Book picks similar to
The Plantagenet Vendetta by John Paul Davis
historical-fiction
mystery
fiction
thriller
Don't Turn on The Light: Crossing The Line
Max China - 2016
They quickly discover why the house was so cheap and that the past isn't so easy to ignore.
Truth Dare Kill
Gordon Ferris - 2007
He’s no Philip Marlowe - but what else is a demobbed SOE agent to do now the war is over and the world struggles back to normality?Not that anything will be normal for Danny until he fills the void in his memory which swallowed up an entire mission to France. But first he has a case to investigate. Elegant, upper-class Kate Graveney has made a shocking admission, and Danny needs to get her off the hook. Danny sets off on a hunt through bomb-ravaged London, the bleak cityscape mirroring the ruins of his mind. The head injury which gouged his memory also gives him blackouts: hours, sometimes days, are a complete blank. Newspaper headlines about a brutal killer stalking London’s red light district make him uneasy, and a visit from an old adversary awakens dark misgivings. At least there’s Valerie - but even she proves elusive. He is assaulted by the police and befriended by the madam of a cat-house. He is torn between his upper class client and the shop girl who believes in him.The odds stack up against Danny and soon he fears for his life. The only escape is through that gap in his memory…
Killing Me Softly
Bianca Sloane - 2012
Her body was discovered days later, her beautiful face bashed in with a rock. Police determine her brutal death to be a mugging gone wrong and drop the matter into their cold case files.Over a year later, Tracy’s sister, Sondra, still can’t come to grips with what happened. She throws herself into her work as a documentary filmmaker to try and forget the cruelty of her sister’s death. However, a chance encounter with a man from Tracy’s past rips the wound open and sends Sondra on a desperate search for answers about the secrets from her sister’s life that may have led to her death.As Sondra struggles to uncover what happened to Tracy, she’s launched into a tangled web of deceit and danger that put her on a collision course with life and death…
Severed
Simon Kernick - 2007
The room was stifling hot; and when I did finally manage to drag open my eyes, all I could see was blood. I thought I'd stepped into the middle of a nightmare.
But I was wrong. The nightmare was only just beginning.
Ex-soldier Sean Tyler wakes up in an unfamiliar room next to the headless corpse of a girl he's met recently. With his memory of the previous 24 hours wiped clean, he's hardly out of bed before the he notices a note next to the TV telling him to press play on the room's DVD machine. The film shows him stabbing someone to death.Tyler is confident that the footage is fake, but will a jury see things the same way? The man on the end of the phone tells him that if he wants the evidence to disappear, he must go to an address in east London, and await further instructions.Tyler knows he must do as he is told. He also knows that the phone caller has no intention of keeping him alive.To survive he must recover the missing 24 hours of his life and find out who's setting him up before his time runs out for good. The clock is ticking...
Berlin Game
Len Deighton - 1983
But soon, Samson is confronted with evidence that there is a traitor among his colleagues. And to find out who it is, he must sift through layers of lies and follow a web of treachery from London to Berlin until hero and traitor collide.From the Paperback edition.
Vine Street
Dominic Nolan - 2021
SOHO, 1935.SERGEANT LEON GEATS' PATCH.A snarling, skull-cracking misanthrope, Geats marshals the grimy rabble according to his own elastic moral code.The narrow alleys are brimming with jazz bars, bookies, blackshirts, ponces and tarts so when a body is found above the Windmill Club, detectives are content to dismiss the case as just another young woman who topped herself early.But Geats - a good man prepared to be a bad one if it keeps the worst of them at bay - knows the dark seams of the city.Working with his former partner, mercenary Flying Squad sergeant Mark Cassar, Geats obsessively dedicates himself to finding a warped killer - a decision that will reverberate for a lifetime and transform both men in ways they could never expect.
