Book picks similar to
Personal Protection by Stephen Leather


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While You Walked By


Regina Felty - 2020
    A FINALIST and highly recommended!’ The Wishing Shelf Book AwardsA young homeless boy. An old man who had lost everything. An unlikely friendship that brought healing to both.Ben doesn’t know what to think when a homeless boy shows up late one night behind Angelo’s Bakery where he works as a handyman. He’d seen his share of suffering humanity on the streets of Philadelphia, but there was something about this boy—so young, so vulnerable. Pushing sixty and feeling as if his life has no purpose, Ben struggles with his own problems. A recovering alcoholic, he is gripped with remorse over the loss of his wife and son, but determined to stay sober. Twelve-year-old Aden starts to run when an old man comes out of Angelo’s Bakery and catches him hiding, but something about the man draws Aden to him. Terrified and naive to life on the streets, Aden was forced to forge his own survival in the face of dangerous predators and violence after his mother abandoned him almost a year ago. Can Aden trust the gentle old man who offers him food and a hand of friendship? Will Ben be able to forgive himself and look for his son? While You Walked By delivers a heartfelt, coming-of-age story about the hope that can be found even in the most desperate circumstances.

Drowning With Others


Linda Keir - 2019
    Did one of them kill to get it?Prep school sweethearts Ian and Andi Copeland are envied by everyone they know. They have successful businesses, a beautiful house in St. Louis, and their eldest daughter, Cassidy, is following in their footsteps by attending prestigious Glenlake Academy. Then, a submerged car is dredged from the bottom of a swimming hole near the campus. So are the remains of a former writer-in-residence who vanished twenty years ago—during Ian and Andi’s senior year.When Cassidy’s journalism class begins investigating the death, Ian and Andi’s high school secrets rise to the surface. Each has a troubled link to the man whose arrival and sudden disappearance once set the school on edge. And each had a reason to want him gone. As Cassidy unwittingly edges closer to the truth, unspoken words, locked away for decades, will force Ian and Andi to question what they really know—about themselves, about the past, and about a marriage built on a murderous lie.

The Razor's Edge


David Leadbeater - 2013
    It will take all their skills and courage to find her, and the hunt pushes each of them further than they are prepared to go. Refusing to give up on the young mother, they are eventually thrown into a vicious confrontation with Oleg Roth, an ex MMA champion, now head of the brutal Polish mob.Join Trent, Silk and Radford as they 'finesse' their way through the decadent underbelly of Las Vegas, and infiltrate Roth's horrifying secret world. Fight alongside them as they champion the vulnerable and wage war against the criminal elite.

Dark Operator


Doc Spears - 2020
    Tasked with performing covert missions, its kill teams are filled with the best warriors from within the ranks of the Legion.Kel Turner is one of the youngest legionnaires ever to be selected to its ranks. After many battles and trials, he is faced with the greatest challenge of his life - operating by himself on a remote planet at the galaxy’s edge, a foot soldier for the policies of the duplicitous House of Reason, tasked with solving a crisis that would take ten kill teams to resolve.Diplomats, spies, shadowy terrorist groups, and an enigmatic general work with and against Kel as he fights to save a society from itself. What can one operator do alone, separated from his kill team, fighting a war that has no name?This lone operator doesn’t know what it will take to win. He only knows he’s not going to lose.

The Final Detail / Just One Look


Harlan Coben
    

Mistress


James Patterson - 2013
    Ben isn't like most people. Unable to control his racing thoughts, he's a man consumed by his obsessions: movies, motorcycles, presidential trivia-and Diana Hotchkiss, a beautiful woman Ben knows he can never have. When Diana is found dead outside her apartment, Ben's infatuation drives him on a hunt to find out what happened to the love of his life. Ben soon discovers that the woman he pined for was hiding a shocking double life. And now someone is out to stop Ben from uncovering the truth about Diana's illicit affairs. In his most heart-pumping thriller yet, James Patterson plunges us into the depths of a mind tortured by paranoia and obsession, on an action-packed chase through a world of danger and deceit.

Proportionate Response


Dave Buschi - 2012
    The more Marks and Lip discover, the more they realize this has been going on for some time. And it’s ugly.

Shocking True Story


Gregg Olsen - 2013
    How else can he keep his wife Valerie’s roots dyed and keep himself from handing out taco samples at the local supermarket? When Kevin isn’t Googling himself or spot checking his books’ stock at stores around the country or online, he’s bringing the hazards (ie, criminals and other crazies) of his job home to wife Val and twin daughters Taylor and Hayley. Kevin is on the hunt for the big one, the story that could break him out of the mid-list and onto the bestseller lists. And then there’s a knock at the door--a story finds him… A distraught 20-year old Jett Carter shows up at the Ryan house because her mother and sister are imprisoned—perhaps if Kevin writes their story and reveals the truth, he might help exonerate them. The Carters’ tale is the perfect white-trash-attempted-murder-love-triangle that Kevin’s editor will love and his fans will devour. He begins to write “Love You to Death.” Then on a beautiful summer day, the wheels of homicide are set in motion and Kevin’s own story begins to eclipse the crime he is chronicling. When his #1 fan is murdered and another body turns up, the Ryans’ life in Port Gamble and all that Kevin holds dear is in jeopardy. Somewhere in “Love You to Death” and within the “bunch of low rent losers” he’s interviewing is the killer. PRAISE for Shocking True Story: Bestselling crime writer Gregg Olsen's tour-de-force entwines narratives in hypnotic fashion. A uniquely riveting drama, an emotional roller-coaster, SHOCKING TRUE STORY erases all lines between truth and fiction. A spell-binding must-read! Julia Spencer-Fleming, Edgar finalist and author of I SHALL NOT WANT A lovingly detailed, hilarious descent into the dark heart of the Real America, Gregg Olsen’s Shocking True Story picks up where the supermarket tabloids and daytime TV leave off. But somehow, his grotesque and driven characters end up beyond laughter: endearing, recognizable, as deadly as a knife in the throat. A funny, frightening, very moving book. Marc Lecard, author of the acclaimed VINNIE'S HEAD and TINY LITTLE TROUBLES SHOCKING TRUE STORY is a sly, seductive thriller that grips you from the first page and refuses to let go. Gregg Olsen is a natural born storyteller with a flair for dead-on dialogue and laugh-out-loud satire. Jason Starr author of THE FOLLOWER With his keen eye and ear for how real people live today, Gregg Olsen manages to be simultaneously wickedly funny and good-hearted. SHOCKING TRUE STORY is a very witty, cleverly-constructed novel and absolutely delicious read. Kathrine “KK” Beck, novelist and two-time Edgar nominee Olsen’s unique voice propels this humorous exploration of some truly quirky lives, deaths and excuses. Gregg’s talent is not only making the reader laugh-out-loud, but hooking us into the story and having us care deeply about the characters as the absurd unfolds. Toni McGee Causey, author of Bobby Faye’s Very, Very, Very Bad Day

