Book picks similar to
Water's Edge by G.R. Jordan


crime
mystery
scotland
first-in-series

See Her Burn


Margaret Murphy - 2004
    Stripped of her clothes. Drained of her blood. Thrown out with the rubbish.Detective Jeff Rickman is on the case. Within hours, the police have their prime suspect. And it’s Rickman himself.Elsewhere, a cruel prank ends with four innocent people burnt to death.Rickman’s convinced there’s a connection with his murdered Jane Doe. But can he unravel the truth and clear his name before anyone else dies?

Inherit the Bones


Emily Littlejohn - 2016
    And in the winter, skiers and snowboarders take over the mountains. Season by season, year after year, time passes and the lies, like the aspens and evergreens that surround the town, take root and spread deep.Now, someone has uncovered the lies, and it is his murder that continues a chain of events that began almost forty years ago. Detective Gemma Monroe’s investigation takes her from the seedy grounds of a traveling circus to the powerful homes of those who would control Cedar Valley’s future.Six-months pregnant, with a partner she can’t trust and colleagues who know more than they’re saying, Gemma tracks a killer who will stop at nothing to keep those secrets buried.

The Snowdonia Killings


Simon McCleave - 2019
    A big city detective. Can she unravel the gruesome trail of clues before the killer strikes again? Detective Inspector Ruth Hunter lives with the pain of her partner’s mysterious and unsolved disappearance. About to hit fifty, the veteran police officer trades in the crime-ridden streets of London for a more peaceful life in rural North Wales. But Ruth has barely settled into her new position in North Wales Police, when the body of a brutally murdered woman is discovered…with strange symbols carved into her skin. Teaming up with an obstinate deputy, Ruth struggles to eliminate anyone from a long line of suspects. When another slain victim is discovered with the same cryptic markings, she’s forced to re-think the investigation. Has Ruth got what it takes to solve the case before the murderer attacks again? The Snowdonia Killings is the first book in the DI Ruth Hunter Crime Thriller series and set against the majestic backdrop of Snowdonia, a timeless land of Arthurian legend, folklore and myth. If you like dark police procedurals, psychologically complex characters, and shocking twists, then you’ll love Simon McCleave’s pulse-pounding debut novel.

In Cold Blood


Jane Bettany - 2020
    The house she used to live in as a child…The forensic team estimate that the body has been in the ground for up to forty years – coinciding with the time Isabel’s family lived in the house.Isabel’s father vanished without a trace when she was fourteen years old. And with her mother remaining tight-lipped about her father’s disappearance, Isabel can’t escape the unnerving sense of dread that it’s his body, buried in the garden.

Strangeways to Oldham


Andrea Frazer - 2012
    She is short, portly, and embarrassingly forthright. If she wasn’t calling a spade a shovel, it was only because she was calling it 'trumps'! On a visit to a local nursing home where an old business partner of her father's is residing, she unexpectedly discovers a long-lost friend, Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump – and stumbles upon murder as well.Installing Hugo in the more civilised and comfortable surroundings of Belchester Towers, the pair turn to sleuthing after Lady Amanda reports her appalling discovery to the local police inspector and is incensed when he treats her as a silly old biddy with an over-active imagination. Her outrage prompts her to teach the impertinent young whipper-snapper a lesson, and she and Hugo (Zimmer frame in tow) embark upon their first investigation, only for murder to become a distressingly frequent occurrence.From the author of the Falconer Files, a series featuring a pair of amateur sleuths and a delightful outpouring of English upper-class eccentricities – with the odd murder thrown in.

The Black Echo


Michael Connelly - 1992
    This one is personal...because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war. Now Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit. Pitted against enemies inside his own department and forced to make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, Bosch goes on the hunt for a killer whose true face will shock him.

Truth Lies Bleeding


Tony Black - 2011
    Who is she? Where did she come from? Who killed her and why? Above all, where is the baby to which she has obviously recently given birth? Inspector Rob Brennan, recently back from psychiatric leave, is still shocked by the senseless shooting of his only brother. His superiors think that the case of the dumpster girl will be perfect to get him back on track. But Rob Brennan has enemies within the force, stacks of unfinished business and a nose for trouble. What he discovers about the murdered girl blows the case - and his life - wide open.

Hunter's Chase


Val Penny - 2018
    Shortly after the post-mortem, Hunter witnesses a second murder, but that is not the end of the slaughter. With a young woman's life also hanging in the balance, the last thing Hunter needs is a new man on his team: Detective Constable Tim Myerscough, the son of his nemesis, the former Chief Constable Sir Peter Myerscough. Hunter's perseverance and patience are put to the test time after time in this first novel in The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries series.

