Book picks similar to
Free to Scream (Katie Freeman Mysteries Book 6) by Julie Mellon
mystery-thriller-read
police-fbi-thriller
shelved
wanted
Strange Beginnings: The Freeman Files Series: Book 13
Ted Tayler - 2021
The DI Tremayne Thriller Series: Books 1 - 6: The Complete Series
Phillip Strang - 2018
Six Edge of Your Seat Thrillers. Six Books at a Discounted Price.
Death Unholy (Book 1) - All that remained were the man’s two legs and a chair full of greasy and fetid ash. Little did DI Keith Tremayne know that it was the beginning of a trip into the murky world of paganism and its ancient rituals.
‘Do you believe in spontaneous human combustion?’ Inspector Tremayne asked his sergeant, Clare Yarwood.
Death and the Assassin’s Blade (Book 2) - It was meant to be high drama, not murder, but someone’s switched the daggers. The man’s death, in plain view of two serving police officers.
A summer’s night, a production of Julius Caesar among the ruins of an Anglo-Saxon fort. The assassination scene, the man collapses to the ground, Brutus defending his actions, Mark Antony’s rebuke. Death and the Lucky Man (Book 3) - Sixty-eight million pounds and DEAD! Someone had once told Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne that some people were lucky and some weren’t. Tremayne knew only one thing: the man lying dead in a pool of blood had qualified on the lucky after winning the lottery, but now his luck had run out. Death at Coombe Farm (Book 4) – A warring family. A disputed inheritance. A recipe for death! If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne would have said the view was outstanding. Up high, overlooking the farmhouse in the valley below, the panoramic vista of Salisbury Plain stretching out beyond. The only problem was that near where he stood with his sergeant, Clare Yarwood, there was a body, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. Tremayne had never been keen on farms, and especially horses, although Clare loved them. Tremayne assumed she wouldn’t be so fond of the one that trampled Claude Selwood to death. Death by a Dead Man’s Hand (Book 5) - A murdered brother. A missing treasure trove of stolen gold bars. A family dying in the hunt for it.! Ethan Mitchell knew the exact amount of time since his arrest for murder: eighteen years, five months and three days. After so long in prison, many things confused him on his release, but one thing he was sure of was that people do not come back from the dead. However, one month before his release from prison for the murder of a man, he had received a letter. It had only two sentences. Time will not save you. St Mark’s Church, three in the afternoon, the first Wednesday after your release. He had recognised the writing. After all, hadn’t they grown up together. The signature was unmistakable: it was his brother Martin’s. But that’s not possible, Mitchell thought. I killed him, spent seventeen years in prison for his murder. A voice echoed through the church; Ethan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. ‘Martin, it can’t be,’ Ethan said. ‘You’re dead. I killed you.’ At ten feet from Ethan the man reached into his right-hand jacket pocket. He levelled the gun that he taken removed and emptied three bullets into Ethan, the noise echoing around the church. Death in the Village (Book 6) - A woman with a venomous tongue, dead and hanging from a beam in her garage! Nobody was sad that the woman was dead, and she’s not the last to die. DI Tremayne sees a pattern developing, which can only mean one thing – more deaths.
Justice Series Box Set #13-15
M.A. Comley - 2018
Digging into the victim's past leads Lorne across the county border to team up with an old friend, DI Sally Parker. What they reveal is mind-blowing. Grown men are terrified, too terrified to speak out. So how will Lorne and Sally bring the culprit to Justice? Determination and putting their lives on the line will be the key to solving this case. Prime Justice A killer, an abductor, and a villain intent on revenge. Just a normal day in the life of intrepid policewoman DI Lorne Warner. A rural idyll should be everyone's idea of paradise, it is... until a murderer strikes. The mystifying case, situated on Lorne's doorstep is about to intensify when an abduction occurs in the same vicinity. Are the two cases connected? Lorne's world is about to come to a grinding halt when a recent adversary threatens her career. Will Lorne succeed in restoring the tranquillity to a sleepy community? More importantly will she still have a job at the end of the investigation? Heroic Justice (a joint investigation between DI Lorne Warner and DI Hero Nelson) One killer. Several gruesome murders... Two hundred miles apart! A complex issue that will take two exceptional detectives to solve. Who is targeting his victims in public places? What is his motive? Lorne is prepared to lose sleep and to travel the length of the country searching for clues. But the killer is canny... ups his game with devastating consequences. Lorne shakes her head in confusion when the truth is revealed...
