Book picks similar to
Paradox by Echo Heron


medical
fiction
mystery
heron-echo

The Transformed


Raphael Hirsch - 2004
    Robert Newman is a man obsessed--obsessed with the death of his wife from a rare genetic disease--obsessed with finding a cure to save her sister from the same fate. After years of single-minded effort, he has developed a revolutionary gene therapy procedure. Now the most devastating of human diseases can be stopped in their tracks. But within weeks, his discovery has unleashed a deadly cancer epidemic. His life is threatened and everyone he loves becomes his enemy. As he searches frantically for clues, he discovers a long dormant secret hidden within the human genome. Dr. Newman realizes that malignant transformation in human cells is not a random event. The marked increase in malignancies has a more horrific explanation. Silent for millennia, Cancer is now awakening as a rationale entity with an agenda of its own. And unless it can be stopped, no one--least of all Dr. Robert Newman--has long to live.

Tainted Evidence


Robert Daley - 1993
    Now, the former deputy NYPD commissioner, "New York Times" correspondant, and acclaimed author of "Prince of the City" and "A Faint Cold Fear" presents his boldest novel ever. "Tainted Evidence" focuses on New York Assistant DA Karen Henning, a woman about to find her ambitions at war with her principles and her loyalties torn by her passions. When a desperate, drug-dealing murder suspect guns down five cops in a Harlem police raid gone wrong, the city's long-simmering racial unrest explodes in uncontrollable turmoil, both in the courtroom and on the street. Caught in the middle, Henning is tempted to break her own personal taboo. She falls in love with her star witness - and the storm it unleashes can shatter her life, and even the system she has tried so hard to defend.

Web of Lies


Larry A. Winters - 2015
     When criminal defense attorney Dylan Wood returns from a defeat in the courtroom, he thinks the worst is over. His client will go to prison, and Dylan will move on. But he learns the hard way that not every client is willing to accept the judgment of his peers. Suddenly Dylan has twenty-four hours to overturn the guilty verdict. If he fails, a ruthless, sexy woman who gives new meaning to the term femme fatale will go public with the dark secret of Dylan's own past, destroying his life and those of everyone he loves. This time Dylan is defending himself, and he'll do whatever it takes to survive—even if it means breaking the laws he's sworn to uphold. Web of Lies is a standalone thriller, set in the same Philadelphia legal world as the Jessie Black Legal Thriller series. (Although prosecutor Jessie Black appears in the story, she is not the main character.) If you like gritty crime stories, vividly-drawn characters, and surprising twists and turns, you'll love Larry A. Winters's page-turning story of justice gone crazy. Buy Web of Lies to experience this nail-biting legal thriller today!

Patricia Fisher: Ship's Detective


Steve Higgs - 2021
    

Dark Malice (Charli Cross Mystery Series Book 4)


Mary Stone - 2022
    When a funeral parlor employee goes missing, her car left at the funeral home, and the incinerator filled with ashes and left on overnight, Detectives Charli Cross and Matthew Childe are called in for a suspected homicide.While investigating, Charli discovers two other employees are missing, and when one of the employees ends up murdered, the third suspect comes clean and reveals they had been getting rid of bodies for the mafia.Now Charli needs to link the mafia to the disappearance of Candace and death of her coworker while keeping her superiors and the FBI off her back.

