The Dead Room


Robert Ellis - 2002
    The atrocity kicks off an investigation into a bizarre string of increasingly disturbing murders, all believed to be perpetrated by someone of unprecedented savagery and cunning.As the city's panic rises, civil attorney Teddy Mack is thrown headlong into the grisly homicide case—and into a world of dirty politics and corrupt justice, where deceptions are as deadly as a killer's twisted secrets. Now, another woman is about to meet the same horrific fate as the others. To end a madman's reign, Teddy must enter his maze—a place of unimaginable terror…and shocking revelations.With his second thriller, and more than 375 FIVE STAR Amazon reviews, L.A. Times bestselling author Robert Ellis delivers an explosive read with full-blown characters, a world stacked with twists and turns, and an emotional intensity that burns white hot.

The Barkeep


William Lashner - 2014
    Six years ago Justin's life was ripped apart when he discovered his mother's bludgeoned corpse. Now Justin's father is serving a life sentence and Justin drowns his emotions in a pool of inner peace. But when Birdie claims he murdered Justin's mother for cash, Justin is hurled back to the emotions, back to the past, and, most frightening of all, back to the father he tried to leave behind. WHO HIRED BIRDIE GRACKLE TO KILL JUSTIN?S MOTHER? As Justin pieces together the truth, a killing machine stalks Justin, leaving a trail of dead in his wake. Someone wants to bury the truth, and maybe Justin, too. Justin had better find some answers quick, because murder is just not Zen.

The Black Dahlia


James Ellroy - 1987
    The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia—and so begins the greatest manhunt in California history. Caught up in the investigation are Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard: Warrants Squad cops, friends, and rivals in love with the same woman. But both are obsessed with the Dahlia—driven by dark needs to know everything about her past, to capture her killer, to possess the woman even in death. Their quest will take them on a hellish journey through the underbelly of postwar Hollywood, to the core of the dead girl's twisted life, past the extremes of their own psyches—into a region of total madness.

The Girl with a Clock for a Heart


Peter Swanson - 2014
    When George first met her, she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman from Sweetgum, Florida. She and George became inseparable in their first fall semester, so George was devastated when he got the news that she had committed suicide over Christmas break. But, as he stood in the living room of the girl's grieving parents, he realized the girl in the photo on their mantelpiece - the one who had committed suicide - was not his girlfriend. Later, he discovered the true identity of the girl he had loved - and of the things she may have done to escape her past.Now, twenty years later, she's back, and she's telling George that he's the only one who can help her...

The Dry


Jane Harper - 2016
    But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke's death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds bleed into new ones.

In the Woods


Tana French - 2007
    But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children. He is gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a 12-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox (his partner and closest friend) find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense.

15 Seconds


Andrew Gross - 2012
    Stopped by the police for a minor traffic violation, the situation escalates and he is pulled from his vehicle, handcuffed, and told he is under arrest. Several other police cars arrive and the questioning turns scary, but after it subsides, and Henry is about to move on, the officer is suddenly killed in his car and there is only one suspect: the very person he was about to arrest not ten minutes before. Henry! When a second friend turns up dead, Henry realizes he's being elaborately framed. But in a chilling twist, the stakes grow even darker, and he is unable to go to the police to clear his name.15 Seconds is a story of how even the best of lives can be destroyed in just an instant—and of an innocent man, framed for murder, who has to save the person he loves the most, and who cannot go the police to clear his name.

The Good Neighbor


A.J. Banner - 2015
    That’s what Sarah thinks as she settles into life with her new husband, Dr. Johnny McDonald. But all too soon she discovers an undercurrent of deception. And one October evening when Johnny is away, sudden tragedy destroys Sarah’s happiness.Dazed and stricken with grief, she and Johnny begin to rebuild their shattered lives. As she picks up the pieces of her broken home, Sarah discovers a shocking secret that forces her to doubt everything she thought was true—about her neighbors, her friends, and even her marriage. With each stunning revelation, Sarah must ask herself, Can we ever really know the ones we love?

House of Correction


Nicci French - 2020
    ‘In brief: you are charged with the murder of Stuart Robert Rees, on December 21st, between the hours of ten-forty in the morning and half-past three o’clock in the afternoon.’ Tabitha is accused of murder. She is in prison awaiting trial.There is a strong case against her, and she can’t remember what happened on December 21st.She is alone, frightened and confused.But somehow, from the confines of her cell, she needs to prove everyone wrong.