Jungle Kill


Jim Eldridge - 2010
    But when he is approached by an undercover unit embarking on a dangerous mission, he must make a choice. The mission is to rescue a West African freedom fighter, kidnapped by a gang of ruthless bandits who will stop at nothing to get what they want. The squad is the elite Black-Ops soldiers—Gaz, Two Moons, Tug, Benny, and Nelson—with the codename Delta Unit. Is Mitch the right man for the job? Can he secure the trust of the five men, and step back into the danger zone?

Just Another Job


Brett Battles - 2011
    Not everyone who gets shot is supposed to be shot.And those who are shot don’t always die right away.It’s not Quinn’s job to kill people, but it is his job to clean them up.Sometimes, though, they’re not quite ready to go.A night in the life of someone who works it the shadows, JUST ANOTHER JOB is a three thousand word, short story that features a young Jonathan Quinn, protagonist of the award winning Jonathan Quinn Thriller series.

The Fallen


Mike Ryan - 2018
    He’s honest, hardworking, and intent on bringing down a major criminal organization. But he's soon going to have his limits tested. After he finishes an undercover assignment, resulting in the arrest of a major crime boss, he’ll find out just how dirty the bad guys play. His world comes crashing down after an unspeakable tragedy, leaving Jacobs virtually despondent and wondering about his role in the unthinkable act. Jacobs soon realizes that in order to beat a low-life criminal organization like this, he has to fight fire with fire. Will he really throw his badge away and become a one man wrecking crew? Or will he try to get retribution within the confines of the law? One thing’s for certain, the men he’s going up against have severely underestimated the lengths that he’ll go to. And he’ll stop at nothing in order to extract his revenge.

SEAL Team Seven


Keith Douglass - 1994
    Their cargo includes two tons of weapons-grade plutonium. And now, with enough nuke fuel to arm a superpower, an alliance of fanatics threatens to poison a continent. In a daring mission of high-seas heroism, Lt. Blake Murdock leads his seven-man unit from Team Seven's Red Squad into bulkhead-to-bulkhead battle -- with high-tech buccaneers who've got nothing left to lose...

Open House


Katie Sise - 2020
    A town still held in the grip of an unsolved mystery. A breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by the bestselling author of We Were Mothers.A decade ago in upstate New York, art student Emma McCullough walked into the woods and was never seen again. It’s a mystery that still haunts her bucolic university town and her broken family, especially her sister Haley, whose need for closure has become an obsession. But now, finally, the first piece of evidence in the vanishing has been found: Emma’s bracelet, lodged in a frozen piece of earth at the bottom of a gorge. For Emma’s three best college friends, for a beloved former teacher, and for Haley, the chilling trinket is more than a clue in a resurrected cold case. It’s a trigger.Then a woman is attacked during an open house, and the connections between the two crimes, ten winters apart, begin to surface. So do the secrets that run as deep and dark as the currents in this quiet river town.

The Night Shift


Robert Enright - 2016
    A ROGUE SOLDIER. A RELENTLESS HUNT FOR THE TRUTH.Sam Pope was one of the UK’s finest soldiers, serving over a decade as an elite sniper. After a near fatal shooting brings an end to his career, Sam returns home to his family and a potential new career in the Metropolitan Police. When disaster strikes and his bond with his family is broken, Sam takes a job as an archive officer within the Met, hunting down criminals that have beaten the system and delivering his own brand of justice.When a terrorist attack at the London Marathon shakes the city to its core, Sam decides to open his own line of investigation. Venturing into the world of organised crime and police corruption, Sam soon finds himself as the number one target…and faces a race against time to expose the truth.Fans of Lee Child, Mark Dawson, Robert Ludlum and Vince Flynn who are looking for their next action hero, will be thrilled by The Night Shift.

Walk Into Silence


Susan McBride - 2016
    Did she simply run off, or is something darker at play?When Patrick Dielman shows up at Detective Jo Larsen’s desk insisting that his wife, Jenny, is missing, Jo wonders if it’s a case of a bored housewife running away.But as she digs deeper into Jenny’s life, Jo learns that Dielman keeps a stranglehold on the family finances, down to the last nickel, and that Jenny’s first marriage dissolved following the death of her young son. By all accounts—including her doctor’s—she never recovered from the loss. Between a controlling husband, a tragic past, and a callous ex-husband, Jo can’t be sure if she should suspect foul play or accept that the woman may have wanted to disappear.For Jo, whose own demons are shadowing her every step, finding Jenny becomes more than the typical protect-and-serve.