Book picks similar to
Deadly Motives by Ann Girdharry
mystery
thriller
ebook
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The Foundation
Steve P. Vincent - 2014
Because the Foundation’s deputy director, the ruthless Michelle Dominique, recognizes that whoever controls the message controls the world. And she will take control, no matter the price.
Enter Jack’s boss, Ernest McDowell, owner and chairman of the largest media empire on the planet. In the midst of political upheaval, EMCorp is about to become the final play in the Foundation’s plan. When Dominique traps the EMCorp owner in her web, Jack’s the only one left to expose the conspiracy before it’s too late.
As the world powers smash each other against the anvil of Taiwan, Jack will risk everything to battle the Foundation and prevent them from taking control amid the devastation of a global war.
The Recipient
Audrey J. Cole - 2021
Problem is, he watched her killer die a year ago.A year after serial killer Michael Rhodes is executed and allowed to donate part of his brain as an organ transplant, Wade gets called to a murder scene that shares uncanny similarities to those of the late Michael Rhodes. Other similar killings happen around Seattle, and Wade seems to be the only person still alive who knows enough about Michael Rhodes’s murders to be able to replicate them. When evidence found at one of the crime scenes points to Wade as the killer, he races to find the real culprit before it’s too late to clear his own name. Elle is overjoyed when her husband, Brian, gets a second chance at life when he receives a partial brain transplant after suffering a debilitating stroke at the age of thirty-seven. Their lives seem to return to normal, but Elle notices a disturbing change in Brian’s behavior. When Elle learns that her husband’s brain cell transplant came from Michael Rhodes, she fears that Brian now has the mind of a serial killer.Praise for The Recipient:"A chilling debut suspense thriller that blends a clinical murder know-how with riveting characters against a brooding Seattle backdrop. Audrey J. Cole squirrels deep into a serial killer's mind and the at-times fractured minds of those who seek justice for the killer's crimes. A perfect read for fans of Rachel Abbott or The Couple Next Door." Lizzie Harwood, Amazon bestselling author
Kill Game: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery
Dean Wesley Smith - 2014
Retired Detective Bayard Lott hosts the weekly poker games at his home. The group calls themselves the Cold Poker Gang. And they succeed at closing old cases. Lott’s very first homicide case as a brand-new detective had gone cold more than twenty years earlier. But retired Reno detective Julia Rogers, new to the Cold Poker Gang, suggests they look at that case again for personal reasons. From that simple suggestion spins one of the strangest and most complicated murder mystery puzzles the gang has ever seen. “Dean Wesley Smith does for poker what James Patterson does for serial killers.” —Sheldon McArthur, former owner of Mysterious Books in Los Angeles “[An] exhilarating political poker thriller.” —Harriet Klausner, Genre Go Round Reviews on Dead Money
Missouri Loves Company
W.J. Costello - 2015
marshal Rip Lane lives in a motor home. He is a drifter. His only desire is to explore the country he once protected. But trouble seems to find him in every small town and every big city along the way. In Missouri he picks up a beautiful hitchhiker with a duffel full of secrets. When the woman disappears at a bus station Rip finds himself the target of mobsters. But targeting Rip is always a mistake. Because he never backs down. And he always exacts his own brand of revenge.
Lie With Me
Sabine Durrant - 2016
The kind we've all told - to a former acquaintance we can't quite place but still, for some reason, feel the need to impress. The story of our life, embellished for the benefit of the happily married lawyer with the kids and the lovely home.And the next thing you know, you're having dinner at their house, and accepting an invitation to join them on holiday - swept up in their perfect life, the kind you always dreamed of...Which turns out to be less than perfect. But by the time you're trapped and sweating in the relentless Greek sun, burning to escape the tension all around you - by the time you start to realise that, however painful the truth might be, it's the lies that cause the real damage...... well, by then, it could just be too late.
Longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year
Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year
Her Broken Trust (Rosemary Run #7)
Kelly Utt - 2021
But behind closed doors, she's suffering.She has a life many women would kill for, complete with two healthy young children and a doting husband who puts her every want and need above his own. Her happy family is the envy of friends and neighbors alike.Looks can be quite deceiving. Layla's husband is in big, life-altering trouble and will soon be headed to federal prison. No one knows. Layla is desperate to keep it that way.Can she withstand the pressure? Will her marriage survive? And how will she hold true to her own sense of right and wrong? Her Broken Trust is the eighth book in the Rosemary Run Series featuring the women of a California town who face the darkness hiding beneath their community’s picturesque facade.
