choose Darkness


Charlie Donlea - 2019
    . .   The truth is easy to miss, even when it’s right in front of us. As a forensic reconstructionist, Rory Moore sheds light on cold-case homicides by piecing together crime scene details others fail to see. Cleaning out her late father’s law office a week after his burial, she receives a call that plunges her into a decades-old case come to life once more. In the summer of 1979, five Chicago women went missing. The predator, nicknamed The Thief, left no bodies and no clues behind—until police received a package from a mysterious woman named Angela Mitchell, whose unorthodox investigation skills appear to have led to his identity. But before police could question her, Angela disappeared. Forty years later, The Thief is about to be paroled for Angela’s murder—the only crime the DA could pin on him. As a former client of her father’s, Rory becomes reluctantly involved with the killer—though he continues to insist he didn’t murder Angela. Now he wants Rory to do what her father once promised: prove that Angela is, in fact, still alive. As Rory begins reconstructing Angela’s last days, another killer emerges from the shadows, replicating those long-ago murders. With every startling discovery she makes, Rory becomes more deeply entangled in the enigma of Angela Mitchell—and in The Thief’s tormented mind. Drawing connections between past and present is the only way to stop the nightmare, but even Rory can’t be prepared for the full, terrifying truth that is emerging . . .

Mosaic


Caro Ramsay - 2019
    As she approaches the grand Scottish country estate where she grew up, the memories come flooding back. Just what did happen on the night of Melissa's wedding five years before? Where has Megan and Melissa's mother disappeared to? And why does Melissa whisper that solitary word before she finally slips away: Sorry.In order to overcome her demons, Megan must confront her painful recollections of that terrible night, the night of Melissa's wedding. The night somebody died. But can she really trust her memories? And who is it who's determined that she should forget ...?

Lost Hills


Lee Goldberg - 2020
    The sheriff, desperate for more positive press, makes Eve the youngest female homicide detective in the department’s history.Now Eve, with a lot to learn and resented by her colleagues, has to justify her new badge. Her chance comes when she and her burned-out, soon-to-retire partner are called to the blood-splattered home of a missing single mother and her two kids. The horrific carnage screams multiple murder—but there are no corpses.Eve has to rely on her instincts and tenacity to find the bodies and capture the vicious killer, all while battling her own insecurities and mounting pressure from the media, her bosses, and the bereaved family. It’s a deadly ordeal that will either prove her skills…or totally destroy her.

The Killer on the Wall


Emma Kavanagh - 2017
    In such a close-knit community, everyone knows the victims, and the man who did it.Twenty years on and Isla has dedicated her life to forensic psychology; studying the brains of serial killers, and even coming face to face with the convicted murderer who turned her world upside down. She is safe after all, with him behind bars.Then another body appears against the Wall. And another. As the nightmare returns and the body count rises, everyone in town is a suspect.Who is the Killer on the Wall?

Daisy in Chains


Sharon J. Bolton - 2016
    Famed for his good looks, he receives adoring letters every day from his countless admirers. He's also a convicted murderer, facing life in prison.Who would join such a club?Maggie Rosie is a successful lawyer and true-crime author. Reclusive and enigmatic, she only takes on cases she can win.Hamish is convinced that Maggie can change his fate. Maggie is determined not to get involved. She thinks she's immune to the charms of such a man. But maybe not this time . . .Would you?

The Tunnels


Michelle Gagnon - 2007
    The bodies of two female students are found mutilated and oddly positioned in the dark labyrinth beneath the school—haunting symbols painted on the walls above them.In her decade tracking serial killers, FBI special agent Kelly Jones has seen some of the worst humanity can inflict. Yet the tragedy unfolding at her alma mater chills her to the bone. Evidence suggests that the connection between the victims—daughters of powerful men—and the cryptic message behind the killings is rooted in a dark, ancient ritual. As the body count rises, so do the stakes. The killer is taunting Kelly, daring her to follow him down a dangerous path from which only one can emerge.

Deadly Dance


Hilary Bonner - 2017
    But this marks the start of a baffling murder investigation where nothing is as it first appears. Fourteen-year-old Melanie Cooke told her mother she was visiting a school friend. Who was she really going to meet? Detective Inspector David Vogel is led towards three very different principal protagonists, each of whom grows increasingly chilling. But are they what they seem? And is any one of them capable of murder? A darkly complex secret lies behind Melanie's death - and its ultimate revelation will shock Vogel and his team to the core.

