Book picks similar to
Secrets of Sant'Angelo by Jeff Shapiro


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Hitler's Judas (Pea Island Gold Trilogy)


Tom Lewis - 2007
    Bormann, possibly the closest man to Adolf Hitler, knows Hitler's insane decision to invade Russia will destroy The Fatherland. Already in a position of enormous power, Bormann forms an intricate plan of escape. But Bormann has no intentions of escaping as a pauper. When the right moment comes, Bormann leaves the doomed Third Reich forever, taking with him 50 million in stolen Nazi gold. His surprising destination is Pea Island, a lonely strip of sand north of Cape Hatteras North Carolina. Will his plan succeed? Populated with exquisite, compelling, and memorable characters who will stay with readers long after the final page is turned, Hitler's Judas introduces a remarkable supporting cast, including Horst Von Hellenbach, Germany's celebrated U-Boat captain who detests war and the Nazi regime and is in terminal conflict with his sworn military duty; Elisabeth Kroll, an impressionable woman unable to choose between Horst or his twin brother Harold, a handsome, respected surgeon and fanatic Nazi; Edda Winter, Bormann's mistress and talented actress who hopes Bormann will be her ticket to Hollywood; Klaus Berger, Germany's most famous thespian, whose very life depends on how well he plays his most difficult role; and Sunday Everette, a stunning young black woman who stands in the way of Bormann and his goal. Resplendent with historical detail, Hitler's Judas is an intricate, moving and extraordinary tale of intrigue, murder, romance and betrayal. This is the second book of the trilogy Pea Island Gold, of which Sunday's Child was the first.

Wildflowers and Kisses: A love story


Jaclyn M. Hawkes - 2014
    Even when she spritzes him with her florist water at their first meeting, Skye is the most refreshing thing that has ever happened to Dr. Gage Garrison. Confident, successful, and seriously disillusioned, when Gage meets Skye one evening at her shop she is like a shot of pure, sweet oxygen to his spirit. So he pesters her until she agrees to go out with him. But later, when he realizes that her dog is a guard dog, that Skye has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and is an expert with a handgun, he begins to wonder what scars she’s hiding behind that beautiful, sweet smile. And what is she so afraid of?

Disappeared


Colin Falconer - 1997
    Spanning two decades, this is a cocktail of love, betrayal, politics and revenge.

Abide With Me


Ian Ayris - 2012
    Eight year old John watches his beloved West Ham win the cup, whilst at the same time, Kenny tumbles out the front door of the house opposite, blood all over his face.Fourteen years later, both boys' childhoods ripped apart in the broken streets of London's East End, John and Kenny find themselves frontin up local gangster, Ronnie Swordfish.John's got a lifetime of hurt to put right - for him and for Kenny.But with John layin on the ground half unconscious and Ronnie with a sword to Kenny's head, whatever way you look at it, it don't look good . . .ABIDE WITH ME is the story of two boys forced to walk blind into the darkness of their shattered lives . . .. . . and their struggle to emerge as men.

Ravenhill (Jackie Shaw, #1)


John Steele - 2017
    He treads a fine line keeping psychotic hard-man Rab Simpson in check while sleeping with gang leader Billy Tyrie’s beautiful wife on the side. When a bomb claims nine lives, he is given the role of the getaway driver in a planned reprisal killing, a key role in a major operation. But Jackie may not be who he seems... Twenty years later, Jackie returns to the city for his father’s funeral after disappearing in mysterious circumstances. He wants to mourn then leave, but when figures from his past emerge, he is left with no choice but to revisit his violent former life. The first in the Jackie Shaw series, RAVENHILL is a gripping début novel from a brilliant new voice in crime fiction. The second in the series, SEVEN SKINS, is coming soon. ‘Tense, unsparing, compassionate and exceptionally well-written, this brilliant thriller brings vividly to life East Belfast in war and peace, its self-appointed community defenders turned brutal predators, and the security forces who struggled to contain them.’ Ruth Dudley Edwards

