The Dead Key


D.M. Pulley - 2015
    In the confusion that followed, the keys to the vault’s safe-deposit boxes were lost.In the years since, Cleveland’s wealthy businessmen kept the truth buried in the abandoned high-rise. The ransacked offices and forgotten safe-deposit boxes remain locked in time, until young engineer Iris Latch stumbles upon them during a renovation survey. What begins as a welcome break from her cubicle becomes an obsession as Iris unravels the bank’s sordid past. With each haunting revelation, Iris follows the looming shadow of the past deeper into the vault—and soon realizes that the key to the mystery comes at an astonishing price.

Plain Jane: Brunettes Beware


Cristyn West - 2010
    A Patterson-style thriller with a dash of Hannibal...A city paralyzed by a serial killer stalking the night, taking a most gruesome trophy.The only standing in the murderer's way is an FBI profiler...recently released from a mental institution.Plain Jane combines the swift action of Patterson with the macabre of Harris.Just remember to keep the lights on when reading this one!

Quinn Checks In


L.H. Thomson - 2012
    A missing Dutch master. A thrilling whodunit...Liam Quinn has a second chance. Released after four years in prison for art forgery, a connection helps him get a job as an expert insurance investigator. But a gallery robbery is about to throw his new plans for a loop...Quinn is a good man who has made mistakes. His large Irish American family are leery of his past, and having two police officers in the family doesn't help. The entire department mistrusts him, and half the town wants his head.His chance for retribution rests on recovering a multi-million-dollar missing painting... if the local mob doesn't kill him first.Wit, action and backstory... what more could you want?" -- J. Michael Orenduff, author of "The Pot Thief" mysteries.More than 500,000 readers have already discovered the entire series of Liam Quinn mysteries!

The Forgotten Girls


Alexa Steele - 2014
    That doesn’t happen in Greenvale, with its immaculate lawns, exclusive yacht clubs and multi-million dollar mansions. But behind its perfect façade, its trimmed hedges and luxury cars, a darkness lies. Girls, dependent on Adderall, outmaneuver each other to get into top colleges, while the mothers’ need to live vicariously only makes it worse. Bella DeFranco is one of the Bronx’s top SVU detectives. At only 37, she disarms everyone with her stunning good looks, yet she is as tough as most men—and a lot smarter, too. Yet when is summoned to Greenvale, she finds herself getting lost in a case that even she can’t comprehend. She stumbles into a land of secrets, a place where husbands hide their pasts from their wives, where friends are not what they seem, and where no one wants to know too much. As she digs deeper into layers of suburban dysfunction, she comes to learn that, behind all the fake smiles, there is a subtle violence--rivaling even her crime-ridden streets of the Bronx. With a killer on the loose, time running out, and a new partner who never recovered from his washed-up alcoholic days, the odds are stacked against Bella. She is determined, though, to save these girls, whatever the cost. Yet as she gets close, the depth of psychosis she discovers shocks even her….

Invitation to Die


Julian Starr - 2015
    The second was discovered by a child in a Swan Boat Ride. As fear intensifies, Hunter, the head of the FBI Behavioral Unit, calls his star criminal profiler, Tracy Wrenn, to help on the case. Even though she had plans to become engaged that evening, Tracy quickly cancels her plans and rushes to Boston to help. A beautiful, young professor of criminal psychology, Tracy has become renowned for her success at cracking cases no one else can. With her unusual insights and unique point of view, she is relentless at probing the inner minds of murderers. When a third woman goes missing, and when Tracy finds herself in danger, everything intensifies. In a shocking turn of events, Tracy finds out more not only about the killer, but about herself--and learns that nothing is what is seems. Book #2 in The Killing Game will be released soon.

Literally Dead


Eryn Scott - 2017
    Literally. While the detectives focus on crime scene forensics, Pepper can’t ignore the Shakespearian clues left by the killer.With the help of a handsome library clerk, a dog named Hamburger, and The Bard himself, this unlikely sleuth might just close the book on this case.

Cicada Spring


Christian Galacar - 2015
    . .On a warm May evening in the spring of 1979, the people of Heartsridge, Massachusetts, are living the American dream. Families are gathered for barbecues. Kids are playing in front yards. Gardens are being kept. Meanwhile, Kara Price stumbles home through the woods, raped and beaten, her life shattered by a wicked act of violence, perpetrated by one of the town’s most beloved and public figures. Surrounding Kara is a cast of compelling and nefarious characters—a violent-tempered mayor who can do no wrong in the eyes of the town, a sheriff bound by the rules and plagued by a guilty conscience, a father bent on revenge, a serial killer in the midst of an identity crisis. And at the center of it all there's Kara, who just wants to move on with her life and forget everything that happened to her. But how can she do that when everyone thinks she is a liar who is only out for attention? With plot and emotion braided together by a careful hand, this haunted group of people all acting on behalf of their own interests begs the question: How far would you go to protect your own?

