Book picks similar to
Startup by Glenn Ogura


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Blood for Blood


Victoria Selman - 2019
    Now one is profiling her.Rush hour, London. A packed commuter train is torn apart in a collision. Picking through the carnage, ex-special forces profiler Ziba MacKenzie helps a dying woman who passes on a cryptic message: He did it. You have to tell someone.When a corpse is found bearing the gruesome signature of a serial killer dormant for twenty-five years, Ziba is pulled into the hunt for the perpetrator. As the body count rises it becomes clear he’s on a new spree. But what’s brought the London Lacerator back after such a long hiatus? And does his sudden return have anything to do with the woman on the train?Ziba scrambles to profile the killer in the hope of predicting his next move. But time is running out. And the closer she gets to uncovering his identity, the closer he gets to destroying hers.

Ethan Justice: Origins


Simon Jenner - 2012
    By the evening, he’s struggling to survive. John Smith’s risk avoidance policy just expired! Waking up beside the gorgeous Savannah Jones, John is shocked to learn she was for hire, and he can’t pay the price - a thousand pounds or broken legs. In desperation, he turns to best friend, Mark, for the money. Only one problem - Mark has a dagger in his back.John and Savannah are plunged into a dangerous world where wits and adrenaline are their only weapons and trust in each other their only certainty. As the body count mounts, they discover Mark wasn’t the person John thought, and his terrifying invention may well end up killing thousands, John and Savannah included. A race to recover the missing invention pits the unlikely pairing against ex-SAS psychopath, Gregory Fisher, a man who will stop at nothing and kill anyone in his way to wreak revenge against the Government who stole his livelihood.When Smith and Jones team up, the result is explosive.This is a fast-paced, action-packed, character-driven thriller, guaranteed to make you laugh out loud, cringe, cry and cheer. This book contains a few violent scenes, a dash of sex and the odd bit of bad language, so please don't buy it if you are easily offended.

The Girl With No Past


Kathryn Croft - 2015
    It is a lonely life, without a social life or friends until – longing for a connection – she meets Julian. For the first time she dares to believe she can live a normal life.Then, on the fourteenth anniversary of that day, she receives a card. Someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won’t stop until they’ve destroyed the life Leah has created.But is Leah all she seems? Or does she deserve everything she gets?Everyone has secrets. But some are deadly.

Exhume


Danielle Girard - 2016
    Annabelle Schwartzman has finally found a place to belong. As the medical examiner for the San Francisco Police Department, working alongside homicide detective Hal Harris, she uncovers the tales the dead can’t tell about their final moments. It is a job that gives her purpose—and a safe haven from her former life at the hands of an abusive husband. Although it’s been seven years since she escaped that ordeal, she still checks over her shoulder to make sure no one is behind her.Schwartzman’s latest case is deeply troubling: the victim bears an eerie resemblance to herself. What’s more, a shocking piece of evidence suggests that the killer’s business is far from over—and that Schwartzman may be in danger. In this pulse-pounding thriller from award-winning writer Danielle Girard, a woman must face her worst nightmare to catch a killer.

Her Final Words


Brianna Labuskes - 2020
    The teenage girl confesses to murdering a young boy. Disturbingly composed, she reveals chilling details only the killer could know. Beyond that Eliza doesn’t say another word, leaving a vital question met with dead silence: Why did she do it?To find the answer, Lucy goes to the scene of the crime in the small Idaho town of Knox Hollow. But Lucy’s questions are only mounting. Especially when she’s drawn deeper into the life of the victim. Then a combing of the woods yields unsettling evidence that Eliza isn’t the only one in this close-knit rural community with secrets.Getting to the truth is becoming Lucy’s obsession. And it’s a dangerous one. Because for the good folks of Knox Hollow, hiding that truth will take more than silence.

Unraveling Oliver


Liz Nugent - 2014
    Together they write and illustrate award-winning children’s books; their life together one of enviable privilege and ease—until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious, and subsequently beats her into a coma.In the aftermath of such an unthinkable event, as Alice hovers between life and death, the couple’s friends, neighbours, and acquaintances try to understand what could have driven Oliver to commit such a horrific act. As his story unfolds, layers are peeled away to reveal a life of shame, envy, deception, and masterful manipulation.

