Tin God


Stacy Green - 2013
    Trapped by poverty and without many allies, Jaymee nearly gives up hope of getting her daughter back after her best friend is murdered. Now, four years later, a wealthy woman with legal connections hires her as a housekeeper, and Jaymee gathers the courage to seek her help. But Jaymee’s last chance ends up in a puddle of blood in one of the historic antebellum mansions in Roselea, Mississippi.I just murdered your wife...again.An unsigned letter consisting of six horrifying words turns Nick Samuels stagnant life upside down. Stuck in emotional purgatory since his wife’s unsolved murder four years ago, Nick is about to self-destruct. The arrival of the letter claiming credit for his wife’s murder and boasting of a new kill sends Nick to Roselea, where he and Jaymee’s worlds collide.Jaymee and Nick realize exposing the truth about her daughter’s adoption is the only way to solve the murders. Up against years of deception, they rush to identify the killer before the evidence–and Jaymee’s daughter–are lost.But the truth doesn’t always set the guilt-ridden free. Sometimes, it destroys them.

Hushabye


Celina Grace - 2013
    A murdered girl. A case where everyone has something to hide...Hushabye (A Kate Redman mystery) is the new novel from crime writer Celina Grace, author of Lost Girls and The House on Fever Street.On the first day of her new job in the West Country, Detective Sergeant Kate Redman finds herself investigating the kidnapping of Charlie Fullman, the newborn son of a wealthy entrepreneur and his trophy wife. It seems a straightforward case... but as Kate and her fellow officer Mark Olbeck delve deeper, they uncover murky secrets and multiple motives for the crime.Kate finds the case bringing up painful memories of her own past secrets. As she confronts the truth about herself, her increasing emotional instability threatens both her hard-won career success and the possibility that they will ever find Charlie Fullman alive...

Punishment


Scott J. Holliday - 2018
    Thanks to a technologically advanced machine, detectives have access to the memories of the living, the dying, and the recently dead. But extracting victims’ experiences firsthand and personally reliving everything up to the final, brutal moments of their lives—the sights, the sounds, the scents, the pain—is also the punishment reserved for the criminals themselves.Barnes has had enough. Enough of the memories that aren’t his. Enough of the horror. Enough of the voices inside his head that were never meant to take root…until a masked serial killer known as Calavera strikes a little too close to home.Now, with Calavera on the loose, Barnes is ready to reconnect, risking his life—and his sanity. Because in the mind of this serial killer, there is one secret even Barnes has yet to see…

Killing Me Softly


Bianca Sloane - 2012
    Her body was discovered days later, her beautiful face bashed in with a rock. Police determine her brutal death to be a mugging gone wrong and drop the matter into their cold case files.Over a year later, Tracy’s sister, Sondra, still can’t come to grips with what happened. She throws herself into her work as a documentary filmmaker to try and forget the cruelty of her sister’s death. However, a chance encounter with a man from Tracy’s past rips the wound open and sends Sondra on a desperate search for answers about the secrets from her sister’s life that may have led to her death.As Sondra struggles to uncover what happened to Tracy, she’s launched into a tangled web of deceit and danger that put her on a collision course with life and death…

Armed and Outrageous


Madison Johns - 2012
    Also check out the Agnes Barton Paranormal series, same characters, different spin. Hilarious Senior sleuths — Grandma Mazur meets Murder She Wrote — cozy mystery. Agnes Barton is not your typical senior citizen living in Tadium, MI, on the shores of Lake Huron. She drives a red hot Mustang, shops at Victoria's Secret, rankles local police officials, and has a knack for sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. What does a murder that happened forty-three years ago have to do with missing tourist Jennifer Martin? Agnes makes it her personal mission to find out, and she's not letting the fact she's seventy-two get in the way. Butting heads with Sheriff Clem Peterson is something she's accustomed to, but lately Clem seems to be acting even more strange, making Agnes wonder what he may be hiding ala the Martin disappearance. Agnes’ partner in crime, Eleanor Mason tags along, Watson to her Holmes. Together, they unearth clues. If only Eleanor would behave, as although lovable, she has a knack for getting into trouble by tangling with her rival, Dorothy Alton, or flirting with anyone—male or female—and gossiping! She's incorrigible, but she does carry a Pink Lady revolver in her purse, one that has proved useful at times. Life for Agnes and Eleanor is shaken up when Agnes' former boss and secret crush comes to Tadium. Before long, the lady sleuths have more on their hands to contend with as goons roll into town and bullets begin to fly. Adult content. Also by Madison Johns Agnes Barton Senior Sleuths Mystery Series in order: Armed and Outrageous (Book one) Grannies, Guns and Ghosts (Book two) Senior Snoops (Book three) Trouble in Tawas (Book four) Treasure in Tawas (Book five) Agnes Barton/Kimberly Steele Cozy Mystery Series Pretty, Hip & Dead (Book one) A Cajun Cooking Mystery series Target of Death (Book one) Romance Pretty and Pregnant (Kimberly Steele novella) Redneck Romance (Kelly Gray, standalone) http://madisonjohns.com Join Madison newsletter list. https://www.facebook.com/MadisonJohns...