Tic Tac Toe
Emmy Ellis - 2020
Noughts and crosses should be innocent enough, but the American title brings a sinister slant… The state of the bodies is nothing but macabre, sickening. What do the clues mean? Forehead carvings. Drawing pins. A body part snipped off. The game grid has nine boxes for nine bodies, but someone else ruins Zac’s plan, meaning he has a spare box to fill. Who does he choose? And can Bethany ever get over the discovery of that victim? With some corpses discovered en masse, it might be time to call in DI Tracy Collier from Serious Crimes but, as usual, Bethany is determined her team will solve this, and she’ll do everything she can to make it happen.
The Dark Yorkshire Series #4-6
J.M. Dalgliesh - 2019
Books four to six in this bestselling series are brought together for the first time in a great value collection.
BLOOD MONEY
A businessman found hanged. A tortured and mutilated loaner. High finance has never been so deadly… DI Nathaniel Caslin is spiralling toward a professional crisis. His biggest case in years has collapsed amid accusations of police intimidation. A rebuilt reputation is now facing ruin… As the extremes of nationalist hate descend upon York, a refugee is tortured to death while a straightforward case of a bankrupt’s suicide proves to be anything but simple. How does an enigmatic campaigner with a secret to keep link these two disparate worlds? Shining a light onto corporate finance draws Caslin to those who prefer to live in the shadows. Making money, concealing wealth, protecting what you have… comes at a price. Your enemies - your friends - may find the true cost is underwritten in blood…
FEAR THE PAST
A murder without motive. A downtown bombing. The sins of the past revisited… DI Nathaniel Caslin is heading up a specialist unit, an opportunity to make a real difference. Little does he know, decisions taken decades previously are about to threaten all that he holds dear… Gangland tensions are on the rise as an uneasy peace is fractured in spectacular fashion. Two warring factions are lining up to unseat the other. Old adversaries rekindle their passion to exact revenge whilst the next generation seek to make a name for themselves. Meanwhile, Caslin is asked to investigate the mysterious murder of a private detective, revealing the vested interests of a multitude of figures. Finding himself walking the line between upholding the law and delivering justice, Caslin sees the past returning to haunt those around him. A crime perpetrated years previously sends ripples far and wide. Some people have much to gain whilst others have so much to lose… none more so than Caslin himself…
THE SIXTH PRECEPT
A killer stalks his prey. The five precepts are laid down. The sixth will be his own... DI Nathaniel Caslin has earned the freedom to run his case load as he sees fit, bypassing the hierarchical constraints with his specialist unit. Little does he know a deadly adversary is walking the streets of York. One who will push the team to their psychological limits... Reluctantly agreeing to a joint investigation alongside a detective from the Drug Squad, Caslin is perplexed by the multiple homicides of a number of addicts. Poisoned by their own supply with no apparent motive, the killings appear gang related. The crime scene is filthy and forbidding with each victim having the index finger removed from their right hand after death. A planned mutilation? A trophy? Strategically placed among the dead is a blooming pink flower, the only beauty within a dark, macabre scene. When a bank employee vanishes only to be found dead at the hands of a medieval stoning, Caslin's team are left with a puzzle to unpick. An index finger is missing and inside the victim's mouth, carefully placed and undamaged, are the petals of a small pink flower... A serial killer is on a mission. Caslin must reach into the darkness in order to confront the most dangerous and determined killer of the age. One who seeks to build a monument to his efforts.