The True: An enchanting tale for nature lovers


Amanda Marks - 2019
    Coquetdale, Northumberland. 1725. After the final tragedy of an age-old feud, Sam’s mother disappears. His guilt-ridden search brings unexpected adventure and romance. As a fellow of the secret order of ‘The True’, Sam learns to enhance his affinity with nature, and enigmatic links across time are revealed to him in ancient woodlands. 2000. Isolated hill-farmer, Kate, is cautiously attracted to an intriguing stranger brought to her door by endearing runaway, Joe. The man is certainly odd but not disturbing, unlike her stalker. Further down the dale, Kate’s woodsman cousin, Nick, falls in love with a mysterious young woman who arrives with spring and disappears as summer ends. Middle Wood links these seemingly disparate lives separated by centuries, but is that their only connection? Does the answer lie with The True? "A story is never finished until you can read it in the trees"

Griffin: Three Complete Novels


W.E.B. Griffin - 1996
    Three gritty and suspenseful novels from the Badge of Honor series--Men in Blue, Special Operations, and The Victim--appear in an unabridged omnibus edition.

The Botticelli Secret


Marina Fiorato - 2010
    What could possibly be so valuable about the picture? As friends and clients are slaughtered around her, Luciana turns to the one man who has never desired her beauty, novice librarian Brother Guido. Fleeing Venice together, Luciana and Guido race through the nine cities of Renaissance Italy, pursued by ruthless foes who are determined to keep them from decoding the painting's secrets.Gloriously fresh and vivid, with a deliciously irreverent heroine, The Botticelli Secret is an irresistible blend of history, wit, and suspense.

The Gandy Dancer


Jeff Andrews - 2012
    His ex-wife is demanding more money. A woman he can’t even remember accuses him of fathering her child. Newspaper reporter Mitch Corsini shrugs and takes another drink. However, when his estranged teenaged daughter mysteriously disappears, his life finally has a purpose: find the child he's neglected for too long and rekindle the love they once shared. Mitch’s quest takes him to the Virginia mountains and his ancestral home. There, he finds himself locked in a life or death struggle to save his daughter as seventy-year-old family secrets and the fate of a long-forgotten railroad worker combine to shatter the very foundations of his world.

Three Complete Amelia Peabody Mysteries: Crocodile On The Sandbank, The Curse Of The Pharaohs, The Mummy Case


Elizabeth Peters - 1993
    On her travel, she rescues a gentlewoman in distress -- Evelyn Barton-Forbes -- and the two become friends. The two companions continue to Egypt where they face mysteries, mummies and the redoubtable Radcliffe Emerson, and outspoken archaeologist, who doesn't need women to help him solve mysteries - at least that's what he thinks!The Curse of the Pharaohs (Amelia Peabody, Bk 2)One of the best-loved of mystery writers weaves another tale of intrigue featuring Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe of Crocodile on the Sandbank. This time the willful and witty duo must catch a murderer at an excavation of an ancient Egyptian tomb.The Mummy Case (Amelia Peabody, Bk 3)The third in the popular series charting the adventures of Amelia Peabody, this novel follows the Victorian lady sleuth to the "pyramids" of Mazghunah. On her arrival, it seems that the barren area can be of no interest, but a murder in Cairo soon persuades her otherwise.

Antonio's Wife: A Novel


Jacqueline Dejohn - 2004
    A fiery-haired Neapolitan diva with an infamously volatile temperament, Francesca secretly aches with regret for having given up her daughter, Maria Grazia, on the road to stardom, and she has come to America to find her and make amends. By night Francesca appears as Tosca, alternately delighting and tyrannizing the Manhattan Opera House; by day, she and Dante Romano, a detective posing as her lover, search for her daughter, who has reportedly moved to America to find a better life. Francesca and Dante must brave a sordid maze of Black Hand spies, corrupt Tammany Hall police officers, and greedy hooligans to reach Maria Grazia before her cunning and haughty grandfather can spirit her away to Italy and out of her scandalous mother's reach forever.At the opera house, Mina DiGianni, a gentle Italian lace maker from the Lower East Side tenements, becomes Francesca's costume dresser and confidante. Like Francesca, Mina is haunted by her past, and by a secret she's been keeping. Caught between the joyful hope of a new child growing inside her and the painful reality of her husband's abuse and philandering, Mina discovers new possibilities while working for Francesca . . . and is bewildered to find herself falling in love with Dante. When Mina's husband and his mistress betray her, Mina realizes the terrible price her choices have exacted. As Mina and Francesca's worlds intertwine, and then collide in a shocking turn of events, both women face the greatest challenges of their lives: to finally lay their pasts to rest and to embrace the present.

