Blood Land


R.S. Guthrie - 2012
    L.A. Chicago. New York. But when a savage murder brutalizes a small town and neighbor turns on neighbor, a tough-as-nails cop is essential to restoring order. Blood Land is a gritty, emotional saga set in the Wyoming badlands with both greed and vengeance at its core.When billions of dollars in natural gas rights hang in the balance and the town's top law officer's wife is slain by her own blood, a reluctant hero is forced to battle his own demons and ultimately choose between justice, revenge, and duty.In the tradition of Dennis Lehane, Tony Hillerman and James Lee Burke, Guthrie's sparse, haunting storytelling compliments his talent for creating richly-drawn, unflinching law officers with human frailties and a sense of justice.

Shades of Silence


Liz Lazarus - 2021
    Her husband’s plane has vanished over the Atlantic Ocean and although the Coast Guard has suspended the search, she clings to hope that he’ll still be found alive. Three months later, a young woman appears after hours at Julianna’s Ormond Beach restaurant, declaring, “He’s not who you think he is.” Before the stranger can say anything else, a gunshot through the window kills her instantly. Seasoned detective Paul Grant is assigned to investigate the girl’s murder. He senses that the shooting was not random but doesn’t know the connection to his only witness. Was the girl referring to Julianna’s presumed dead husband, her lazy stepson, her shady bar manager, or someone else? The investigation leaves Julianna wondering who she can trust and culminates with an eerie link to the past that no one sees coming.

The Mechanic


Tom Fowler - 2020
    He’s a single dad to Lexi, who’s about to enter college. Life is looking up.Then, everything comes crashing down.Tyler’s former commanding officer is out of prison and hellbent on revenge. Their mutual hatred has been simmering for years. When it finally boils over, everyone and everything in Tyler’s life is threatened.He wanted to be a father and a mechanic. To save himself and his daughter, he’ll need to use the deadly skills he thought he left behind.Can Tyler stop a monster without becoming one himself?The Mechanic is the first gripping novel in the John Tyler series. It’s perfect for readers who like action thrillers with a little humor and a little heart.

The Art of Danger


Stuart Doughty - 2020
    Three men are murdered to get a dull, forgotten painting. A crazy, pointless heist? Or something far more sinister?In this action-packed crime-thriller, the tough ex-cop and firearms specialist Kite is up against a foreign spy who’s planning havoc and mayhem, not an art show. To complicate matters, Kite’s being followed by a kooky – and sexy – young woman. Where does she fit in? Even worse, Kite’s got a shameful secret in his past that he thinks is well hidden – until he realises someone’s on to it and the odds stack up to produce an action-packed thriller.What Kite is chasing down isn’t just a painting: it’s the most explosive art in the world. Can he stop the impending cataclysm?

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.

Bloodline


Brian O'Connor - 2011
    Liam, a champion steeplechase jockey, is initially both witness and suspect. However, shrewd police detective Diarmuid Yeats takes a gamble on his innocence and enlists his help in the hunt for the killer. This nightmare experience exacerbates the tensions in Liam’s life. He has been falling out of love with his job, his joy in racing relentlessly worn away by the struggle to keep the weight down on his six-foot frame. Is it time to quit? But McFarlane’s stables houses the brilliant Patrician, a potential Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, and Liam wants to be the jockey to get him first past the finish post in the race that matters most. With emotions at pressure point, Liam falls in love with the exotic blonde Ukrainian stable girl, Lara, leaving him in an even more vulnerable position than before. Then the killer strikes again and the race to the finish post is replaced by a race for survival . . . and there is no second place. “A gripping murder story” - THE IRISH TIMES