The River Is Dark


Joe Hart - 2013
    His career, the only thing he ever knew how to do well, is over. The single solace each day brings is the ever-growing contemplation of suicide. But when his estranged brother and sister-in-law are brutally murdered in their bucolic town set on the banks of the Mississippi River, he is drawn into an investigation surrounding a string of killings unlike anything he has ever seen before. The murderer is ruthless, cunning, and without conscience. Soon Liam learns that the river is dark. And so are its secrets.Contains explicit language and violence.

Vanishing Girls


Lisa Regan - 2018
    Not a word, actually. A name… Everyone in the small American town of Denton is searching for Isabelle Coleman, a missing seventeen-year-old girl. All they’ve found so far is her phone and another girl they didn’t even know was missing. Mute and completely unresponsive to the world around her, it’s clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Detective Josie Quinn can get from her is a name: Ramona. Currently suspended from the force for misconduct, Josie takes matters into her own hands as the name leads her to evidence linking the two girls. She knows the race is on to find Isabelle alive, and she fears there may be others… The trail leads Josie to another victim, a girl who escaped but whose case was labelled a hoax by authorities. To catch this monster, Josie must confront her own nightmares and follow her instinct to the darkest of places. But can she make it out alive? Fans of Angela Marsons, Helen Fields and Robert Dugoni will be utterly gripped and sleeping with the lights on once they discover the first in this unputdownable new crime thriller series.

The Thinnest Air


Minka Kent - 2018
    Her husband, Andrew, is a charming and successful financial broker. She has two lovely stepchildren and is living in affluence in a mountain resort town. After three years of marriage, Meredith’s life has become predictable. Until the day she disappears.Her car has been discovered in a grocery store parking lot—purse and phone undisturbed on the passenger seat, keys in the ignition, no sign of struggle, and no evidence of foul play. It’s as if she vanished into thin air.It’s not like Meredith to simply abandon her loved ones. And no one in this town would have reason to harm her. When her desperate sister, Greer, arrives, she must face a disturbing question: What if no one really knows Meredith at all? For Greer, finding her sister isn’t going to be easy…because where she’s looking is going to get very, very dark.

Bad Things Happen


Harry Dolan - 2009
    He’s hoping to escape a violent past he would rather forget. But his solitude is broken when he finds himself drawn into a friendship with Tom Kristoll, publisher of the mystery magazine Gray Streets—and into an affair with Laura, Tom’s sleek blond wife. When Tom offers him a job as an editor, Loogan sees no harm in accepting. What he doesn’t realize is that the stories in Gray Streets tend to follow a simple formula: Plans go wrong. Bad things happen. People die.Elizabeth Waishkey is a single mother raising a fifteen-year-old daughter. She’s also the most talented detective in the Ann Arbor Police Department. But when Tom Kristoll turns up dead, she doesn’t quite know what to make of David Loogan. Is he a killer, or an ally who might help her find the truth? Loogan, for his part, would like to trust her, but he has his own agenda. He suspects his friend’s death is part of a much larger puzzle, and he’s not going to wait for someone else to put the pieces together. As Loogan and Elizabeth navigate their way through the Kristoll's world, they find no shortage of people with motives for murder, from a young graduate student obsessed with Laura Kristoll to a trio of bestselling writers, all of them with secrets they don’t want uncovered.As the deaths start mounting up—some of them echoing stories published in Gray Streets—Loogan begins to look more and more like the most promising suspect.Soon it becomes clear that only Elizabeth can find the path to solving both the murders and the mystery of Loogan himself. But by the time she unravels the twisted skein, Loogan May be indicted for murder—or more likely, become the next victim.

The Professionals


Owen Laukkanen - 2012
    And then, suddenly, it's no joke.

The Night Crew


John Sandford - 1997
    Small, dark-haired, shy but tough, a Wisconsin farm girl on the streets of Los Angeles, she roams the city with her small band of video free-lancers in their truck from ten to dawn, looking for news: accidents, robberies, murders, demonstrations — anything they can shoot and sell to the local stations or the networks. It's an exhilarating life . . . until the day two deaths shake their world.The first is the jumper. Five stories up, perched on the ledge of a hotel window, dark pants, white shirt, just standing there — and then he's gone, falling through the air towards the cameras. The second is Jason, one of Anna's cameramen. Strangely affected by the jumper, he quits the scene early that night, not to be seen again until his body turns up on the beach several hours later, shot in the head. The police wonder if it's drug-related, but Anna isn't so sure, and the more she looks into it on her own, the more the ghosts of the past — hers, Jason's, and finally the jumper's — begin to emerge, until her whole world turns as dark and dangerous as the night itself.