The Book of Air and Shadows


Michael Gruber - 2007
    As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began with a fire in an antiquarian bookstore.A distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death . . . A lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries . . . An encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth . . . The Washington Post called Michael Gruber's previous work "a miracle of intelligent fiction and among the essential novels of recent years." Now comes his most intellectually provocative and compulsively readable novel yet. Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives? These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for four hundred years. In a frantic race from New York to England and Switzerland, Jake finds himself matching wits with a shadowy figure who seems to anticipate his every move. What at first seems like a thrilling puzzle waiting to be deciphered soon turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, where no one—not family, not friends, not lovers—is to be trusted. Moving between twenty-first-century America and seventeenth-century England, The Book of Air and Shadows is a modern thriller that brilliantly re-creates William Shakespeare's life at the turn of the seventeenth century and combines an ingenious and intricately layered plot with a devastating portrait of a contemporary man on the brink of self-discovery . . . or self-destruction.

The Forensic Genealogist Series: The America Ground / The Spyglass File / The Missing Man


Nathan Dylan Goodwin - 2017
    But he is then presented with a case that challenges his research skills in his quest to find the killer of a woman murdered more than one hundred and eighty years ago. Thoughts of his own family history are quickly and violently pushed to one side as Morton rushes to complete his investigation before other sinister elements succeed in derailing the case. The Spyglass File: Morton Farrier was no longer at the top of his game. His forensic genealogy career was faltering and he was refusing to accept any new cases, preferring instead to concentrate on locating his own elusive biological father. Yet, when a particular case presents itself, that of finding the family of a woman abandoned in the midst of the Battle of Britain, Morton is compelled to help her to unravel her past. Using all of his genealogical skills, he soon discovers that the case is connected to The Spyglass File—a secretive document which throws up links which threaten to disturb the wrongdoings of others, who would rather its contents, as well as their actions, remain hidden forever. The Missing Man: It was to be the most important case of Morton Farrier’s career in forensic genealogy so far. A case that had eluded him for many years: finding his own father. Harley ‘Jack’ Jacklin disappeared just six days after a fatal fire at his Cape Cod home on Christmas Eve in 1976, leaving no trace behind. Now his son, Morton must travel to the East Coast of America to unravel the family’s dark secrets in order to discover what happened to him.

The Villa in Italy


Elizabeth Edmondson - 2006
    Delia, an opera singer robbed of her voice by illness; George, an idealistic scientist who cannot face what his skills have created; Marjorie, desperately poor and unable to dislodge her writer’s block; and Lucius, ostensibly in control but whose personal life is in chaos. All are summoned to the Villa Dante, home of the late Beatrice Malaspina. But who was she?While they wait to find out, the villa begins to work its seductive magic. With its faded frescoes, overgrown garden and magnificent mediaeval tower, it is unlike anywhere they have been before. Slowly, four characters who have gone to great lengths to hide their troubles find that change – and even hope – is possible after all. But the mysterious Beatrice has a devastating secret to reveal that will affect them all…A beautiful evocation of Italy in the aftermath of World War Two, the personal consequences of living through such a time, and a celebration of humankind’s ability to heal and learn to love again, this most absorbing novel will win Elizabeth Edmondson a host of new fans.

For Tucker


David Johnson - 2012
    So this edition is currently unavailable. You can find this story in a newer edition combined into one story. Look for a Tucker's Way edition that includes this (about 350 pages).Our heroine returns in book two to face new crises.Her daughter, Maisy, decides to try and extort money from the father of her daughter, April. Maisy miscalculates how he will react to her demands. When she threatens a paternity suit against him, he murders Maisy and unwittingly disposes of her body in the same area that Tucker disposed of her murdered father over thirty years ago.Tucker’s limited life skills are put to the test as she experiences grief for the very first time and tries to help her grandchildren deal with the death of their mother. The only friend Tucker has ever had, Ella, reaches out to comfort Tucker in her grief.While Tucker is searching through Maisy's effects, she finds an envelope with the words "For Tucker" on the outside. Inside she finds a letter naming the fathers of Maisy’s children.But the murderer seems to have an airtight alibi.