Raining Men and Corpses


Anne R. Tan - 2014
    Raina Sun is a typical graduate student trying to keep her head above water as the bills roll in from a lawsuit disputing an inheritance from her dysfunctional family. Then her dashing college adviser cons her out of several months of rent. Her quest to get her money back sets into motion a streak of bad luck. First, she finds the dead body of an ex-lover and becomes the prime suspect to his murder. The only man she ever loved reappears as the lead detective to the case and wants to reignite their passion (or at least he’s sending out smoke signals). Her life careens out of control as her best friend does whatever it takes to get the inside scoop for the town’s newspaper. And her grandma moves into Raina’s postage-stamp-sized apartment, dragging a red suitcase and trouble. The family secret Raina has been running away from is now staring at her across the dining room table every morning.Raina must figure out how to extract herself before things get dicey. There is no place for an amateur when it comes to murder. The eclectic cast of characters in this amateur sleuth mystery will have you scratching your head and laughing until the end.

Follow the Crow


B.B. Griffith - 2014
    Six years ago his little sister Ana vanished without a trace. His best friend saw what happened, but he refuses to speak of what he knows, and so was banished from the Navajo tribe. That was the day the crows started following Ben. Caroline Adams is a nurse with a special talent: she sees things others can’t see. She knows that Ben is more than he seems, and that the crows are trying to tell him something. What the crows know will shed new light on the mystery of Ana’s disappearance, and throw Ben and Caroline into a race against time to find out what happened before they end up vanishing just like she did.

Backwater Bay


Steven Becker - 2018
    He’s not looking for the spotlight or notoriety—he’s had both with disastrous results. But that seems unavoidable as the trail leads him to South Beach and his introduction to the culture there is anything but comfortable. In the National Parks Service’s version of the witness protection program, Kurt quickly finds out that the pristine waters surrounding Miami are very different from the National Forest he transferred from. Follow Kurt through this new world as he unearths a crooked families greed to solve the case.

Death Will Get You Sober


Elizabeth Zelvin - 2008
    He knows it's time to change his life, but how can he stay sober without dying of boredom?When homeless alcoholics start to die unexpectedly, Bruce is surprised to find he cares enough to want to find out why. Most of them had been down and out for many years, but Bruce's friend Guff was different: a cynical aristocrat with a trust fund and some secrets.Two old friends give Bruce a second chance and agree to help him with his investigation: his best friend, Jimmy, a computer genius and history buff who's been in AA for years, and Jimmy's girlfriend Barbara, a counselor who sometimes crosses the line between helping and codependency.Barbara works a night shift at the detox and confronts a counselor who might still be dealing drugs. Bruce gets a job temping for Guff's arrogant nephew. Between the three of them, suspects start piling up. The trail leads back to the detox. Or does it?In Death Will Get You Sober, Bruce discovers that the church basements of AA are a small world in the big city of New York. As he grapples with staying sober, he finds that not drinking is only the beginning of coming back to life—a life he finds he wants to keep when it's threatened by a killer.Debut author Elizabeth Zelvin has used her expertise as an addiction councilor to pen a riveting mystery filled with memorable, realistic characters who are as flawed as they are heroic.

Pink Balloons and Other Deadly Things


Nancy Tesler - 1997
    Through it all she's got to stand by while her estranged husband flaunts his new, young, gorgeous fiancée, Erica. When Erica turns up dead, Carrie -- the jealous ex-wife -- becomes a prime suspect. But while Carrie certainly wished her replacement dead, she can't quite convince the police that she didn't actually do it. Now the suburban single mom is on the run, finding out shocking secrets about her ex, her friends, and even her patients -- as a killer visualizes her...

Hunt Them Down


Simon Gervais - 2019
    Will his daughter pay the price?Former Army Ranger Pierce Hunt is no stranger to violence. Fresh off a six-month suspension, he’s itching to hit a notorious Mexican drug cartel where it hurts, even if that means protecting crime boss Vicente Garcia, a witness in the case against sadistic cartel leader Valentina Mieles. But things spiral out of control when the cartel murders Garcia and kidnaps his granddaughter and an innocent bystander, Hunt’s own teenage daughter.Mieles wants the new head of the Garcia family on a plate—literally. Hunt has seventy-two hours to deliver, or Mieles will execute the girls live on social media. With the clock ticking, Hunt goes off the grid and teams up with Garcia’s daughter, a former lover and current enemy. To save the girls, Hunt will have to become a man he swore he’d never be again: an avenging killer without limits or mercy.

Strong Spirits


Alice Duncan - 2003
    Kincaid comes to Daisy to help solve her husband's disappearance, Detective Sam Rotondo isn't far behind.Sam isn't fooled by Daisy's choice of "vocation" and blackmails her into spying on the Kincaids.Then Daisy reads Sam's cards... and the tables turn.

Designer Dirty Laundry: A Samantha Kidd Mystery


Diane Vallere - 2012
    She wasn't prepared for it to turn deadly.​Ready to redesign her life, style expert Samantha Kidd accepts a job in her Pennsylvania hometown as a trend specialist. But her first day goes completely A-line when she stumbles across her legendary boss dead in the elevator. And after the body disappears, she can't help but pull on the mystery's thread and unravel an entire wardrobe of suspects.​Supervising her deceased employer's vogue competition, Samantha tries to hem in a sexy shoe designer and countless ego-driven creatives to stitch together the clues. But when her own name appears on the police's suspect list, the sleuthing fashionista's days on the catwalk could be numbered.​Can Samantha put a killer in the spotlight before she's sewn up for a crime she didn't commit?​Designer Dirty Laundry is the first book in the feel-good Samantha Kidd mystery series. If you like witty protagonists, clever dialogue, and fashion-forward drama, then you'll love Diane Vallere's chic story.