The Complete Detective Mike Croft Box Set
Jane A. Adams - 2020
She and her twelve-year-old cousin Suzie take a shortcut through the Greenway, an ancient pathway steeped in Norfolk legend. Somewhere along this path Suzie simply vanishes . . . Twenty years later: Cassie is still tormented by nightmares, parts of her memory completely erased. With her husband Fergus and friends Anna and Simon, she returns to Norfolk, determined to confront her fears and solve a mystery that won’t let her rest.BOOK 2: THE SECRETSThreatening phone calls, smashed windows, physical intimidation. Eric Pearson and his family have only just moved into a new home in a sleepy cul-de-sac, but they already have dangerous enemies. How could a respectable family become the focus of such hatred? Detective Inspector Mike Croft knows the Pearson family well. Eric Pearson claims to own a journal which gives evidence of a horrifying ring of abusers. If true, it would be a high stakes case for DI Croft, and expose awful secrets that the town has buried deep.BOOK 3: THEIR FINAL MOMENTSHe wants to capture their final moments on film so he can watch them again and again. DECEMBER: Detective Mike Croft is in pursuit of a serial attacker, whose victims are all young blonde women. But forensics on the victims, reveals an even more horrific scenario. Many miles away, in Wiltshire, a young woman dies in a burning car. In Norwich, an actress is found dead in her own home and a teenage boy runs away from a past he doesn’t know how to face.BOOK 4: THE LIARMartha Toolin is found stabbed to death on a Norfolk beach. She was a stranger to the area and had been seen arguing with a teenage boy. BUT SHE IS A LIAR. Detective Mike Croft is called into investigate and quickly finds out that the victim was not who she says she was. She is a con artist who exploited the vulnerable and elderly.
The Complete Inspector Crow Mystery #1-8
Roy Lewis - 2020
She’d only just returned from an unexplained absence of months. Peter had already taken a new lover, but there’s no real proof he killed his wife. Can Inspector John Crow solve the case before anyone else dies?BOOK 2: ERROR OF JUDGMENTA young woman is found dead in college amid a student protest. It turns out she was the principal’s secretary and there was more to her than meets the eye. Who wanted her dead and why? And what does it have to do with the student revolt led by a charismatic firebrand from Iraq?BOOK 3: THE WOODS MURDERSchoolgirl Jenny Carson is brutally murdered in Kenton Wood. Then Charles Lendon is found skewered through the heart. He was a ruthless lawyer and a shameless womaniser. Jenny’s father blames him for her murder.BOOK 4: MURDER FOR MONEYGossip-mongering journalist Charlie Rutland is found brutally slain. In his line of work, he wasn’t short of enemies. DI Crow must interrogate a long list of suspects, from a homeless Yorkshireman to an ex-Gestapo officer. Then British spy services get involved. Can Crow crack the case before it’s taken out of his hands?BOOK 5: MURDER IN THE MINEA hunt for a missing dog leads to a gruesome discovery down a Welsh mineshaft. Not just the injured dog, but a valuable piece of jewellery and the decaying corpse of a woman. A surprising confession follows. But Inspector Crow is not convinced he has his man. Can he uncover the true killer, despite the many perplexing questions surrounding the case?BOOK 6: A COTSWOLDS MURDERCaravan park manager Chuck Lindop is found with his head caved in. The locals insist he was a lovable rogue. So who wanted him dead and why? As the investigation wears on, Inspector Crow uncovers shady dealings at the caravan park. Could Chuck himself have been involved?BOOK 7: A FOX HUNTING MURDEROne crisp autumn morning, the hunt is in full swing. But instead of a fox, they find their notorious opponent: dead in a bush. Inspector Crow uncovers a side to the victim that no one has seen before. But can he trust his instincts in a case where nothing is what it seems?BOOK 8: A DARTMOOR MURDERFred Norman is found dead in a pond near the mine where he worked. DI Crow is called in to investigate and finds a community divided. Many local activists oppose the mine. Suspicion soon falls on their womanizing leader, but Crow is aware that are many false trails and too many lies. Then he learns a secret about the victim that changes everything.