The Killing Lessons


Saul Black - 2015
    Two violent predators walk through the door. Nothing will ever be the same.When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper's isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it's the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it's just another stop on a long and bloody journey. And they still have many miles to go, and victims to sacrifice, before their work is done.For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of victims-women abducted, tortured and left with a seemingly random series of objects inside them-has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological destruction. And she's losing hope of making a breakthrough before that happens.But the murders at the Cooper farmhouse didn't quite go according to plan. There was a survivor, Rowena's ten-year-old daughter Nell, who now holds the key to the killings. Injured, half-frozen, terrified, Nell has only one place to go. And that place could be even more dangerous than what she's running from.In this extraordinary, pulse-pounding debut, Saul Black takes us deep into the mind of a psychopath, and into the troubled heart of the woman determined to stop him.

The Silent Dead


Graham Smith - 2018
    Death in the Lakes is the first book in the series. Set in the Lake District, it is perfect for fans of Joy Ellis, LJ Ross, and Peter James. Detective Beth Young has just joined the Cumbrian major crimes team when a body is found posed in a ritualistic manner – arms spread and graceful wings attached – at a crumbling castle in the hills of the Lake District. The entire police force is on red alert. But Beth begins to feel she’s the only one who can follow the disturbing clues left by the twisted killer. Because she doesn’t think like everyone else. To Beth, crimes are puzzles she can solve. Even if real life is a little harder.As more bodies are discovered in derelict stately homes across the Lake District, Beth knows she’s in a race against time.But the killer is looking for another victim to add to his collection… Will Beth be able to save her? Or will he get there first?

A Clubbable Woman


Reginald Hill - 1970
    After passing out on his bed for five hours, he comes downstairs to discover communication has been cut off forever - by a hole in the middle of her forehead. Down at the club, passions run high, on and off the field. This is a home game for Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel who knows all the players, male and female. But Sergent Peter Pascoe whose loyalties lie with another code has a few ideas of his own. This is the first appearance together on any field for Dalziel and Pascoe, and already we can feel that electricity of opposite but complementary skills which will take them into the topmost division

Sweet Little Lies


Caz Frear - 2017
    But is he a killer? Even liars tell the truth... sometimes.Twenty-six-year-old Cat Kinsella overcame a troubled childhood to become a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police Force, but she's never been able to banish these ghosts. When she's called to the scene of a murder in Islington, not far from the pub her estranged father still runs, she discovers that Alice Lapaine, a young housewife who didn't get out much, has been found strangled.Cat and her team immediately suspect Alice's husband, until she receives a mysterious phone call that links the victim to Maryanne Doyle, a teenage girl who went missing in Ireland eighteen years earlier. The call raises uneasy memories for Cat--her family met Maryanne while on holiday, right before she vanished. Though she was only a child, Cat knew that her charming but dissolute father wasn't telling the truth when he denied knowing anything about Maryanne or her disappearance. Did her father do something to the teenage girl all those years ago? Could he have harmed Alice now? And how can you trust a liar even if he might be telling the truth?Determined to close the two cases, Cat rushes headlong into the investigation, crossing ethical lines and trampling professional codes. But in looking into the past, she might not like what she finds...

The Night She Died


Dorothy Simpson - 1980
    D. James manner” (Kirkus Reviews). Luke Thanet is a British police inspector with a soft heart, bad back, and bloodhound’s nose for murder. When a young woman is found stabbed through the heart with a kitchen knife, Thanet and his partner, the brusque young Mike Lineham, rush to the scene. Julie Holmes lies dead in her front hall, wrapped in her overcoat, her handbag missing. The perpetrator could have been a burglar, a jealous husband, or a spurned lover. But Detective Inspector Thanet never leaps to conclusions, and always takes his time; it seems the key to finding this killer lurks twenty years in the past.   When Julie was a child, she witnessed a murder—a traumatic event so scarring she repressed it entirely. Thanet believes that before she died, Julie’s memory came back—and so did the killer . . .   The first in the series featuring Inspector Thanet, a “most likable policeman,” The Night She Died is a compelling procedural from an acclaimed CWA Silver Dagger winner (Yorkshire Post).   The Night She Died is the 1st book in the Inspector Thanet Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A Poison Tree


J.E. Mayhew - 2020
    A coincidence or a connection?Will Blake is determined to find out, but as he unearths the past, questions are raised about the original investigations and it becomes clear that The Wirral has a killer on the loose once again.Victor Hunt, the father of the last dead girl from the original case, lies in a hospice with weeks to live. The truth lies hidden in Hunt’s tangled family tree, and the actions of his wayward daughter. Time is against Blake and his fractious team. If they don’t get to the root of past crimes, then innocent blood will flow again.A Poison Tree is the first thrilling mystery in the Will Blake crime series. A great read for fans of Luca Veste's and JD Kirk’s Jack Logan series.

Death of a Gossip


M.C. Beaton - 1985
    Much is from the viewpoint of a naive secretary seduced by a blue-blood playboy. Icy blond beauty, aristocratic Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, lends a hand.