Valley of the Lesser Evil
Carl Dane - 2018
Bareknuckle fighter, gunman, and itinerant marshal Josiah Hawke is up against a stacked deck: He’s been called in to investigate the murder of an old friend and lawman in a town that’s suddenly and inexplicably been overrun by thugs and goons. As he gets closer to the truth, the outlaw gang draws on seemingly unlimited resources to up the ante, and Hawke faces a series of increasingly determined and deadly adversaries who want him dead. But Hawke, a former college professor who became addicted to the rush of combat a decade earlier during the Civil War, brings a very special set of skills to the table – trickery, deception, and battlefield smarts he acquired in a secret unit conducting raids and sabotage behind enemy lines. And he teams up with a formidable Tennessee mountain man named Tom Carmody, a giant woodsman who can read tracks like anyone else reads a newspaper. Together, this Old West odd couple battles hired shootists, a gang of hired gunmen, and raiding Comanche war parties – and in their spare time occupies themselves by creatively getting on each other’s nerves. At the end lies the shocking solution to the mystery and a final confrontation with one of the West’s deadliest hired guns – along with the realization that behind the puzzle lurks an unspeakable secret that has been hushed in the shadows of the Valley of the Lesser Evil. VISIT WWW.RAGINGBULLPUBLISHING.COM AND DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE WESTERN STARTER LIBRARY
The Bone Garden
Tess Gerritsen - 2007
But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. . . . Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists”–those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect. To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city–from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power–on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity.
Fearless
Nicola Claire - 2015
Brilliant. A Liability?Doctor Anna Cassidy has been trained by the best; the former Chief Surgeon for the Auckland Police Force. She knows how to dissect a body. She knows how to treat any ailment. And she knows how to find a cause of death. But society is not ready for a female surgeon.Fighting for what she believes in has been ingrained in Anna since she was a young child. But the battles she faces now are not all based on equality. A murderer stalks her fellow Suffragettes and the police inspector in charge of the case could be Anna's downfall.Experienced. Dedicated. Something to hide?Inspector Andrew Kelly holds duty and honour in the highest regard. His role as a detective proves just that; he never stops until justice is served. Love is something he has forsaken, for reasons he'd rather you didn't know.But Anna is not a woman a man can ignore.Fighting his instincts with cold determination is something Kelly has become accustomed to. But a murderer is loose in his adopted city, bringing memories to the fore of a killer who walked in the shadows of Whitechapel, and shining light on a dark past the Inspector is trying hard to forget.A gritty, twisted, and authentic Victorian romantic suspense, sure to rip you apart... just like old Jack.
What You Did
Claire McGowan - 2019
A devastating accusation. Who should she trust, her husband or her best friend?It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.When Karen staggers in from the garden, bleeding and traumatised, she claims that she has been assaulted—by Ali’s husband, Mike. Ali must make a split-second decision: who should she believe? Her horrified husband, or her best friend? With Mike offering a very different version of events, Ali knows one of them is lying—but which? And why?When the ensuing chaos forces her to re-examine the golden era the group shared at university, Ali realises there are darker memories too. Memories that have lain dormant for decades. Memories someone would kill to protect.
The One You Love
Paul Pilkington - 2011
Her fiancé vanishes, leaving the battered and bloodied body of his brother in their London apartment. Someone is stalking her, watching her every move. And her family are hiding a horrifying secret; a secret that threatens all those she loves. In a desperate race against time, Emma must uncover the truth if she ever wants to see her fiancé alive again. The One You Love is a fast-paced suspense mystery, full of twists and turns, following in the tradition of writers such as Nicci French and Sophie Hannah.
The Secret Chapel
John Lyman - 2009
When a rogue force of Vatican security officials are alerted to his discovery, the priest flees to the Holy Land with a clue . . . a clue that will lead him and a team of Israeli Christians to a much larger secret in the middle of the barren Negev Desert. Meticulously researched and drawing on scientific fact, John Lyman's intriguing story takes us into the world of scholars, archaeologists, code-breakers, and intelligence specialists who have discovered a prophetic code hidden within the Old Testament that authenticates the Bible as a book of supernatural origin and points to a divine plan. This gripping novel is truly a thought-provoking and action-packed thriller with implications for our future.
