Book picks similar to
Dancing Towards the Blade and Other Stories by Mark Billingham
mark-billingham
fiction
thriller
crime
The Murder of Janessa Hennley
Victor Methos - 2013
The savagery of the killer is something the small community of Kodiak Basin, Alaska has never seen before. With nowhere else to turn, the Sheriff is forced to enlist the help of the FBI.A special agent with a mysterious past...Special Agent Mickey Parsons of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit receives the Sheriff's request and flies to Alaska to help in the investigation. Parsons has the most closed cases of any special agent in Behavioral Science's history, but the mental and physical scars of the last case he handled in the field nearly six years ago has left him tired and contemplating retirement.Uncertain if he has the strength to follow a killer into the darkness again, Parsons may need the Sheriff as much as she needs him.A monster in the making...Parsons believes the Hennleys to be the killer's first victims. But the sheer brutality has him convinced he's dealing with someone more monster than man. Someone that is escalating in their sadism, and if left free, will bring terror on the community unlike any they have ever experienced.
The Summoning
Mark Lukens - 2014
a supernatural mystery.Edrington, Oregon - a town with a horrifying past. A town with dark secrets. A town where a woman has summoned something terrifying.Three hundred and fifty miles south, Ryan wakes up in a motel room with a bag of stolen money, bullet hole scars on his chest, and no memory of his past - his only clue is a scrap of paper in his wallet with an Edrington address scrawled on it.Plagued by nightmares of a tortured man who seems to be forcing his way from the dream world into our world, Ryan journeys north to the small Oregon town where the answers are waiting for him.
Merry Bloody Christmas
Ellie Scott - 2018
A chocoholic grizzly bear, a talking Christmas tree, mince pie overdoses and a very bloody murder. Will poor old Saint Nick make it out alive? Sad, strange, funny and gruesome, this overlapping, multi-genre collection of tales has a little something for every reader. Curl up with a mulled wine and some fictional festive misery, and discover what Father Christmas really likes to drink when he wriggles down your chimney. Spoiler: it isn’t milk.
Redemption Lake
Susan Clayton-Goldner - 2017
Guilt forces Matt to act on impulse and hide his involvement with Crystal.Detective Winston Radhauser knows Matt is hiding something. But as the investigation progresses, Radhauser’s attention is focused on Matt’s father. Matt’s world closes in when his father is arrested for Crystal’s murder, and Travis breaks off their friendship.Despite his father’s guilty plea, Matt knows his dad is innocent and only trying to protect his son. Devastated and bent on self-destruction, Matt heads for the lake where his cousin died—the only place he believes can truly free him. Are some secrets better left buried?
Stasi Vice
Max Hertzberg - 2018
But when a senior officer has a messy affair, it falls to Reim to do the clearing up. It should be a straightforward job. Lean on a few people to get them to shut up. Intimidate neighbours, bribe officials and appeal to the socialist conscience of Party members. But when Reim starts his interrogations, he realises his boss is hiding more than just a lover. Lieutenant Reim begins to investigate his superior—and what he uncovers puts his own life at risk. Cracking DDR crime from the author of the East Berlin Series
Feelers
Brian M. Wiprud - 2009
Morty Martinez is known in the industry of estate liquidation as a "feeler." If you were to look him up in the Brooklyn yellow pages, he would be listed under "home content removal," but his real job is looking for stashes of cash crammed into tin cans that have been left out of wills, kept out of banks, and hidden away for decades by the frugal elderly suspicious of ATMs and the IRS. When Morty hits upon the biggest score of his life, over $800,000.00, he knows that news travels fast and he must operate quickly and carefully to safeguard his booty, his life and his destiny as patrician of a seaside Mexican village. But what he doesn't know is that there are others after the same buried treasure, including the recently paroled prison assassin Danny Kessel.