The Dying Hour


Rick Mofina - 2005
    At The Seattle Mirror, he is competing for the single full-time job being offered through the paper's intense intern program. But unlike the program's other young reporters, who attended big name schools and worked at other big metro dailies, Wade put himself through community college, and lacked the same experience. Wade struggles with his haunting past as he pursues the story of Karen Harding, a college student whose car was found abandoned on a lonely stretch of highway in the Pacific Northwest. How could this beloved young woman with the altruistic nature simply vanish? Wade battles mounting odds and cut-throat competition to unearth the truth behind Karen Harding's disturbing case. Her disappearance is a story he cannot give up, never realizing the toll it could exact from him. The Dying Hour is a bone-chilling, mesmerizing page-turner that introduces readers to an all-too-human young hero who journeys into the darkest regions of the human heart to confront a nightmare. The International Thriller Writers (ITW), selected The Dying Hour as a finalist for a Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original, 2006. Rick Mofina is a former journalist who has interviewed murderers on death row, flown over L.A. with the LAPD and patrolled with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police near the Arctic. He's also reported from the Caribbean, Africa and Kuwait's border with Iraq. His books have been published in nearly 30 countries, including an illegal translation produced in Iran. His work has been praised by James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen, Jeffery Deaver, Sandra Brown, James Rollins, Brad Thor, Nick Stone, David Morrell, Allison Brennan, Heather Graham, Linwood Barclay, Peter Robinson, Håkan Nesser and Kay Hooper. The Crime Writers of Canada, The International Thriller Writers and The Private Eye Writers of America have listed his titles among the best in crime fiction. As a two-time winner of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award, a three-time Thriller Award finalist and a two-time Shamus Award finalist, the Library Journal calls him, “One of the best thriller writers in the business."

The Women on Retford Drive


Alretha Thomas - 2018
    But their plans go awry when Keith Pritchard, Julia’s soon-to-be ex-husband and Blythe’s father, goes missing and is presumed dead, the day they plan to move out of his mansion. The women are filled with bittersweet emotions when they consider the idea that Keith, a tycoon and functional alcoholic, could be out of their lives for good. Moreover, they fear the police will name them as persons of interest because of the abuse they suffered at Keith’s hands. Julia believes Keith hasn’t met with foul play but orchestrated his own disappearance, hoping the women will be blamed. However, Blythe believes her father is dead. When the police reveal a damning piece of evidence, which could result in one of them being charged with Keith’s possible murder, they join forces to find out what happened to him. Did one of the women go off script and kill Keith, or is another agenda at play, unbeknownst to the women and the police, that’s far more sinister?

Steel and Shadows


Stuart Field - 2019
    What at first appears to be the work of a serial killer soon turns out to be a deeper level of darkness and deceit, with relentless mercenaries, a shadowy informant and ghosts from the past for both McCall and Steel all involved.As unexpected alliances and Steel’s personal mission reveal a complex web of treachery, will he and McCall find a way to work together and solve the case?

Taking on Water


David Rawding - 2015
    To learn more about Kevin’s home life, he gets to know the boy’s father, Tucker, who’s a lobsterman. James is able to put his suspicions to rest, and the two families begin to form a friendship. When a kid at the local recreation center dies of an overdose, Detective Maya Morrow adds the case to the long list related to the drug problem plaguing the small New Hampshire coastal town of Newborough. But her investigation gets her much too close to the dangerous players. Both the Morrows and the Flynns are holding dark secrets, and when their lives collide, tragedy is inevitable."A harrowing tale of abuse and addiction, told in a beautiful way that will touch your heart. This book was very emotional, very driven..." Kelly Smith Reviews "I was not expecting the level of emotional intensity that this novel achieves. Taking on Water is a horrific theater of human nature. And it begins with James." The Coffee Pot Review

