Book picks similar to
Late Checkout by Alex Walters


crime
crime-fiction
thriller
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Nine Lives


Anita Waller - 2021
    The police realise this new death is linked to a spate of cold case murders and the killer is back. Five years earlier, four young women were found murdered, their bodies left in woody areas, and the new victim shares similar hallmarks. But why did the killer stop killing for all that time and what has inspired them to start again? As more young women fall victim to a vicious and calculating murderer, Erica and Beth find themselves chasing their tails. But when a witness is identified the case takes an unexpected and macabre turn. Can Erica and Beth bring the killer to justice, or will this case prove too much?

Talking to the Dead


Harry Bingham - 2012
    . . . At first, the murder scene appears sad, but not unusual: a young woman undone by drugs and prostitution, her six-year-old daughter dead alongside her. But then detectives find a strange piece of evidence in the squalid house: the platinum credit card of a very wealthy--and long dead--steel tycoon. What is a heroin-addicted hooker doing with the credit card of a well-known and powerful man who died months ago? This is the question that the most junior member of the investigative team, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, is assigned to answer.But D.C. Griffiths is no ordinary cop. She's earned a reputation at police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, for being odd, for not picking up on social cues, for being a little overintense. And there's that gap in her past, the two-year hiatus that everyone assumes was a breakdown. But Fiona is a crack investigator, quick and intuitive. She is immediately drawn to the crime scene, and to the tragic face of the six-year-old girl, who she is certain has something to tell her . . . something that will break the case wide open.Ignoring orders and protocol, Fiona begins to explore far beyond the rich man's credit card and into the secrets of her seaside city. And when she uncovers another dead prostitute, Fiona knows that she's only begun to scratch the surface of a dark world of crime and murder. But the deeper she digs, the more danger she risks--not just from criminals and killers but from her own past . . . and the abyss that threatens to pull her back at any time.

The Woodcutter


Reginald Hill - 2010
    From humble origins as a Cumbrian woodcutter's son, he has risen to become a successful entrepreneur, happily married to the girl of his dreams. A knock on the door one morning ends it all. Universally reviled, thrown into prison, abandoned by friends & family, Wolf retreats into silence.

Murder on the Oxford Canal


Faith Martin - 2004
     Not only has she lost her husband, but his actions have put her under investigation for corruption. Then a bashed and broken body is found floating in the Oxford Canal. It looks like the victim fell off a boat, but Hillary is not so sure. Her investigation exposes a dark background to the death. Can Hillary clear her name and get to the bottom of a fiendish conspiracy on the water?

She Lies in Wait


Gytha Lodge - 2019
    Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and the youngest of the group—Aurora Jackson—is delighted to be allowed to tag along. The evening starts like any other—they drink, they dance, they fight, they kiss. Some of them slip off into the woods in pairs, others are left jealous and heartbroken. But by morning, Aurora has disappeared. Her friends claim that she was safe the last time they saw her, right before she went to sleep. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found.Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. Back in 1983, as a young cop in their small town, he had known the teenagers—including Aurora—personally, even before taking part in the search. Now he’s determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. Sheens’s investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead, and all of them profoundly changed forever.

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.

Sweet Little Lies


Caz Frear - 2017
    But is he a killer? Even liars tell the truth... sometimes.Twenty-six-year-old Cat Kinsella overcame a troubled childhood to become a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police Force, but she's never been able to banish these ghosts. When she's called to the scene of a murder in Islington, not far from the pub her estranged father still runs, she discovers that Alice Lapaine, a young housewife who didn't get out much, has been found strangled.Cat and her team immediately suspect Alice's husband, until she receives a mysterious phone call that links the victim to Maryanne Doyle, a teenage girl who went missing in Ireland eighteen years earlier. The call raises uneasy memories for Cat--her family met Maryanne while on holiday, right before she vanished. Though she was only a child, Cat knew that her charming but dissolute father wasn't telling the truth when he denied knowing anything about Maryanne or her disappearance. Did her father do something to the teenage girl all those years ago? Could he have harmed Alice now? And how can you trust a liar even if he might be telling the truth?Determined to close the two cases, Cat rushes headlong into the investigation, crossing ethical lines and trampling professional codes. But in looking into the past, she might not like what she finds...

Rubbernecker


Belinda Bauer - 2013
    But that was a lie. The body Patrick Fort is examining in anatomy class is trying to tell him all kinds of things. But no one hears what he does, and no one understands when he tries to tell them. Life is already strange enough for Patrick - being a medical student with Asperger's Syndrome doesn't come without its challenges. And that's before he is faced with solving a possible murder, especially when no one believes a crime has even taken place. Now he must stay out of danger long enough to unravel the mystery. But as Patrick learns one truth from a dead man, he discovers there have been many other lies closer to home.

