Book picks similar to
The Broken King by Brian Panowich


fiction
short-stories
crime
short-story

The Woman Next Door


Cass Green - 2016
    Two dark secrets. The almost perfect murder.Everybody needs good neighbours…Melissa and Hester have lived next door to each other for years. When Melissa’s daughter was younger, Hester was almost like a grandmother to her. But recently they haven’t been so close.Hester has plans to change all that. It’s obvious to her that despite Melissa’s outwardly glamorous and successful life, she needs Hester’s help. But taking help from Hester might not be such a good idea for a woman with as many secrets as Melissa…

Look What You Made Me Do


Elaine Murphy - 2021
    . . and they're both next on his kill list.Carrie wants a normal life.Carrie Lawrence doesn’t need a happily ever after. She’ll just settle for “after.” After a decade of helping her sister hide her victims. After a lifetime of lies. She just wants to be safe, boring, and not trekking through the woods at night with a dead body wrapped in a carpet. Becca wants to get away with murder.Becca Lawrence doesn’t believe in happily ever after because she’s already happy. She’s gotten away with murder for a decade and has blackmailed her sister into helping her hide the evidence—what more could a girl want? But first they have to stop a serial killer.When thirteen bodies are discovered in their small town, people are shocked. But not as shocked as Carrie, who thought she knew all the details of Becca’s sordid pastime. When Becca swears she’s not behind the grisly new crimes, they realize the town has a second serial killer who has the sisters in his sights, and what he wants is…Carrie.

Too Close For Comfort


Adam Croft - 2010
     DS Wendy Knight is Mildenheath CID’s newest murder squad recruit. In trying to solve the murder of Ella Barrington, a known prostitute, Wendy comes to realise that she has a serial killer on her hands. As the murder investigation continues, Wendy begins to suspect that her new love interest, Robert Ludford, may have more than a passing interest in the murders in Mildenheath. The complete truth, however, is a little too close for comfort...

Stillhouse Lake


Rachel Caine - 2017
    But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband’s crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace.But just when she’s starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed—or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she’s learned how to fight evil. And she’ll never stop.

The 1st Victim


Tami Hoag - 2013
    New Year’s Day is a time for new beginnings, but Minneapolis homicide detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska are focused on endings: specifically, the tragic end of their latest murder victim, an unidentified young woman discovered on the side of the freeway. Believed to be the victim of a serial killer, Kovac and Liska are determined to do the girl the small justice of returning her body to her family as they investigate her case, but it is no simple task matching the broken corpse to any of the scores of missing persons reports, especially when no one seems to be looking for her.Meanwhile, recent widow Jeannie Reiser is frantic when she is unable to get in touch with her daughter, Rose, who, as an eighteen-year-old, is a legal adult rather than a missing child in the eyes of the law. Jeannie’s desperate attempts to get the police to believe her child is in trouble lead her closer and closer to the New Year’s Doe and to an evil even Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska may be unable to stop. Tami Hoag once again proves her place as “one of the most intense suspense writers around”* with The 1st Victim. Includes an early look at The 9th Girl, coming July 2013.

Follow You Home


Mark Edwards - 2015
    To find their way back to civilisation, they must hike along the tracks through a forest…a haunting journey that ends in unimaginable terror.Back in London, Daniel and Laura vow never to talk about what they saw that night. But as they try to fit back into their old lives, it becomes clear that their nightmare is just beginning…Follow You Home is a chilling tale of secrets, lies and deadly consequences from the author of #1 bestsellers The Magpies and Because She Loves Me.

The Turtle Boy


Kealan Patrick Burke - 2004
    For eleven year old Timmy Quinn and his best friend Pete Marshall, the dreary town of Delaware Ohio becomes a place of magic, hidden treasure and discovery. But on the day they encounter a strange young boy sitting on the bank of Myers Pond a pond playground rumor says may hide turtles the size of Buicks everything changes. For it soon becomes apparent that dark secrets abound in the little community, secrets which come cupped in the hands of the dead, and in a heartbeat, Timmy and Petes summer of wonder becomes a season of terror, betrayal and murder.

The Getaway


Greer Hendricks - 2020
    Sometimes, life's setbacks contain hidden gifts. Here at Lakewood, you'll find the space to unwrap them.A weekend at the Lakewood Retreat is exactly what Chloe Powell needs. Freshly unemployed after her boss loses a reelection campaign, the former press secretary desperately wants a break from the bustle of Washington DC. A flier posted at her yoga studio leads her to the getaway, which looks amazing: organic meals, celebrity testimonials, and a serene private property within driving distance of the city.It's so perfect, in fact, that Chloe's barely bothered by the intensely personal questions she's asked in her application, or the unnerving social experiments her enigmatic host, Sebastian, imposes on her once she arrives at his remote cabin. But when a mysterious new guest shows up, Chloe can no longer suppress her rising panic: This place is not at all what it seems.A pulse-pounding story from the first minute to the last, The Getaway explores the weight of the small choices we make every day, and their staggering, unintended consequences.

