Admit to Mayhem


D.J. Adamson - 2014
    We prefer the charade that we are in control. Lillian Dove, however, is constantly reminded she has very little control over her life and only has the ability to move to the choices that come her way. The Lillian Dove Series is a journey in recovery. While Lillian is a recovering alcoholic, like many who struggle with addictions come to understand, stopping drinking does not mean life returns to normal. However, as this series begins, Lillian does realize she has compulsions and addictions to many things, not just Absolut. How we handle dependency and denial is what allows for choice. In Admit to Mayhem, Lillian needs to admit her life has become unraveled again when she becomes an eyewitness to arson. Probing into a cold case of arson sixty years ago and the arson she witnessed at the beginning of this novel helps her admit to some of her own life’s challenges and successes. Admit to Mayhem, offering comedic dysfunction, is not only a suspenseful mystery but an important step for Lillian’s self-identity--and possibly for the reader’s.Admit: I admit that my life has become unmanageable.

When I Was You


Minka Kent - 2020
    Suffering from debilitating headaches and memory loss, she can rely only on her compassionate new tenant, Dr. Niall Emberlin, a welcome distraction from the discomfiting bubble that has become her existence.But Brienne’s growing confidence in her new routine is shaken when she stumbles across unsettling evidence that someone else is living as…her. Same name. Same car. Same hair. Same clothes. She’s even friended her family on social media. To find out why, Brienne must leave the safety of her home to hunt a familiar stranger.What she discovers is more disturbing than she could have ever imagined. With her fragile mind close to shattering, Brienne is prepared to do anything to reclaim her life. If it’s even hers to reclaim.

29 Seconds


T.M. Logan - 2018
    One person. And I will make them disappear . . . When Sarah rescues a young girl in trouble, she expects nothing in return. But her act of bravery puts a powerful and dangerous man in her debt. He lives by his own brutal code, and all debts must be repaid - in the only way he knows how.He offers Sarah a way to solve a desperate situation with her intolerable boss. A once-in-a-lifetime deal that will make all her problems disappear.No consequences. No comeback. No chance of being found out.All it takes is a 29 second phone call.Because everyone has a name to give. Don't they?

The Justice Game


Randy Singer - 2009
    Following the victim's funeral, her family files a lawsuit against the gun company who manufactured the killer's weapon of choice. The lawyers for the plaintiff and defendant--Kelly Starling and Jason Noble--are young, charismatic, and successful. They're also easy blackmail targets, both harboring a personal secret so devastating it could destroy their careers. Millions of dollars--and more than a few lives--are at stake. But as Kelly and Jason battle each other, they discover that the real fight is with unseen forces intent on controlling them both.

Her Perfect Family


Teresa Driscoll - 2021
    The perfect family? Or the perfect lie?It’s their daughter’s graduation and Rachel and Ed Hartley are expecting it to be one of their family’s happiest days. But when she stumbles and falls on stage during the ceremony, a beautiful moment turns to chaos: Gemma has been shot, and just like that, she’s fighting for her life.PI Matthew Hill is one of the first on the scene. A cryptic message Gemma received earlier in the day suggests someone close to her was about to be exposed. But who? As Matthew starts to investigate, he finds more and more layers obscuring the truth. He even begins to suspect the Hartleys are hiding something big—from him and from each other.While Gemma lies in hospital in a coma, her would-be killer is still out there. Can Matthew unravel the family’s secrets before the attacker strikes again?

False Impressions


Sandra Nikolai - 2012
    In what a Quebec detective calls a crime of passion, startling evidence surfaces to implicate Michael Elliott, a young investigative reporter who'd rather rub elbows with scumbags than live the posh lifestyle he inherited.Clutched out of her comfort zone, Megan is flung into Michael's dark world of criminal investigation. As they make a last-ditch attempt to prove their innocence, an elusive enemy closes in and threatens their lives. Who wants them out of the way and why?