The Ambassador's Wife


Jake Needham - 2008
    So, Inspector Samuel Tay of Singapore CID asks himself, why is it no one wants him to find their killer?The first body is in Singapore, on a bed in an empty suite at the Marriott Hotel. The second is in Bangkok, at a seedy apartment near the American embassy. Both American women, both viciously beaten and lewdly displayed. The FBI says it’s terrorism, but the whispers on the street tell a different story. They say a serial killer is stalking American women across Asia.Inspector Samuel Tay is a little cranky, a little lonely, a little overweight, and he smokes way too much. A lot of people think he's a lousy policeman, but he's the best detective the Singapore cops have ever had. It makes the bosses nervous as hell to put this case in Tay's hands, but with something this tricky on their plate they know they have no choice.Still, there's a big problem. Before Tay can even get the investigation started, everybody wants a piece of it. The FBI demands to take over the case, the American Diplomatic Security Service insists on being in charge, Bangkok's Special Branch won't allow itself to be ignored, Singapore's Internal Security Department is going to have a major say, and even the American Ambassador sticks his nose right into the middle of everything.That's a lot of people walking all over Tay's murder case. But here's the thing. He realizes that none of them, not a single one, really want him to find the killer.

Next to Disappear


Malcolm Richards - 2015
    Until disgraced ex-teacher Emily Swanson moves into the couple’s former home.Emily’s life is in ruins and she’s meant to be making a fresh start. But when she learns about the missing nurse, she sees a chance for redemption. Because finding Alina could help right the wrongs of Emily’s past. It could even mark the start of a new career in private investigation.But what Emily doesn’t know is that Alina had a horrifying secret. One about the care foundation where she worked. And the closer Emily gets to uncovering the truth, the closer she gets to terrible danger.Inspired by a shocking true crime, Next To Disappear introduces a thrilling, twist-filled series and a refreshingly different take on the private investigator genre.Revised edition: Previously published as Lost Lives.

She's Not There


Marla Madison - 2011
    . . Is the rising number of abused women who've gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a serial killer targeting this vulnerable group of women? When the Milwaukee Police Department refuses to investigate because no bodies have been discovered, Lisa Rayburn, the clinical psychologist who discovers the anomaly, is drawn into an investigation to discover the cause after one of her own clients goes missing. She finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, TJ Peacock, and the husbands of two of the missing women who may themselves be murderers. When TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is found murdered, they know . . . someone is willing to kill to protect his secret. Can they reveal the killer before he gets to them?

Grind Their Bones


Drew Cross - 2012
    The original ‘Gray Man’ was Albert Fish - serial killer, rapist and cannibal - who was executed in New York’s Sing Sing prison in January 1936 for the murder of Grace Budd, but was believed to have been responsible for the deaths of up to one hundred people.Some tricks are worth repeating and some tastes never die, so enter the new ‘Grey Man’, a gourmet serial killer, who is itching to get his teeth into his next victim.And if the gruesome results of the killer’s classic cuisine are not chilling enough for Detective Chief Inspector Zara Wade who is leading the investigation, he claims to know her, and that she knows him.

Twist of Faith


Ellen J. GreenEllen J. Green - 2018
    The photo shows a shuttered, ramshackle house on top of a steep hill. On the back, a puzzling inscription: Destiny calls us.Ava is certain that it’s a clue to her elusive past. Twenty-three years ago, she’d been found wrapped in a yellow blanket in the narthex of the Holy Saviour Catholic Church—and rescued—or so she’d been told. Her mother claimed there was no more to the story, so the questions of her abandonment were left unanswered. For Ava, now is the time to find the roots of her mother’s lies. It begins with the house itself—once the scene of a brutal double murder.When Ava enlists the help of the two people closest to her, a police detective and her best friend, she fears that investigating her past could be a fatal mistake. Someone is following them there. And what’s been buried in Ava’s nightmares isn’t just a crime. It’s a holy conspiracy.