Hostile Witness


Rebecca Forster - 2004
    Josie, once a hot-shot criminal defense attorney, left the fast track behind for a small practice in Hermosa Beach, California. But Hannah Sheraton intrigues her and, when the girl is charged as an adult, Josie cannot turn her back. But the deeper she digs the more Josie realizes that politics, the law and family relationships have created a combustible and dangerous situation. When the horrible truth of the murder is uncovered it could save Hannah Sheraton or destroy them both.

A Cry in the Night


Tom Grieves - 2013
    Detectives Zoe Barnes and Sam Taylor are called to investigate the disappearance of two children.But they quickly realise they have been drawn into a complex and unnerving case that hides a much darker intent: as they dig deeper, whispers grow of a community hiding a deadly secret - and talk of witches, the like of which hasn't been heard since the seventeenth century, is spreading.Zoe and Sam will have to work fast to save lives; but in this atmosphere of fear and mistrust, can they even rely on each other?

Unintended Consequences


Marti Green - 2012
    They arrested George Calhoun for murdering his daughter, and his wife testified against him at the trial. George maintains he didn’t do it. That the body isn’t his little Angelina. But that’s all he’s ever said—no other defense, no other explanation. The jury convicted him. Now his appeals have been exhausted, and his execution is just six weeks away.Dani Trumball, an attorney for the Help Innocent Prisoners Project, wants to believe him. After all, there was no forensic evidence to prove that the body in the woods was George’s daughter. But if the girl isn’t Angelina, then who is it? And what happened to the Calhouns’ missing daughter? Despite the odds, the questions push Dani to take the case.For nineteen years, George Calhoun has stayed silent. But he’s ready to talk, and if the story he tells Dani is true, it changes everything.

Wonderland


Jennifer Hillier - 2015
    From the author of Creep, Freak, and The Butcher, Jennifer Hillier’s “fine knack for creating hideous killers” (Booklist) is vividly on display.Welcome to Wonderland. By day, it’s a magical place boasting a certain retro charm. Excited children, hands sticky with cotton candy, run frenetically from the Giant Octopus ride to the Spinning Sombrero, while the tinkling carnival music of the giant Wonder Wheel—the oldest Ferris wheel in the Pacific Northwest—fills the air. But before daybreak, an eerie feeling descends. Maybe it’s the Clown Museum, home to creepy wax replicas of movie stars and a massive collection of antique porcelain dolls. Or maybe it’s the terrifyingly real House of Horrors. Or…maybe it’s the dead, decaying body left in the midway for all the Wonder Workers to see. Vanessa Castro’s first day as deputy police chief of Seaside, Washington, is off to a bang. The unidentifiable homeless man rotting inside the tiny town’s main tourist attraction is strange enough, but now a teenage employee—whose defiant picture at the top of the Wonder Wheel went viral that same morning—is missing. As the clues in those seemingly disparate crimes lead her down a mysterious shared path of missing persons that goes back decades, she suspects the seedy rumors surrounding the amusement park’s dark history might just be true. She moved to Seaside to escape her own scandalous past, but has she brought her family to the center of an insidious killer’s twisted game? Acclaimed author Jennifer Hillier’s bone-chilling thriller is masterful and fast-paced, hurtling toward a shocking, bloody conclusion.

Dirty Little Secrets


Liliana Hart - 2011
    Graves has seen a lot of dead bodies in her line of work...She's not only in the mortuary business, but she's also the coroner for King George County, Virginia. When a grisly murder is discovered in the small town of Bloody Mary, it's up to J.J. and her best friend, Detective Jack Lawson, to bring the victim justice.The murders are piling up...The residents of Bloody Mary are dropping like flies, and when a popular mystery writer shows up on J.J.'s doorstep with plans of writing his new book about the Bloody Mary Serial Killer, J.J. has to decide if he might be going above and beyond the call of duty to create the spine tinglers he's so well known for. It only clouds the issue and puts her reputation on the line when the attraction between them spirals out of control.And passions are rising...J.J and Jack are in a race against time. They discover each victim had a shocking secret, and the very foundation of J.J.'s life is in danger of crumbling when it turns out she’s harboring secrets of her own—secrets that make her the perfect victim in a deadly game.