Big Lake Hoarder
Nick Russell - 2020
An elderly woman who sat down in her recliner to take a nap and never woke up. But Sheriff Weber would soon learn there was nothing routine about this case at all.When an autopsy revealed that she had been murdered, things take a bizarre turn. The sheriff discovers that there were many people who had reason to want Edna Knowles dead, among them relatives she had cheated out of an inheritance, two adult stepchildren she had treated cruelly, and a high school sweetheart from long ago upon whom she had committed the ultimate betrayal.As the sheriff and his deputies investigate the case, they find that searching for the old woman’s killer is only one mystery awaiting them in a house filled with secrets. Who was Edna Knowles, and why did she do the bizarre things she did? There is no doubt that she was an oddball, a recluse, and a hoarder. Maybe even a monster?
THE LATCH MAN
John Dean - 2020
DCI Blizzard attends in person, bemused that a woman who has spent her life evading the law, now seeks its protection.Meeting the tough old bird, he senses a genuine fear. But if suspicions that the unwelcome guest was the infamous Latch Man are true, that fear should be allayed. A ‘gentleman thief’, he has never harmed a soul. But when the woman is later found to have died, DCI John Blizzard senses something is afoot.Dismissing the doctor’s summary conclusion of natural causes, he determines to investigate further. What he discovers will shake the community to its core, scaring criminals and law-abiding folk alike.If it is true The Latch Man has returned, that is only part of the puzzle. Rivalries that have been simmering for years have come to the fore, and Blizzard must stop the case from snowballing into further tragedy.Can Blizzard discover The Latch Man’s identity, and can he collar him for the crime?
Long Shot
Dan Ames - 2015
When he is murdered during a sailboat race, no one sees it coming. Private investigator John Rockne investigates the killing and soon unravels a web of greed and betrayal. A hard-hitting, action-packed story in the bestselling and award-winning John Rockne Mystery Series.
A Girl Apart
Russell Blake - 2017
A mysterious phone call.A deadly international conspiracy.A brutal killer who'll stop at nothing to keep the sins of the past hidden.When investigative journalist Leah Mason returns home to El Paso with her career in flames and her romantic life in tatters, things seem like they can't get any worse.Leah soon discovers she couldn't be more wrong.Bludgeoned by life's body blows, her prospects change overnight when she sets out on the trail of a brutal killer who's terrorized a city for decades.Can she discover the truth before he claims another victim? Is the handsome stranger she finds herself drawn to hiding a secret that could cost Leah her life?If you love lightning-paced mysteries from Connoly, Archer, and Patterson, A Girl Apart is sure to be one you can't put down.Get it now!
Joe Pickett Series Bundle (Book 7-12)
C.J. Box - 2019
Attorney Clay McCann admitted to slaughtering four campers in a back-country corner of Yellowstone National Park - a 'free-fire' zone with no residents or jurisdiction. In this remote fifty-square-mile stretch a man can literally get away with murder. Now McCann's a free man, and Pickett's about to discover his motive - one buried in Yellowstone's rugged terrain, and as dangerous as the man who wants to keep it hidden.Blood TrailGame wardens have found a man dead at a mountain camp-strung up, gutted, and flayed as if he were the elk he'd been hunting. Is the murder the work of a deranged anti-hunting activist or of a lone psychopath with a personal vendetta? Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is the man to track the murderer and stop him, before someone declares open season on humans...Below ZeroSix years ago, Joe Pickett's foster daughter, April, was murdered. Now, someone is leaving phone messages claiming to be the dead girl. As his family struggles with the disturbing event, he discovers that the calls have been placed from locations where serious environmental crimes have occurred. And as the phone calls grow closer, so does the danger...Nowhere to RunIt's Joe Pickett's last week as a temporary game warden in the mountain town of Baggs, Wyoming, but his conscience won't let him leave without checking out the strange reports coming from the wilderness: camps looted, tents slashed, elk butchered. What awaits him is like something out of an old campfire tale, except this story is all too real-and all too deadly.Cold WindA body hangs from a wind turbine, a bullet hole in his chest: Earl Alden, millionaire property developer. His wife, Missy, is the prime suspect. It wouldn't be a problem for Joe Pickett, if Missy weren't his mother-in-law. Missy claims she's innocent, and for his wife's sake, Joe would like to believe her... but all the early signs point to her being as guilty as sin. With his wife on one side and the law on the other, Joe needs to get to the truth before his family is ripped apart.Force of NatureYears ago Joe Pickett's best friend, Nate Romanowski, was in a Special Forces unit abroad when his commander, John Nemecek, did something terrible. Now the high-ranking government official and cold-blooded sociopath is determined to eliminate anyone who knows about it - like Nate, who's hidden himself away in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. And he knows exactly how Nemecek will do it-by targeting Nate's friends to draw him out. That includes his friend, game warden Joe Pickett, and Pickett's entire family. The only way to fight back is outside the law. Nate knows he can do it, but he isn't sure about his straight-arrow friend. And all their lives could depend on it.
