Tombstoning


Doug Johnstone - 2006
    What do you do?Well, if you're David Lindsay from Arbroath, you get the hell out of there and don't return. Not for at least fifteen years. Until Nicola Cruickshank - yes, that Nicola, the girl you always fancied but never had the guts to approach - gets in touch and asks - no, demands - that you go back for a school reunion. To the place where it happened. The place you've been running from for fifteen years. Of course you go. Not to belatedly lay your mate to rest, but because you still fancy Nicola.The thing is, if you are David Lindsay, then returning to Arbroath isn't going to lay any ghosts to rest. And when someone else takes a dive off the cliffs - an act the locals have taken to calling 'tombstoning' - while David's there, he has a choice: run away again, or finally find out why people keep dying around him . . .

Beyond Belief


Roy Johansen - 2001
    Joe Bailey is the Spirit Basher. Formerly a professional magician, he's become an ace police detective in Atlanta, debunking phony psychics and spiritualists who prey on the gullible. And he's just caught his first sensational murder case.The victim is someone Joe knew. Dr. Robert Nelson was a professor at Landwyn University, head of the parapsychology program. He was killed in his own home, a sculpture of massive chrome spikes driven through his body and into a wall. A sculpture that no one could possibly have lifted. But Nelson's girlfriend claims to know the murderer: an eight-year-old boy. Jesse Randall is not just any child. Some people say he can move objects using nothing more than his will. Nelson had been studying the boy, and Jesse's anger at the professor was erupting in "shadow storms" — violent telekinetic activity — while Jesse slept. Nelson's girlfriend swears that one of these episodes was responsible for Nelson's brutal death. Joe is far from convinced. He's certain that Jesse's power is a hoax and Nelson's killer is a master of deception. Driven to seek out the truth that surely lies behind the psychic fakery, Joe must rely on his wits to separate what's real from what's illusion — even if it means drawing Jesse's anger on himself. Soon mysterious incidents thrust him and his own child into grave peril. Are they examples of Jesse's shadow storms? Or deadly warnings from someone who cannot allow the Spirit Basher to discover the truth? Joe cannot abandon his search for answers. And he'd better find them fast before whoever — or whatever — impaled Robert Nelson like an insect does the same to him and his daughter.

The Grey Man


Andy McNab - 2006
    He has a steady job at the bank, a nice house and car. His wife goes to Bingo on a Saturday night, but he usually stays in to save money.But Kevin has spent enough quiet nights in watching TV and decides he'd like a night out himself. And he's not talking about a pint and a packet of peanuts down at the local. He's going to attempt to pull off a daring bank robbery single handed.Kevin is about to take a heart-thumping step into the unknown.For once, he's going to stop being the grey man...

Fun & Games


Duane Swierczynski - 2011
    His latest gig comes replete with an illegally squatting B-movie actress who rants about hit men who specialize in making deaths look like accidents. Unfortunately, it's the real deal. Hardie finds himself squared off against a small army of the most lethal men in the world: The Accident People.It's nothing personal-the girl just happens to be the next name on their list. For Hardie, though, it's intensely personal. He's not about to let more innocent people die. Not on his watch.

The Wake-Up


Robert Ferrigno - 2004
    Frank really needs some R & R. He’s just been fired—over a fatal screw up—from the covert operations “shop” he’s worked at for years. But Douglas Meachum—a hard-charging art dealer—needs to be made to feel something more than entitlement: nothing extreme, just a little wake-up call.Given Frank’s background and his expertise in good guy/bad guy tactics, it’s easy for him to set up a scam involving some embarrassing revelations about a faked Mayan sculpture that Meachum sells to one of his clients. But the client isn’t someone who takes kindly to mistakes. She’s a ruthless social-climbing psychopath who, with her surfer-dude husband (the Thomas Alva Edison of designer pharmaceuticals), runs a huge drug operation. And she’s got an invincible thug duo—Vlad and Arturo—to carry out her notions of payback, which make Frank’s wake-up scheme seem positively genteel. What started out as a good (if slightly underhanded) deed quickly veers out of control. How Frank handles the chaos—and what he himself hears in the wake-up call—is the fuel that drives this full-throttle, terrifically entertaining novel.

The Half Life of Stars


Louise Wener - 2006
    He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough?Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral: a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire—divorced, irresponsible, fluent in six foreign languages yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire who knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him.