The Pale Blue Eye
Louis Bayard - 2006
Timothy comes an ingenious tale of murder and revenge, featuring a retired New York City detective and a young cadet named Edgar Allan Poe.At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet's body swinging from a rope just off the parade grounds. An apparent suicide is not unheard of in a harsh regimen like West Point's, but the next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has stolen into the room where the body lay and removed the heart.At a loss for answers and desperate to avoid any negative publicity, the Academy calls on the services of a local civilian, Augustus Landor, a former police detective who acquired some renown during his years in New York City before retiring to the Hudson Highlands for his health. Now a widower, and restless in his seclusion, Landor agrees to take on the case. As he questions the dead man's acquaintances, he finds an eager assistant in a moody, intriguing young cadet with a penchant for drink, two volumes of poetry to his name, and a murky past that changes from telling to telling. The cadet's name? Edgar Allan Poe.Impressed with Poe's astute powers of observation, Landor is convinced that the poet may prove useful—if he can stay sober long enough to put his keen reasoning skills to the task. Working in close contact, the two men—separated by years but alike in intelligence—develop a surprisingly deep rapport as their investigation takes them into a hidden world of secret societies, ritual sacrifices, and more bodies. Soon, however, the macabre murders and Landor's own buried secrets threaten to tear the two men and their newly formed friendship apart.A rich tapestry of fine prose and intricately detailed characters, The Pale Blue Eye transports readers into a labyrinth of the unknown that will leave them guessing until the very end.
The Wicked Wager
Anya Wylde - 2012
A plan that should have brought the lovers together and had them married within a month. It was a simple matter of masquerading as the duke’s gardener, compromising the lady, and then having the duke rush them off to Gretna Green.Alas, he underestimates the duke’s intelligence and the tangled situation on the estate—never had he imagined that compromising a lady could be so difficult.His endeavours lead to a comedy of errors, charades, and knotty love affairs. Yet he forges ahead in spite of pesky house guests, a flea bitten mattress, his lovesick best friend, and a blackmailer.Just when things seem to be going well, someone is murdered (very inconvenient), and he happens to be one of the suspects (extremely inconvenient).His simple plan for winning the wager suddenly becomes … a tad complicated.
The Sam Reilly Collection
Christopher Cartwright - 2016
The Last Airship In 1939 a secret airship departed Nazi Germany in the dark of night filled with some of the most influential people of its time. Its cargo: a complement of rich Jewish families carrying their most valuable possessions. One such item amongst them was as dangerous as it was priceless. The airship never reached its destination. In 2015 Sam Reilly, a marine biologist and wealthy son of shipping mogul James Reilly discovers a missing clue about the lost airship and what follows is a violent treasure hunt, kept secret by the most powerful men in the world today, driven by their greed and need for that which all are motivated: the opportunity for unlimited power. 2. The Mahogany Ship An ancient shipwreck. A two hundred year old mystery. A plague that’s destroying all marine life. A pyramid half a mile below the sea. And a puzzle that must be solved before it destroys the human race. On the 18th of February, 1812, the Emily Rose became shipwrecked on the southern coast of Australia. The survivors are forced to walk nearly a thousand miles through the unexplored land to reach the only settlement, Sydney Cove. Nearly two hundred miles inland, they come across the remains of a monstrous ship, far bigger than anything the British Navy had ever constructed. Through basic communication achieved with the natives, they learned that the ship had been there for a very long time… Maybe a thousand years? Despite the details of the mysterious ship in the journals from the survivors of the Emily Rose, no evidence that the Mahogany Ship ever existed was found – until now. Present day: A mining exploration in Australia takes a core sample 500 feet below the surface of a deserted mountain. The sample returns no evidence of gold deposits, but something much more valuable – a single Spanish Gold coin, dated 1518. Could the origins of this coin finally reveal the existence of the fabled Mahogany Ship? At the same time, Sam Reilly and his team of ocean investigators are exploring the cause of a widespread death of sea life within the Gulf of Mexico. In a race against time to stop the irrevocable destruction of the world’s marine life, the two mysteries may just be entangled, and failure to solve them both will result in the greatest threat to ever face the human race. 3. Atlantis Stolen A civilization stolen from the history books. A billionaire’s obsession to unlock its secrets. A brotherhood determined to hide the truth. And time is running out. Only a handful of people know what destroyed the ancient Atlanteans, whose very existence is a secret that they will kill to protect. Unfortunately, the very same catastrophe that destroyed that once proud civilization is drawing near once more. The question is, can marine biologist Sam Reilly discover the truth in time to prevent it?