Deadly Switch
Karen Dodd - 2013
Each obsessed and tormented.Both harboring too many secrets. He’s on the run; she’s in the chase of her life.What they discover changes everything. From the gruesome discovery in an exclusive enclave of West Vancouver, British Columbia, DEADLY SWITCH takes you on a wild ride from Italy’s Amalfi coast, to the idyllic seaside town of Carmel, California. Gavin Stone’s tormented daughter, Alexis, searches frantically for her missing father, matching wits with devious criminals. With demons of her own to fight, she shouldn’t care about proving him innocent of murder and embezzlement—but she does.Murder…intrigue… a romance built on a house of cards: this thriller will satisfy your thirst for the adrenaline rush that this intricately plotted story delivers. A delicious stay-up-all-nighter, DEADLY SWITCH stuns with its heart-pounding conclusion. You will not see it coming.If you love suspense/thrillers, you will devour DEADLY SWITCH.
Rebecca Schwartz Series: Complete Set
Julie Smith - 2014
You can't read just one, they're like chocolates! DEATH TURNS A TRICKA rollicking tale of murder, romance, and bordellos…Rebecca Schwartz, nice Jewish lawyer with a few too many fantasies, is happily playing the piano in a whorehouse when she suddenly finds herself assigned to make sure a near-naked state senator escapes a police raid. That dirty job done, a lovely evening turns even more delightful when she’s picked up by the cops and spends the next two hours at the Hall of Justice. Could this day get any worse? Of Course! Guess who arrives home to find a dead hooker on her living room floor? Fans of Janet Evanovich, Joan Hess, and Elizabeth Peters will get a kick out of this one.THE SOURDOUGH WARSTO YOU, IT’S JUST A FROZEN LUMP OF DOUGH; BUT TO SOME, IT’S LIFE AND DEATH…Especially to handsome Peter Martinelli, who wants to auction off the fabled sourdough starter from his family’s famous bakery. But who’d buy a frozen hunk of flour and water? Only, it turns out, every bakery in San Francisco, a national food conglomerate, and an upstart ringer with a mysterious backer.Someone would even kill for it. And does.A tasty treat of a San Francisco mystery. A crisp, tangy story you’re sure to get a rise out of. You won’t find it a bit crumb-y. TOURIST TRAPFear stalks the streets! reports the San Francisco Chronicle. It also stalks these pages, and so do a lot of laughs.You just know the Easter sunrise service is going to be a bummer when the San Francisco fog lifts to reveal a body nailed to a landmark cross. Next: mass shellfish poisoning at Pier 39. A very different kind of serial killer is operating here—one who seems to have a grudge against the whole city.And this is a very different kind of serial killer tale—a funny one. Well, actually, what serial killer’s funny? But lawyer sleuth Rebecca Schwartz is warm and witty, never takes herself too seriously, and on one occasion offers closing testimony with green hair.DEAD IN THE WATERTHAR SHE FLOATS! Deader than flotsam, right in the thirty-foot kelp tower at the Monterey Aquarium.She’s the aquarium director herself, beloved by all except Marty Whitehead, lawyer Rebecca Schwartz’s weekend hostess, now cooling her heels in the county clink.
A Wicked Mercy (Harriet Quinn Crime Thriller, #1)
Bilinda P. Sheehan - 2019
Although the police are convinced that these are open and shut cases, Forensic psychologist Harriet Quinn is certain the deaths are due to foul play. Her suspicions deepen when her own friend becomes one of the victims.Fighting the police’s indifference, she sets out to prove that a murderer stalks the village. A murderer that her training tells her might be hiding in plain sight.
Book One of the Harriet Quinn series is an explosive crime fiction series debut where murder and mystery take centre stage in this dark thriller.
For fans of LJ Ross, Val McDermid, JD Kirk, Chris Carter, Joy Ellis, Angela Marsons, and Sally Rigby
Squall
Sean Costello - 2014
On a clear winter morning he sets out in his Cessna 180 to do some repairs on a remote hunt camp, leaving his five year old son and very pregnant wife snug in their beds.On the return trip, a squall forces him into an emergency landing and he winds up—quite literally—in the lap of petty criminal Dale Knight. Dale, now a fugitive from the law—and worse, from a merciless drug lord who just happens to be his brother—draws Tom into a web of mayhem and treachery that puts not only his life at risk, but the lives of his wife, son…and unborn child.SQUALL is a fast-paced, darkly-comic tale of murder and gang-style retribution that grabs the reader on page one and simply does not let go.
