Book picks similar to
Palm Beach Nasty by Tom Turner
mystery
fiction
crime
thriller
Cross Her Heart
Melinda Leigh - 2020
There’s just one chilling difference. Erin’s husband, Justin, has vanished.Bree knows how explosive the line between love and hate can be, yet the evidence against her troubled brother-in-law isn’t adding up. Teaming up with Justin’s old friend, former sheriff’s investigator and K-9 handler Matt Flynn, Bree vows to uncover the secrets of her sister’s life and death, as she promised Erin’s children. But as her investigation unfolds, the danger hits close to home. Once again, Bree’s family is caught in a death grip. And this time, it could be fatal for her.
The Missing Ones
Patricia Gibney - 2017
A white flour bag encased the little body. Three small faces watched from the window, eyes black with terror. The child in the middle spoke without turning his head. I wonder which one of us will be next?When a woman’s body is discovered in a cathedral and hours later a young man is found hanging from a tree outside his home, Detective Lottie Parker is called in to lead the investigation. Both bodies have the same distinctive tattoo clumsily inscribed on their legs. It’s clear the pair are connected, but how? The trail leads Lottie to St. Angela’s, a former children’s home, with a dark connection to her own family history. Suddenly the case just got personal. As Lottie begins to link the current victims to unsolved murders decades old, two teenage boys go missing. She must close in on the killer before they strike again, but in doing so is she putting her own children in terrifying danger? Lottie is about to come face to face with a twisted soul who has a very warped idea of justice. Fans of Rachel Abbott, Karin Slaughter and Robert Dugoni will be gripped by this page-turning serial killer thriller, guaranteed to keep you reading late into the night.
Multiple Motives
Kassandra Lamb - 2011
so far. Now a killer with a mysterious grudge against her and her closest friend, lawyer Rob Franklin, is threatening everyone and everything that she holds dear.When the detective assigned to their case decides they are lovers and the attacks against them and their families are veiled attempts to rid themselves of their spouses, Kate and Rob are forced to investigate on their own. Can they identify their mutual enemy, before he or she kills again?
Thin Air
Lisa Gray - 2019
But after receiving a photo of a three-year-old kidnapped from Los Angeles twenty-five years ago, Jessica is stunned to recognize the little girl as herself.Eager for answers, Jessica heads to LA's dark underbelly. When she learns that her biological mother was killed the night she was abducted, Jessica's determined to solve a case the police have forgotten. Meanwhile, veteran LAPD detective Jason Pryce is in the midst of a gruesome investigation into a murdered college student moonlighting as a prostitute. A chance encounter leads to them crossing paths, but Jessica soon realizes that Pryce is hiding something about her father's checkered history and her mother's death.To solve her mother's murder and her own disappearance, Jessica must dig into the past and find the secrets buried there. But the air gets thinner as she crawls closer to the truth, and it's getting harder and harder to breathe.
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.
Rage Against the Dying
Becky Masterman - 2012
Small and blond, from a distance she looked vulnerable and slight. . . the perfect bait to catch a killer. But as Quinn got older, she realised she needed to find a protegee, a younger field agent to take her place. So Quinn trains a twenty-two year old and lets her loose in the field. The plan works. Until the Route 66 killer not only takes the bait, but kills the bait too.Years on, Quinn is trying to move past the fact that she has a young woman's death on her conscience. She's now the perfect Stepford Wife - until she gets a knock on her door. The girl's body has finally been discovered. Quinn is pulled back into the case and the more she learns about the killer the more she comes to believe, despite the overwhelming forensic evidence to hand, that they have the wrong man.
Shakespeare's Landlord
Charlaine Harris - 1996
Lily Bard came to the small town of Shakespeare to escape her dark and violent past. Other than the day-to-day workings of her cleaning and errand-running service, she pays little attention to the town around her. So when she spots a dead body being dumped in the town green, she's inclined to stay well away. But she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and despite her best efforts, she's dragged into the murder case. Lily doesn't care who did it, but when the police and local community start pointing fingers in her direction, she realizes that proving her innocence will depend on finding the real killer in quiet, secretive Shakespeare.Shakespeare's Landlord is the first book in Charlaine Harris's Lily Bard mysterious series.