Redemption Road


John Hart - 2016
    The first and only author to win back-to-back Edgars for Best Novel. Every book a New York Times bestseller. After five years, John Hart is back. Since his debut bestseller, The King of Lies, reviewers across the country have heaped praise on John Hart, comparing his writing to that of Pat Conroy, Cormac McCarthy and Scott Turow. Each novel has taken Hart higher on the New York Times Bestseller list as his masterful writing and assured evocation of place have won readers around the world and earned history's only consecutive Edgar Awards for Best Novel with Down River and The Last Child. Now, Hart delivers his most powerful story yet. Imagine: A boy with a gun waits for the man who killed his mother. A troubled detective confronts her past in the aftermath of a brutal shooting. After thirteen years in prison, a good cop walks free as deep in the forest, on the altar of an abandoned church, a body cools in pale linen… This is a town on the brink. This is Redemption Road.Brimming with tension, secrets, and betrayal, Redemption Road proves again that John Hart is a master of the literary thriller.

Water Under the Bridge


Britney King - 2016
    So when she sees a handsome stranger walking toward her, she feels it in her bones, there's no time like the present. *He's the one. *Kate vows to do whatever it takes to have what she wants, even if that something is becoming someone else. Now, ten pounds thinner, armed with a new name, and a plan, she's this close to living the perfect life she's created in her mind.*But Kate has secrets. *And too bad for her, that handsome stranger has a few of his own.With twists and turns you won't see coming, Water Under The Bridge examines the pressure that many women feel to "have it all" and introduces a protagonist whose hard edges and cutthroat ambition will leave you questioning your judgment and straddling the line between what's right and wrong.

The Long and Faraway Gone


Lou Berney - 2015
    Six movie-theater employees were killed in an armed robbery, while one inexplicably survived. Then, a teenage girl vanished from the annual State Fair. Neither crime was ever solved.Twenty-five years later, the reverberations of those unsolved cases quietly echo through survivors’ lives. A private investigator in Vegas, Wyatt’s latest inquiry takes him back to a past he’s tried to escape—and drags him deeper into the harrowing mystery of the movie house robbery that left six of his friends dead. Like Wyatt, Julianna struggles with the past—with the day her beautiful older sister Genevieve disappeared. When Julianna discovers that one of the original suspects has resurfaced, she’ll stop at nothing to find answers.As fate brings these damaged souls together, their obsessive quests spark sexual currents neither can resist. But will their shared passion and obsession heal them, or push them closer to the edge? Even if they find the truth, will it help them understand what happened, that long and faraway gone summer? Will it set them free—or ultimately destroy them?

Madhouse


Miguel Estrada - 2017
     Faced with his parents’s divorce, eleven-year-old Lucas runs away from his house with the hope that his family will get back together to find him. On his way walking through the empty streets, he is picked up by a mysterious woman who offers to take care of him and provide him with a loving family. The boy then wakes up in shackles, confined to a bed in a decrepit house in the middle of nowhere and will have to face his deepest fears in order to survive in his new home. Join Lucas in a desperate attempt to get back to his family in Madhouse, the first published book from horror-thriller author Miguel Estrada.

Sweetpea


C.J. Skuse - 2017
    Like an alcoholic taking a sip of whiskey. But no. Nothing. I had a blissful night’s sleep. Didn’t wake up at all. And for once, no bad dream either. This morning I feel balanced. Almost sane, for once.Rhiannon is your average girl next door, settled with her boyfriend and little dog…but she’s got a killer secret.Although her childhood was haunted by a famous crime, Rhiannon’s life is normal now that her celebrity has dwindled. By day, her job as an editorial assistant is demeaning and unsatisfying. By evening, she dutifully listens to her friends’ plans for marriage and babies while secretly making a list.A kill list.From the man at the grocery checkout who always mishandles her apples, to the driver who cuts her off on her way to work, to the people who have it coming, Rhiannon is ready to get her revenge.Because the girl everyone overlooks might be able to get away with murder…

These Women


Ivy Pochoda - 2020
    The careful existence they have built for themselves starts to crumble when two murders rock their neighborhood.

Friend Request


Laura Marshall - 2017
    But Maria Weston is dead. Isn't she? 1989. When Louise first notices the new girl who has mysteriously transferred late into their senior year, Maria seems to be everything the girls Louise hangs out with aren't. Authentic. Funny. Brash. Within just a few days, Maria and Louise are on their way to becoming fast friends.2016. Louise receives a heart-stopping email: Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: those first days of their budding friendship; cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept; the night that would change all their lives forever.Louise has always known that if the truth ever came out, she could stand to lose everything. Her job. Her son. Her freedom. Maria's sudden reappearance threatens it all, and forces Louise to reconnect with everyone she'd severed ties with to escape the past. But as she tries to piece together exactly what happened that night, Louise discovers there's more to the story than she ever knew. To keep her secret, Louise must first uncover the whole truth, before what's known to Maria - or whoever's pretending to be her - is known to all.