Letter From The Dead
Jack Gatland - 2020
A Prime Ministerial Leadership Campaign... A paranoid, homeless ex-minister... A TV Evangelist with a murderous secret...Detective Inspector Declan Walsh has had better days...Recently blacklisted from the police for punching a priest on live TV (long story),
D.I Declan Walsh
is one step away from quitting the force for good - and privately investigating the mysterious death of his father, Chief Superintendent Patrick Walsh, who died shortly after writing a tell-all memoir of his time on the force.But when his father's old partner,
Detective Chief Inspector Alex Monroe
arrives with an offer, Declan is forced to take it. For Monroe now leads a City of London task force that concentrates on cold cases, and filled with officers just like Declan; officers that are too valuable to lose, but at the same time have a history in the force. Nicknamed 'The Last Chance Saloon', it's currently investigating a decades old murder - and one that Declan's father supposedly solved.When Victoria Davies was pushed off her stately home's roof in 2001, all evidence pointed to her husband, Michael. But now, twenty years later a letter has appeared, written by Victoria before her death; a letter that was never received, and a letter that brings new suspects into the fray;
Labour MPs Shaun Donnal, Andrew MacIntyre
and
Charles Baker
.But two decades on, life has changed for these men. Donnal is now a paranoid alcoholic living on the streets of London, 'Andy Mac' is a popular YouTube Evangelist and Charles Baker is the current Conservative Secretary of State, and the bookie's choice for next Prime Minister in the upcoming Leadership Election.Now Declan and his new team must navigate a minefield filled with political intrigue, adulterous affairs, money laundering aristocrats and brutal, bloody murder, as each suspect leads them to a new problem and another skeleton to fall out of the closet.And at the same time, as he investigates Patrick Walsh's death, Declan learns that not only was his father connected to an old school London crime family, but also that Patrick (and by default Declan's new boss, Monroe) might not have been as clean as people believed...
The debut book in a new series of procedural crime thrillers, Letter from the Dead is perfect for fans of J.D Kirk, Ian Rankin, Damian Boyd and D.S Butler, among others.
Hold Back the Night
Axel Blackwell - 2019
The phone rings. The officer on the other end says, “It’s a bad one, Darren. Can you come?” Darren McDaniel has worked dozens of homicides in his years as a detective. It’s a dark and gritty business, and he’s prepared to handle whatever it throws at him. Or so he once believed. The pre-teen girl is dead, dressed in a white princess gown, lying on a bus stop bench. There’s a steel chain clamped to her ankle. A cryptic message scrawled across the booth’s dusty glass wall may be the only clue. As McDaniel plunges into the case, he isn’t surprised to discover the girl had been held somewhere horrible before her death. But, his blood chills when the evidence shows she wasn’t alone. Other children were with her. Are they still there? Can McDaniel save them in time? The detective races against the clock, but the closer he gets, the deadlier the chase becomes. Secrets this dark fight back. When those secrets turn their murderous attention on McDaniel’s family, he faces an impossible decision – let the killer walk free or risk losing his own daughter.
The Krewe
Seth Pevey - 2018
Felix is heartbroken, mystified, and above all else: deeply suspicious. His gut screams foul play. The black sheep of a wealthy, respected family in New Orleans, Felix knows his gut is untested, naïve, addled by drugs and self-doubt. Who will believe him? Should he even trust himself? As the Mardi Gras season descends on the city, Felix will have to find a way. His purpose is, for once, very clear: to find out who, or what, caused his big brother to die in such heinous circumstances, no matter what it takes. But there are shadowy forces at work. As he gets in over his head, he’ll need the help of a garrulous police detective, the family’s ancient butler, and a massive pork fortune, all in order to fight his way to the bottom of things. Will he live up to the family name and avenge his brother? Find out in part one of a hard-boiled detective series set in the Big Easy.
Flash Drive
Peter C. Foster - 2018
Every Sunday evening she brings it back. Until one day, when the car comes back, but she doesn’t. A stranger wearing cargo pants and an attitude shows up in her place. After he leaves, you find her bag and all her possessions in the trunk. You realize that wherever she is, she has nothing but the clothes on her back.What do you do? You don’t know her well, but you know she disappeared. You’re afraid she’s been harmed, but no-one believes you. You think you know who’s responsible, but then that guy turns up dead. And when the cops open an investigation, you are their prime suspect in the murder.Erstwhile taxi driver Alex Ryan is the guy in the parking lot. Sexy bank executive Chantal Dorval is the mystery woman. Who kidnapped her? Is she alive or dead? Who killed Cargo Pants? And why? Ryan sets out to answer these questions, to find Chantal and exonerate himself. But the more he learns about her life, the more disturbing secrets he discovers, and the more suspects he turns up. And the more the police are convinced he’s guilty.Flash Drive is action-packed and sexually-charged. It deals with contemporary themes such as substance abuse, alternate lifestyles, and social media privacy issues. It will appeal to readers of the work of Gillian Flynn, Robert Galbraith (JKR), or Harlan Coben.