Vengeance Blind


Anna Willett - 2018
     Recovering from a road accident that has left her half-blind and in a wheelchair, Belle Hammer is alone in her secluded house set in a sprawling ten-acre plot, deep in the forests beyond Perth, Australia. Her husband having left on a work trip, and living miles away from urban centres, Belle has only a few neighbours. And one of them, the creepy retired lecturer Arthur Howell, she doesn’t trust one bit . Was it Howell who was seen in the grounds of her house? Did he make the noise she hears in the inaccessible first floor of her home? Unable to travel, Belle is cut off from the world. Her only hope is the home care assistant her husband arranged for her. But all is not as it seems. Left to the mercy of a woman she increasingly fears, Belle’s world starts to close in on her. It will take all of her wits and courage to understand why she is being victimised and survive the ensuing ordeal. If she does. Vengeance Blind is the latest thriller by Australian author Anna Willet. Her other books, in order of publication, are: 1. BACKWOODS RIPPER 2. RETRIBUTION RIDGE 3. UNWELCOME GUESTS 4. FORGOTTEN CRIMES 5. CRUELTY’S DAUGHTER 6. SMALL TOWN NIGHTMARE

Element of Secrecy


Heather Slawecki - 2020
    The setting is picturesque with old farmhouses, dirt roads, covered bridges, streams. It's also rich with Native and early American history. What sets it apart is a big secret. Jenny O’Rourke has been haunted by blurred memories of the town's dark secrets for over twenty years. Brick walls and tight lips have kept her from understanding why she was torn from her home and family in the middle of the night. And why her brother’s murder was brushed under the rug. To find the answers, she has to elude two powerful forces standing in her way ... an estranged but lurking father and the watchful eyes of the Witness Protection Program. She's about to break the only rule they have in common: Never go home. Jenny finds an opportunity, giving her access to everything she thought she ever wanted to know. What she discovers changes everything and leaves a small town in need of some major damage control.

Just Evil


Vickie McKeehan - 2011
    No one cared. But a stranger, bent on revenge, is out to change all that. Kit Griffin has finally overcome a painful childhood at the hands of her mother, former actress Alana Stevens. No longer living in the grasp of the cold, tyrannical woman, Kit has found a new life tucked away in little San Madrid, California, running a business she loves, surrounded by friends she considers family. For the first time her life is on track. That is, until Alana is found brutally murdered on Mother’s Day, pulling Kit back in to the dark horrors of her past. To make matters worse, the police consider her the prime suspect.Jake Boston, an old family friend and the man Kit has loved since she was a teen, is fighting his own demons as a suspect in his wife’s murder two years earlier. Despite his past, he’s determined to win Kit over once and for all. But before that can happen they need to convince the police there’s a killer working his way down a list with cold-hearted vengeance in mind. Forced to delve into Alana’s dark past, it becomes clear someone is out to settle a score. When Jake and Kit uncover a forty year old double murder that leads them straight to the door of a legal dynasty, they soon find out just how far the heirs will go to keep the past buried and eliminate all the loose ends to protect their empire. Will Jake and Kit become the next victims or will they find an unexpected guardian angel?

A Dandy in Aspic: The Classic Spy Thriller (The Derek Marlowe Collection Book 1)


Derek Marlowe - 1966
    As he nears middle age, he allows himself one luxury - to dress like a Dandy. His superiors send him on a mission to hunt down and destroy a cold-blooded and vicious Russian assassin named Krasnevin, who is responsible for a number of British agents' deaths. But Eberlin has a secret - he is Krasnevin. This is the story of what happens when Eberlin is sent to destroy himself. This classic, gripping spy novel is back in print fifty years after it was written, and is entrancing a whole new generation of readers. *** ‘Like John le Carré at the top of his form’ Yorkshire Post 'A great spy novel: beautifully written and with a melancholy soul beneath its wry humour' Jeremy Duns, author of the Paul Dark novels ‘Near-compulsive reading' Daily Mail 'Brilliant and graceful' Sir Tom Stoppard 'A very well written, intelligent spy thriller' The Observer

Pocketful of Bones


Julie Frayn - 2017
    When an accident takes the life of a friend, Finnegan buries the evidence amid the purple dead nettle and bougainvillea, and unearths a treasure trove of human remains. Did his house rest atop an ancient burial ground? Or was there a killer tucking him into bed at night?His fascination with bones grows as fast as his obsession with his mother. She rejects his advances, and he escapes to the other side of the country. Years later, he returns to his childhood home, to the secrets and the guilt and the bones -- and to fulfill his destiny.