The Hand of Strange Children: A nerve-shredding mystery thriller
Robert Richardson - 1993
Details trickle in: the house belongs to wealthy merchant banker Charles Stansfield; present are well-known news editor Richard Barlow and members of his family. But the victims identities are withheld. Who are they? Why has a family gathering exploded into violence and death? Through their individual voices the lives of Richard, Tim and Naomi Barlow and their mother, Florence, unfold and a shocking crime comes to light - one that has gone undetected and unpunished, culminating in a double-killing a quarter of a century later. The Hand of Strange ChildrenPraise for Robert Richardson ''With this, his first novel, Robert Richardson makes a most impressive debut as a writer of the classical English detective story… He knows how to create suspense and an atmosphere of incipient evil; he provides us with a genuine puzzle, his characters are believable people, and the motive of his murderer is psycho-logically credible.” P D James “Skilful rerouting and the taste of real tears” The Sunday Times “Eccentrics, suspects and witty writing abound” The Times “Here is a book to be missed only at your own peril” Armchair Detective “Elegantly written, beautifully characterised, suspenseful and oddly moving” Mystery Reader’s Journal “Grand entertainment, deft handling and suave wit” Publishers Weekly Robert Richardson is a journalist and editor who lives in England.
Syx and the City (Situationships Book 2)
Grey Huffington - 2018
In this piece, Syx is fighting the possibility of depression due to carelessness on her end, while indulging in the most freeing period of her existence. Life has never been more complicated, yet she's never felt so alive in all of her days. Her most shameful moment of weakness happens to be the most gratifying and beneficial experience that she just can't seem to shake. Tag along as Syx continues on her journey through the city. ******THIS IS A NOVELETTE!******
Dangerous Stakes
G.K. Parks - 2019
Her target, Axel Kincaid, is smart and ruthless. His forte - stealing cars. His temperament- violent. And his legitimate business keeps half the judges and city officials entertained, so collecting enough evidence to put him behind bars is nearly impossible. But when a parking attendant is murdered and two exotic sports cars are stolen, all bets are off. There's just one problem. Axel claims to have an airtight alibi, but there are more than a few holes in his story. The only thing Liv knows for sure is someone is determined to get away with murder, and now the killer has set his sights on her. Will she stop the murderous thief before he strikes again? Or will she become his next victim?
Total Victim Theory
Ian Ballard - 2013
Puzzling over the document's sinister entries, Jake pieces together a story of mass murder near the Texas-Mexico border two decades before. If Jake's theory is correct, the names listed on the ledger's final page are the victims of a previously unknown serial killer. Leads are scarce until a gruesome new crime scene, deep in the Mexican desert, shows a chilling connection to the border deaths of long ago.
City On Fire: Five LAPD Thrillers
Dallas Barnes - 2020
He silently hopes his life choices aren’t a reflection of what he sees wrong in others.Detective Bobbi Marshal is an attractive woman whose beauty turns heads. Ironically, she and her partner comprise the LAPD Wilshire Division sex team. Bobbi, mature, sophisticated, capable and compassionate, finds herself working and competing in a man’s world.Detective Sergeant Stryker and Detective West are a “Salt & Pepper” team, one white, one Black. Besides race, there’s one crucial difference between the men…at End of Watch, Stryker drives out of the ghetto into a White community where he lives. West has a much shorter drive, his home is in the ghetto.Now, it’s just a matter of time and cunning …and who makes the first fatal mistake.
City on Fire includes: City of Passion, Badge of Honor, Deadly Justice, See the Woman and Yesterday Is Dead.
Act of Revenge
Dick Couch - 2014
Garrett Walker is a warrior. For the last decade and a half he’s been continuously at war –combat rotation after combat rotation. He’s a veteran of the close fight. And he’s taken a great many lives. Yet, all that combat and all those deaths were in the service of his country. Now, that’s about to change. Since their college days, Garrett and his identical twin have been estranged. They were both in love with the same woman, and she chose Garrett’s brother. So Garrett chose the Navy SEALs. Then, following the death of their younger brother, also a Navy SEAL, yet another tragedy strikes the Walker family. The twin is caught in the web of a Russian Mafia organ-theft ring. He was just another business man in Las Vegas on just another business trip. Then drugged and alone, strange men enter his hotel room and crudely remove his kidneys. It’s a rare crime, but one that happens more than is reported. For those in the black-market organ trade, easy pickings right? But they didn’t count on the resiliency of the one twin, nor the rage of the warrior twin. Together, they embark on a mission. Together, they put all the rules to aside bring about the ultimate Act of Revenge. About the Author Dick Couch. Navy SEAL, Combat Veteran, CIA Case Officer, New York Times Best Selling Author–with eighteen books to his credit. During the Global War on Terror, Dick Couch alone has been allowed to embed with the component commands of the US Special Operations Command. Dick Couch alone has tracked the SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers, and Marine Special Operators as they trained for war–and written extensively about this training. Now after eight books of special-operations nonfiction, Act of Revenge marks his return to fiction.
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.