Unleashed
Emily Kimelman - 2011
This left him unconscious on the floor of my home. Amazingly, this bullet did not kill him. Ten years ago I adopted Blue as a present to myself after I broke up with my boyfriend one hot, early summer night with the windows open and the neighborhood listening. The next morning I went straight to the pound in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Articles on buying your first dog tell you never to buy a dog on impulse. They want you to be prepared for this new member of your family, to understand the responsibilities and challenges of owning a dog. Going to the pound because you need something in your life that's worth holding onto is rarely, if ever, mentioned. I asked the man at the pound to show me the biggest dogs they had. He showed me some seven-week-old Rottweiler-German shepherd puppies that he said would grow to be quite large. Then he showed me a six-month-old shepherd that would get pretty big. Then he showed me Blue, the largest dog they had. The man called him a Collie mix and he was stuffed into the biggest cage they had, but he didn't fit. He was as tall as a Great Dane but much skinnier, with the snout of a collie, the markings of a Siberian husky, the ears and tail of a shepherd and the body of a wolf, with one blue eye and one brown. Crouched in a sitting position, unable to lie down, unable to sit all the way up, he looked at me from between the bars, and I fell in love. "He's still underweight," the man in the blue scrubs told me as we looked at Blue. "I'll tell you, lady, he's pretty but he's skittish. He sheds, and I mean sheds. I don't think you want this dog." But I knew I wanted him. I knew I had to have him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Blue cost me $108. I brought him home, and we lived together for years. He was, for most of our relationship, my only companion. But when I first met Blue, a lifetime ago now, I had family and friends. I worked at a crappy coffeehouse. I was young and lost; I was normal. Back then, at the beginning of this story, before I'd ever seen a corpse, before Blue saved my life, before I felt what it was like to kill someone in cold blood, I was still Joy Humbolt.I'd never even heard the name Sydney Rye.P.S. The dog does not die.**Beware: If you can’t handle a few f-bombs, you can’t handle this series.**
The House of Closed Doors
Jane Steen - 2012
Yet Nell is determined to elude the duties and restrictions of matrimony. So when she finds herself pregnant at the age of 17, she refuses to divulge the name of the father and even her childhood friend Martin is kept in the dark.Nell's stepfather Hiram sends Nell to live at the Poor Farm of which he is a governor, to await the day when her baby can be discreetly adopted. Nell is ready to go along with Hiram's plans until an unused padded cell is opened and two small bodies fall out.Nell is the only resident of the Poor Farm who is convinced that the unwed mother and her baby were murdered, and the incident prompts her to rethink her decision to abandon her own child to her fate. But the revelations to which her questions lead make her realize that even if she manages to escape the Poor Farm with her baby, she may have no safe place to run to.
Hazardous Duty
Christy Barritt - 2006
Claire dropped out of school and started her own crime scene cleaning business. Now, when a routine cleaning job leads her to a murder weapon the police overlooked, she realizes that the wrong man is in jail. With the help of her new and attractively single neighbor, Riley Thomas, Gabby plays the detective to make sure the right man is put behind bars.
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!
Played to Death
B.V. Lawson - 2014
When a former client bequeaths Drayco a rundown Opera House in a Virginia seaside town, he figures he'll arrange for a quick sale of the place while nursing his battered soul in a peaceful setting near the shore. What he doesn't count on is finding a dead body on the Opera House stage with a mysterious "G" carved into the man's chest. With hopes for a quick sale dashed and himself a suspect in the murder, Drayco digs into very old and very dangerous secrets to solve the crime and clear his name. Along the way, Drayco must dodge a wary sheriff, hostility over coastal development, and the seductive wife of a town councilman - before the tensions explode into more violence and he becomes the next victim. Want to read a Scott Drayco novella for FREE? Sign up for BV’s Mysteries in Crimetime newsletter at bvlawson.com and receive a FREE copy of "The Maltese Moon Rock"! Scott Drayco Thrillers in order: PLAYED TO DEATH (A Shamus Award Finalist and Best Mystery, Next Generation Book Awards) REQUIEM FOR INNOCENCE DIES IRAE ELEGY IN SCARLET
The Hot Rock
Donald E. Westlake - 1970
Here, the released convict and his ride pal Kelp plot to steal the $500,000 Balaboma Emerald. The former British colony has recently become independent and split. The Akinzi have the stone, the Talabwo want it back, and their UN rep will pay for retrieval.
The Last Move
Mary Burton - 2017
The only difference this time: she’s the final victim.Catching monsters helps FBI agent Kate Hayden keep her nightmares at bay. Now an urgent call brings her back to San Antonio, the scene of her violent past. A brutal new murder shows hallmarks of a serial killer nicknamed the Samaritan. Tricky part is, Kate already caught him.Either Kate made a deadly error, or she’s got a copycat on her hands. Paired with homicide detective Theo Mazur, she quickly realizes this murder is more twisted than it first appeared. Then a second body is found, the mode of death identical to a different case that Kate thought she’d put behind her.Now Kate and Detective Mazur aren’t just working a homicide; the investigative pair is facing a formidable enemy who knows Kate intimately. While Mazur is personally trying to protect Kate, the closer they are drawn to the killer, the clearer it becomes that in this terrifying game, there is only one rule: don’t believe everything you see…