Dead Beat


Val McDermid - 1992
    Warshawski has done for Chicago. As a favour, Kate agrees to track down a missing songwriter, Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is a prelude to murder...

Scared to Death


Rachel Amphlett - 2016
    A detective seeking revenge.When the body of a snatched schoolgirl is found in an abandoned biosciences building, the case is first treated as a kidnapping gone wrong. But Detective Kay Hunter isn’t convinced, especially when a man is found dead with the ransom money still in his possession.When a second schoolgirl is taken, Kay’s worst fears are realised.With her career in jeopardy and desperate to conceal a disturbing secret, Kay’s hunt for the killer becomes a race against time before he claims another life.For the killer, the game has only just begun…Scared to Death is a gripping fast paced crime thriller from author Rachel Amphlett, in a new series introducing Kay Hunter – a detective with a hidden past and an uncertain future…

Give Me the Child


Mel McGrath - 2017
    So when Ruby Winter, a small girl in need of help, arrives in the middle of the night, it seems like fate.A devastating secret.But as the events behind Ruby’s arrival emerge – her mother’s death, her connection to Cat – Cat questions whether her decision to help Ruby has put her own daughter at risk.Do we get the children we deserve?Cat’s research tells her there’s no such thing as evil. Her history tells her she’s paranoid. But her instincts tell her different. And as the police fight to control a sudden spate of riots raging across the capital, Cat faces a race against time of her own…

Trust No One


Debra Webb - 2020
    She’s locked in a bitter struggle with her ex-husband and teenage daughter, and her reckless new partner is anything but trustworthy.Still, she has a job to do: there’s a killer at large, and a pregnant woman has gone missing. Once Devlin and her partner get to work, they quickly unearth secrets involving Birmingham’s most esteemed citizens. Each new layer of the investigation brings Devlin closer to the killer and the missing woman, who starts looking more like a suspect than a victim.But just as answers come into view, the case twists, expands, and slithers into Devlin’s personal life. There’s a much more sinister game at work, one she doesn’t even know she’s playing—and she must unravel the truth once and for all to stop the killer before she loses everything.

Dead Wrong


Helen H. Durrant - 2013
    Calladine and D.S. Ruth Bayliss race against time to track down a killer before the whole area erupts in violence. Their boss thinks it’s all down to drug lord Ray Fallon, but Calladine’s instincts say something far nastier is happening on the Hobfield housing estate. Can this duo track down the murderer before anyone else dies and before the press publicize the gruesome crimes? Detectives Calladine and Bayliss are led on a trail which gets dangerously close to home. In a thrilling finale they race against time to rescue someone very close to Calladine’s heart. If you like Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott, Mel Sherratt, Ruth Rendell, or Mark Billingham you will be gripped by this exciting new crime fiction writer. DEAD WRONG is the first in a new series of detective thrillers featuring D.S. Ruth Bayliss and D.I. Tom Calladine. Tom Calladine is a single, fifty-one-year-old detective inspector who is devoted to his job. His personal life, however, is not so successful. Having been married and divorced before the age of twenty-one has set a pattern that he finds difficult to escape. Ruth Bayliss is in her mid-thirties, plain-speaking but loyal. She wishes she had more time for the gym and a love life. She uses her demanding workload as an excuse not to try too hard with the men she meets. The series is set in the fictional village of Leesdon on the outskirts of an industrial northern English city. There is little work and a lot of crime. The bane of Calladine’s life is the Hobfield housing estate, breeding ground to all that is wrong with the area that he calls home.

Sirens


Joseph Knox - 2017
    Pulling it off while also rescuing Isabelle Rossiter, a runaway politician's daughter, from Zain's influence? Impossible. That's why Aidan Waits is the perfect man for the job. Disgraced, emotionally damaged and despised by his superiors. In other words, completely expendable.But Aidan is a born survivor. And as he works his way deep into Zain's shadowy world, he finds that nothing is as it seems. Zain is a mesmerizing, Gatsby-esque figure who lures young women into his orbit--women who have a bad habit of turning up dead. But is Zain really responsible? And will Isabelle be next?Before long, Aidan finds himself in over his head, cut loose by his superiors, and dangerously attracted to the wrong woman.How can he save the girl if he can't even save himself?

Eeny Meeny


M.J. Arlidge - 2014
    As hunger and thirst set in, only one walks away alive.It’s a game more twisted than any Detective Helen Grace has ever seen. If she hadn’t spoken with the shattered survivors herself, she almost wouldn’t believe them.Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....