Total Control


David Baldacci - 1996
    A husband she loves. A job at which she excels, and a cherished young daughter. Then, as a plane plummets into the Virginia countryside, everything changes. And suddenly there is no one whom Sidney Archer can trust. Jason Archer is a rising young executive at Triton Global, the world's leading technology conglomerate. Determined to give his family the best of everything, Archer has secretly entered into a deadly game of cat and mouse. He is about to disappear - leaving behind a wife who must sort out his lies from his truths, an aircrash investigation team that wants to know why the plane he was ticketed on suddenly fell from the sky, and a veteran FBI agent who wants to know it all. From Seattle to Washington, D.C., from New Orleans to Maine, the hunt for Jason Archer follows a trail as complex as the world he lived and worked in - a world of enormously powerful computers, a multimillion-dollar takeover deal, titanic financial standoffs, artificial intelligence, and the Internet. With brilliant minds colliding, ruthless men waging battles of intimidation, rainmakers going toe-to-toe with killers, and security specialists making a fortune trying to plug the holes, the startling truth behind Jason Archer's disappearance explodes into a sinister plot with the murder of the country's single most powerful individual. And soon Archer's wife, Sidney, aided by the relentless and sharp-eyed FBI agent Lee Sawyer, will plunge straight into the violence that is leaving behind a trail of dead bodies and shocking, exposed secrets...

Red Harvest


Dashiell Hammett - 1929
    "Red Harvest" is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.The Op was in Personville, derogatory nickname aside, as the result of a letter to the Continental Detective Agency in San Francisco from Donald Willsson, publisher of the local paper, asking for an agent to visit. No other information. As soon as the OP arrives, the body count begins. It starts with his client!

Vicious


Kevin O'Brien - 2010
    Arriving at a remote lake house with her fiance, Allen, and young son, Matthew, Susan Blanchette feels like someone is watching her and when Allen disappears, she becomes the pawn in a twisted killer's deadly game.

In the Shadow of the Cypress


Thomas Steinbeck - 2010
    From Thomas Steinbeck, son of novelist John Steinbeck, comes a thrilling story of a group of Chinese immigrants in turn of the century California.

One Night Stands and Lost Weekends


Lawrence Block - 1999
    It was published, and the rest is history.One Night Stands and Lost Weekends is a sterling collection of short crime fiction and suspense novelettes penned between 1958 and 1962 by a budding young master and soon-to-be Grand Master—an essential slice of genre history, and more fun than a high-speed police chase following a bank job gone bad.

Cold Midnight


Joyce Lamb - 2009
    Now she’s back in Kendall Falls, trying to rebuild her life and keep an eye on the future. But someone from her past has other plans ...When Kylie’s construction site is vandalized, the man Kylie once left brokenhearted steps in. Detective Chase Manning has no doubt that Kylie’s life is in danger, and he’ll do anything to protect the woman he once loved - even if it means ignoring the desire that ignites between them - and to catch a killer, before he returns to finish what he started...

Don't Cry


Beverly Barton - 2010
    It-s clear to her, and to Special Agent J.D. Cass, that the murders are the work of a deranged serial killer. At first, the only link is the victims- similar physical appearance. But then another connection emerges, tying them to a long-ago series of horrifying crimes Audrey hoped would never resurface - crimes that hit all too close to home.No Time To CryEach grisly new discovery proves the past has not been forgotten, and the worst is yet to come. Audrey went looking for the truth and she's about to find it-and it will be more twisted and more terrifying than she ever imagined...

The Cheating Curve


Paula T. Renfroe - 2010
    In this dazzling and bold debut that cuts to the heart of modern relationships, Renfroe introduces two thirty-something best friends, each dealing with a different side of infidelity.

Flirting with Temptation


Kelley St. John - 2009
    But after losing her last job, she's beginning to see that her feather-to-the-wind mentality can be unsatisfying in the long run. She's been helping a string of friends solve their relationship problems, and when one pal points out to Babette that she could make a career out of curing people's romantic ills, she decides to dub herself "The Love Doctor" -- a match-mender-for-hire. Living in Birmingham, Alabama, with its elite class of wealthy women, Babette has access to the ideal clientele, including the well-known Birmingham socialite Kitty Carelle. Having unceremoniously dumped her lover, Kitty now regrets her hasty decision and wants him back. Trouble is, the man Kitty seeks to recapture is none other than Jeff Eubanks -- Babette's ex! The carefree Babette of three years ago had written him off with a shrug, yet now she can't help remembering that he did give her the absolute best sex of her life...not to mention his charm, good looks, and brains. To save her newfound career and prove she can stick with something--if not someone--Babette is determined to mend Kitty and Jeff's broken relationship, but Jeff has other plans. He was crazy about Babette when she suddenly bailed on their relationship, and after Kitty did the same he became convinced that no woman can ever commit. To prove his point, Jeff issues Babette a challenge: no flirting for a week, and he'll talk to Kitty. That is, if, after seven tempting nights on the beach with Jeff, it's still with Kitty that she wants him to reconcile.