Bourbon & Blood


Garrard Hayes - 2013
    Drugs, white slavery, prostitution, murder... Former soldier and decorated war hero Bill Conlin finds himself immersed in it all when he can't find "respectable" work after his tour in Afghanistan. When his cousin, Jimmy, first tries to talk him into joining Irish mafia boss Frank Sullivan's gang, Bill brushes him off. All Bill really wants is a normal life with a nice girl, and he's pretty sure the waitress he just met, Dana, is the one. But with his savings running low, and desperate to get out of his Hell's Kitchen near-tenement apartment building, Bill, against his better judgment, agrees to a meeting with Mr. Sullivan, an Irish Mob boss--and immediately hits the point of no return... Now with a brand new Lincoln and fancy new uptown digs (complete with a live-in girl whose only purpose is to serve him, and a wardrobe packed with weapons), Bill's tasked to take down a Harlem-based Mexican prostitution ring. One thing leads to another, however, and the deeper he gets, the more he learns, and the more tangled up he becomes in a lifestyle he never wanted. But how long until he takes matters into his own hands... And what will the ultimate cost be... Mystery & suspense lurk around every corner of this hard-boiled crime drama where mobsters shoot it out with urban gangs on the streets of New York City.

Front Page News


Sadie Gordon Richmond - 2013
    During the early days of their investigation, Inspector Lawrence Forrester and his partner Rebecca Palmer uncover a string of disloyalties and a family divided by betrayal and cruelty. As more facts filter in, it seems likely that Zoe’s killer is chillingly close to home. Then, as events take a startling turn, Rebecca finds herself more involved than she could ever have imagined.

The Spires


Kate Moretti - 2021
    Willa Blaine, her old roommate, needs her help: refuge from an abusive husband. “Two weeks tops,” she says―but it’s not the imposition that bothers Penelope; it’s the memories Willa brings with her.Twenty years earlier, Penelope, Willa, and three friends lived together in a converted church. Insular and closed off from the rest of the world, the five roommates formed their own dysfunctional family, celebrating the pinnacle of their lives; they called themselves “the Spires.” But nights of wild parties gave way to a darker undercurrent: jealousy, resentment, unrequited love, and obsession. Tensions boiled over during a night of debauchery that ended in a deadly fire, leaving the Spires scattered and forever changed.Now Willa is the perfect houseguest: accommodating, helpful, bringing a newfound sense of excitement to the Cox household. Yet Penelope can’t help but feel the cracks in her life widen as she begins to question Willa’s motives. Everyone has secrets, it seems―and the fire may have brought down the Spires, but not everything burned was forgotten.

The Rumour


Lesley Kara - 2018
    That's all it takes.She stabbed little Robbie Harris. To change a life -She's living under a new name.For ever.She's reformed. So they say . . . Joanna is going to regret the day she ever said a word.

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.

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.

Bosstown


Adam Abramowitz - 2017
    Zesty Meyers is Boston s fastest bike messenger caffeine fueled, wise-cracking and reckless accustomed to hurtling through Boston s kamikaze streets at breakneck speed, always just a bumper or car door away from disaster.Will Meyers is Zesty s father, Beantown s former backroom poker king and political fixer, who is suffering from Alzheimer s and a growing dread that the Big Dig carving its way through some of Boston s toughest neighborhoods will expose the bodies and secrets he d assumed were buried forever.When the heist of an armored truck goes violently wrong, Zesty is forced to navigate Beantown s gritty underworld of gangsters and blood money, desperately trying to outrace his family s criminal past and stay alive in a changing city where death loiters on every corner and the odds of survival have narrowed to pulling a straight flush on the river."

All Good Deeds


Stacy Green - 2014
    She's just taking out the trash. Don’t call Lucy Kendall a serial killer. She’s fighting for the innocent, and she’ll do whatever it takes to bring justice. When a child disappears, Lucy quickly discovers the link to a predator she’s faced before–a man the state of Pennsylvania decided to turn loose on the streets. Determined to find the little girl and put a criminal behind bars for good, Lucy forces her way onto the case.As the search for the kidnapped child pulls Lucy into a web of evil beyond her darkest imagination, she’ll have to face her own dark truths to save the little girl–and herself.

The Missing Hours


Emma Kavanagh - 2016
    A woman disappears One moment, Selena Cole is in the playground with her children and the next, she has vanished without a trace.A woman returns Twenty hours later, Selena is found safe and well, but with no memory of where she has been.What took place in those missing hours, and are they linked to the discovery of a nearby murder? ‘Is it a forgetting or a deception?’