The Christmas Scorpion


Lee Child - 2018
    The last thing he expects is a blizzard—or a visit from the world’s deadliest assassin.   Don’t miss a thrilling preview of Lee Child’s highly anticipated new Jack Reacher novel, Past Tense!   On Christmas Eve, Jack Reacher stumbles into a no-name bar in the California desert, desperate to take refuge from an unexpected snowstorm. Reacher came to Barstow for a little R&R. Instead, he’s sequestered in a dark little roadhouse with a bartender, a bewildered elderly couple—and two members of Britain’s Royal Military Police. They tell Reacher they were escorting a VIP to a top-secret meeting at a U.S. military base when they became separated from their charge. That’s when the threat came in from a notorious assassin: the Christmas Scorpion. Now they need a miracle to save the day. Or maybe all they need is Jack Reacher.

Keep Quiet


Lisa Scottoline - 2014
    Scottoline delivers once again with Keep Quiet, an emotionally gripping and complex story about one man's split-second decision to protect his son - and the devastating consequences that follow.Jake Buckmans relationship with his sixteen-year-old son Ryan is not an easy one, so at the urging of his loving wife, Pam, Jake goes alone to pick up Ryan at their suburban movie theater. On the way home, Ryan asks to drive on a deserted road, and Jake sees it as a chance to make a connection. However, what starts as a father-son bonding opportunity instantly turns into a nightmare. Tragedy strikes, and with Ryan's entire future hanging in the balance, Jake is forced to make a split-second decision that plunges them both into a world of guilt and lies. Without ever meaning to, Jake and Ryan find themselves living under the crushing weight of their secret, which threatens to tear their family to shreds and ruin them all. Powerful and dramatic, Keep Quiet will have readers and book clubs debating what it means to be a parent and how far you can, and should, go to protect those you love.

The Halo Effect


Anne D. LeClaire - 2017
    Over dinner of lamb tagine, his wife, Sophie, would share news about chorus rehearsals for the upcoming holiday concert, and their teenage daughter, Lucy, would chatter about French club and field hockey. Only Lucy never came home. Her body was found, days later, in the woods.The Eastern Seaboard town of Port Fortune used to be Will’s comfort. Now, there’s no safe harbor for him. Not even when Father Gervase asks Will to paint portraits of saints for the new cathedral. Using the townspeople as models, Will sees in each face only a mask of the darkness of evil. And he just might be painting his daughter’s killer.As Will navigates his rage and heartbreak, Sophie tries to move on; Father Gervase becomes an unexpected ally; and Rain, Lucy’s best friend, shrouds herself in a near-silent fugue. Their paths collide in a series of inextricably linked, dark, dangerous moments that could lead to their undoing…or to their redemption.

As Night Falls


Jenny Milchman - 2015
    But, as the sky darkens over the Adirondacks and a heavy snowfall looms, an escaped murderer with the power to take it all away draws close.In her isolated home in the shadowy woods, Sandy prepares dinner after a fight with her daughter, Ivy. Upstairs, the fifteen-year-old—smart, brave, and with every reason to be angry tonight—keeps her distance from her mother. Sandy’s husband, Ben, a wilderness guide, arrives late to find a home simmering with unease.Nearby, two desperate men on the run make their way through the fading light, bloodstained and determined to leave no loose ends or witnesses. After almost twenty years as prison cellmates, they have become a deadly team: Harlan the muscle, Nick the mind and will. As they approach a secluded house and look through its windows to see a cozy domestic scene, Nick knows that here he will find what he’s looking for . . . before he disappears forever.Opening the door to the Tremont home, Nick brings not only a legacy of terror but a secret that threatens to drag Sandy with him into the darkness.