The Complete Detective Stephen Greco Box Set (4 crime thrillers)
Helen H. Durrant - 2020
. . why have her eyes have been viciously poked out? Detective Stephen Greco has just started a new job at Oldston CID and now he faces a series of murders with seemingly no connection but the brutal disfigurement of the victims. Greco’s team is falling apart under the pressure and he doesn’t know who he can trust. Then they discover a link to a local drug dealer, but maybe it’s not all that it seems.BOOK 2: DARK HOUSESA young woman is found brutally murdered in an empty house Detective Stephen Greco and his team must piece together her life as quickly as possible. Within twenty-four hours there is another killing using the same method. The detectives realise that the victims are random but the locations are not. The killer is more concerned with finding the right house – an old empty place where he won’t be disturbed. When someone walks into the station and confesses, it looks like it’s all over, but Greco’s not convinced and soon he’ll be fighting to save the woman who’s most important to himBOOK 3: DARK TRADEA teenage boy is found murdered. He has been stabbed through the heart by a professional killer. Detective Stephen Greco and his new team discover that the boy is an illegal immigrant. A killer nicknamed “the Knifeman” then strikes again. The murder leads DCI Greco on a dark trail of people smuggling and exploitation.BOOK 4: DARK ANGELTwo young men break into an expensive house. They take money and jewellery — and a large amount of heroin. Within twenty-four hours they are found brutally murdered. The killings have all the hallmarks of a local drug baron. The two victims were also “angels” helping in a community project which seems to have been lowering the local crime rate. But not everything is as it seems. And just when it seems like Greco seems to have cracked the case, new information comes to light which threatens to change everything.THE DETECTIVESDCI Stephen Greco is a meticulous policeman with a touch of O.C.D. Easy to admire, but difficult to like. He has created a new team after a personal tragedy threatened to end his career, and is struggling to care for his daughter.DS Grace Harper is an ambitious young policewoman with excellent people skills. Like Greco, she is a single parent and struggles to balance work and childcare.THE SETTINGThe Northern city of Manchester is a place of great diversity, from high-end restaurants and clubs for the moneyed classes to grim housing estates riven by crime and drugs.
Prescription: Murder! Volume 1: Authentic Cases From The Files of Alan Hynd
Alan Hynd - 2014
These stories, the first of three short collections, are unified by a single theme: they all involve physicians. And not for the autopsy, but as perpetrators or accused perpetrators. You may never see your family care giver again in the same light. Told in the characteristic wry, anecdotal reportorial style that made Alan Hynd famous in his day (two wartime best sellers in 1943, contributions to The Reader's Digest, Colliers, Coronet, The Saturday Evening Post, True, Liberty, The American Mercury and almost every true detective magazine in print) these tales will have you cringing one minute, laughing the next, and gasping in shock a moment later. Truly, no one could make up classics like these. Take for example, the murder ring of South Philadelphia in which a faith healer and two Lotharios helped restless wives rid themselves of abusive unwanted husbands...or the respected French war hero who was a pillar of the community by day but prowled brothels and music halls by night and was caught with a cadaver sealed within the walls of his home....or the traveling physician who married a farmer's ex-wife and had four step-sons, then three, then two, then...... And finally, as a bonus track, relax and savor the wickedly evil doings of "Sister Amy Archer" at the Archer convalescent home in Connecticut, where old folks checked out just a little too quickly for comfort. The events eventually became the basis of "Arsenic and Old Lace," the hit play and iconic movie. As the old adages go, you couldn't make this stuff up... and true crime is always farther out there than fiction. (With illustrations)