The Lies We Bury


Stacy Green - 2018
    It’s been seven years since two girls disappeared because of his rookie mistake, and since then he’s lived under the weight of guilt. Now Annabeth, one of the girls, has been found, but with her comes more unanswered questions. Cage realizes this time there’s no room for error because the serial predator is still out there and still on the hunt.Doubts plague Cage while he races to put the pieces together. Where has Annabeth been all these years? And why does believe she’s Lyric Gaudet, granddaughter of a powerful New Orleans voodoo priestess? As Cage gets caught up in the mysterious black magic community of New Orleans, secrets are revealed, and he realizes it’s no coincidence Annabeth believes she’s Lyric. The girls’ pasts are somehow tied together—worse, the killer is watching and Annabeth is the target. And Cage is running out of time.

A Tapping At My Door


David Jackson - 2016
    She's disturbed to discover the culprit is a raven, and tries to shoo it away. Which is when the killer strikes.DS Nathan Cody, still bearing the scars of an undercover mission that went horrifyingly wrong, is put on the case. But the police have no leads, except the body of the bird - and the victim's missing eyes.As flashbacks from his past begin to intrude, Cody realises he is battling not just a murderer, but his own inner demons too.And then the killer strikes again, and Cody realises the threat isn't to the people of Liverpool after all - it's to the police.Following the success and acclaim of the Callum Doyle novels, A Tapping at My Door is the first instalment of David Jackson's new Nathan Cody series.From the bestselling author of Cry Baby, the beginning of a brilliant and gripping police procedural series set in Liverpool, perfect for fans of Peter James and Mark Billingham"Recalls Harlan Coben - though for my money Jackson is the better writer." Guardian

The Frozen Dead


Bernard Minier - 2011
    On the same day as the gruesome discovery, a young psychiatrist starts her first job at a secure asylum for the criminally insane, just a few miles away. Commandant Servaz, a Toulouse city cop, can't believe he has been called out over the death of an animal. But there is something disturbing about this crime that he cannot ignore. Then DNA from one of the most notorious inmates of the asylum is found on the corpse... and a few days later the first murder takes place. In this snowbound valley, deep in the Pyrenees, a dark story of madness and revenge is unfolding. It will take all of Servaz's skill to solve it.

Dark Road Home


Anna Carlisle - 2016
    Her family fell apart, not to mention her relationship with her high school sweetheart, Jake. Now, almost twenty years later, Gin is living in Chicago and working as a medical examiner when she gets the call: a body's been found in the woods outside her small hometown. It could be her sister. After all these years, it's time for Gin to go home and face the demons she tried to leave behind.Confronting your past is never easy, but for Gin it also means confronting Jake, who was the prime suspect in Lily's disappearance. To find an answer to the question of what happened to her sister that fateful summer, Gin makes the difficult decision to use her talents as a medical examiner to help the police investigation. But as Gin gets deeper into the case, she uncovers a shocking truth that could change everything--if it doesn't destroy what's left of her and her family first.Buried secrets come to light in Dark Road Home, Anna Carlisle's sharp and simmering debut mystery.

The Darkest Secret


Alex Marwood - 2016
    Coco is three years old. When identical twin Coco goes missing during a family celebration, there is a media frenzy. Her parents are rich and influential, as are the friends they were with at their holiday home by the sea. But what really happened to Coco?Over two intense weekends - the first when Coco goes missing and the second twelve years later at the funeral of her father - the darkest of secrets will gradually be revealed... Taut, emotive and utterly compelling, an unputdownable 'ripped from the headlines' novel that you will want to talk about with everyone you know.

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 Vanishing Season


Joanna Schaffhausen - 2017
    She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only one who lived.When three people disappear from her town in three years―all around her birthday―Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer all those years ago.Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he's washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery’s waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them...with a killer who can't let go.

The Missing


C.L. Taylor - 2016
    They make you feel safe. You trust them. Or do you…?When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire Wilkinson, blames herself. She's not the only one. There isn't a single member of Billy's family that doesn't feel guilty. But the Wilkinson’s are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn't until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface.Claire is sure of two things – that Billy is still alive and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance.A mother's instinct is never wrong. Or is it?