Trance


Adam Southward - 2019
    He is in control. This is his revenge—and he’s only just begun.Three university scientists are found dead in a gruesome murder-suicide, and the only suspect in the case, Victor Lazar, is quickly captured. When the spate of violent suicides follows him to prison he is moved to solitary confinement, reserved for the highest-risk inmates. And then his assigned psychologist inexplicably takes his own life.Alex Madison, a former forensic psychologist turned private therapist, is brought in to interview Victor. He suspects that Victor is controlling his victims, somehow coaxing them into a suggestive trance. It seems like science fiction, but as Alex digs deeper he uncovers a frightening reality of secret research and cruel experimentation—and the perpetrators are closer to home than he could ever have imagined.Too late, Alex learns the true extent of what Victor is capable of—and who he’s after. With everything he holds dear at risk, can Alex take control of a dangerous mind—before it takes control of him?

Entry Island


Peter May - 2013
    Hubert airfield, he does so without looking back. For Sime, the 850-mile journey ahead represents an opportunity to escape the bitter blend of loneliness and regret that has come to characterise his life in the city.Travelling as part of an eight-officer investigation team, Sime's destination lies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Only two kilometres wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of around 130 inhabitants - the wealthiest of which has just been discovered murdered in his home.The investigation itself appears little more than a formality. The evidence points to a crime of passion: the victim's wife the vengeful culprit. But for Sime the investigation is turned on its head when he comes face to face with the prime suspect, and is convinced that he knows her - even though they have never met.Haunted by this certainty his insomnia becomes punctuated by dreams of a distant past on a Scottish island 3,000 miles away. Dreams in which the widow plays a leading role. Sime's conviction becomes an obsession. And in spite of mounting evidence of her guilt he finds himself convinced of her innocence, leading to a conflict between the professonal duty he must fulfil, and the personal destiny that awaits him.

These Toxic Things


Rachel Howzell Hall - 2021
    When her latest client, Nadia Denham, a curio shop owner, dies from an apparent suicide, Mickie honors the old woman’s last wish and begins curating her peculiar objets d’art. A music box, a hair clip, a key chain―twelve mementos in all that must have meant so much to Nadia, who collected them on her flea market scavenges across the country.But these tokens mean a lot to someone else, too. Mickie has been receiving threatening messages to leave Nadia’s past alone.It’s becoming a mystery Mickie is driven to solve. Who once owned these odd treasures? How did Nadia really come to possess them? Discovering the truth means crossing paths with a long-dormant serial killer and navigating the secrets of a sinister past. One that might, Mickie fears, be inescapably entwined with her own.

Polar Bear Dawn


Lyle Nicholson - 2013
    But not with employees of the same company in Oil Camps in the high Arctic and Northern Canada. Two detectives, one from Alaska and one from Canada, are given the case. They find the murders are connected. Now, they have to work together to find out why the victims were silenced. What secrets did their deaths conceal?Frank Mueller, the Alaskan Detective, is close to retirement. He’s been through three marriages and two stints in rehab. He is on probation with the force. He knows the Anchorage Police department has given him this case because they don’t want it investigated fully and there’s no booze in the Arctic oil camps.Bernadette Callahan, the Canadian Detective, is in her mid thirties with a lot to prove on the force. She is Cree Indian and Irish, raised on a native reservation in Northern Canada. She’s been ingrained with the ways of the ‘people,’ by her grandmother that have given her instincts. Her instincts tell her there is something more than four dead people—someone is settling a score. The real crime will happen soon.The oil companies think the deaths are bad for publicity and they want them solved quickly. The detectives are under pressure to come up with a verdict they know is wrong.Callahan begins to unravel a series of unlikely suspects. A Chemistry Professor with a grudge against big oil, a Mexican low life gangster and Wall Street Executives. How are they connected?Something is about to happen to oil supplies in the Arctic. The two Detectives can sense it. They know it’s real—can they convince others to act?

Supreme Justice


Max Allan Collins - 2014
    But his outspoken criticism of the president he saved—who had stacked the Supreme Court with hard-right justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, amp up the Patriot Act, and shred the First Amendment—put Reeder at odds with the Service’s apolitical nature, making him an outcast.FBI agent Patti Rogers finds herself paired with the unpopular former agent on a task force investigating the killing of Supreme Court Justice Henry Venter. Reeder—nicknamed “Peep” for his unparalleled skills at reading body language—makes a startling discovery while reviewing a security tape: the shooting was premeditated, not a botched robbery. Even more chilling, the controversial Venter may not be the only justice targeted for death...Is a mastermind mounting an unprecedented judicial coup aimed at replacing ultra-conservative justices with a new liberal majority? To crack the conspiracy and save the lives of not just the justices but also Reeder’s own family, rising star Rogers and legendary investigator Reeder must push their skills—and themselves—to the limit.