The Second Opinion


Michael Palmer - 2009
    Thea Sperelakis, diagnosed as a teen with Asperger’s syndrome, has always been an outsider. She has a brilliant medical mind, and a remarkable recall of details, but her difficulty in dealing with hidden agendas and interpersonal conflicts have led her to leave the complex, money-driven dynamics of the hospital, and to embrace working with the poor, embattled  patients of Doctors Without Borders. Her father, Petros, is one of the most celebrated internal medicine specialists in the world, and the founder of the cutting-edge Sperelakis Center for Diagnostic Medicine at Boston’s sprawling, powerful Beaumont Clinic.Thea’s rewarding life in Africa is turned upside-down when Petros is severely injured by a hit-and-run driver. He is in the Beaumont ICU, in a deep coma. No one thinks he will survive. Thea must return home. Two of Petros’ other children, both physicians, battle Thea and her eccentric brother, Dimitri, by demanding that treatment for their father be withheld.As Thea uncovers the facts surrounding the disaster, it seems more and more to be no accident. Petros, himself, is the only witness. Who would want him dead? The answers are trapped in his brain . . . until he looks at Thea and begins slowly to blink a terrifying message.In The Second Opinion, Michael Palmer has created a cat-and-mouse game where one woman must confront a conspiracy of doctors to uncover an evil practice that touches every single person who ever has a medical test. With sympathetic characters and twists and betrayals that come from the most unlikely places, The Second Opinion will make you question…everything.

The Cheshire Moon


Robert Ferrigno - 1993
    is going to get any sleep. Robert Ferrigno's brilliant first novel, The Horse Latitudes, was lauded as "the most memorable fiction debut of the season" by Time magazine, "riveting, breathtaking, extraordinary" by Playboy, and "a double-barreled shotgun of a novel" by The Boston Sunday Globe. Ferrigno's dazzlingly sure handling of noir fiction, his cleverly conceived characters, and explosive plotting created a best-seller worthy of the highest praise, and The Cheshire Moon takes Ferrigno's skill even further, on a dizzying roller coaster of greed, lust, and redemption. Quinn is a former investigative reporter who got burned by a source two years ago, with fatal consequences. These days he sticks to celebrity interviews and games of go fish! with his daughter, but when a friend from the bad old days is found dead, it's up to Quinn and his sultry partner, Jen Takamura, to find the killer. The search leads from high-profile politicos to Rubenesque talk-show queens, silken criminals to dessicated ex-movie stars. Caught in a tightening spiral, Quinn and Jen are drawn into ever deeper and more dangerous passions, a sizzling counterpoint to the frustrated rage of the killer who is now stalking them. Filled with a hypnotic sense of evil, charged with a comic energy and a violently dark eroticism, The Cheshire Moon is a noir Beauty and the Beast that perfectly captures the heat and smoke of southern California.

Shadow of Death


Patricia Gussin - 2006
    . . or forget Pull a trigger and everything changes. Medical student Laura Nelson had just finished examining her first patient when she is forced to make a split-second decision that will alter the course of her life—forever. One life will end, and one life will never be the same. But keeping her dreadful secret will be one of the toughest challenges Laura will ever face. With a persistent and perceptive detective hot on her trail and a host of eerie incidents suggesting that maybe her secret isn't really a secret, Laura is drawn into an unseemly web of peril, deceit, and treachery and is forced to risk both her freedom and her sanity. Will her deadly secret come to light, or must she live forever in the shadow of death? Set amidst the upheaval and smoldering chaos of the Detroit riots of 1967, Shadow of Death is a haunting tale of unrest, fear, and consequences. Hailed as a stunning debut novel, Shadow of Death provides a spine-chilling glimpse of what lurks in the shadows.Perfect for fans of Tess Gerritsen and Kathy Reichs While all of the novels in the Laura Nelson Series stand on their own and can be read in any order, the publication sequence is:Shadow of Death Twisted Justice Weapon of Choice After the Fall

The Seventh Sense


T.J. MacGregor - 1999
    MacGregor's The Seventh Sense blends psychological suspense with a riveting duel between a man driven over the edge and the FBI agent whose family he killed.Seized by a rage more violent than the storm beating down on the South Florida coast, attorney Frank Benedict aims his BMW at the first vehicle to cross his path. He hits the car -- then backs up and hits it again. A woman stumbles out and collapses on the ground.FBI veteran Charlie Calloway is working on the case of her life -- searching for the man who killed her husband and unborn child. She teams up with former agent Doug Logan, a man whose near-death experience left him with extraordinary psychic powers -- the ability to read inanimate objects, to feel other people's pain, and even to see visions from a human touch. Together, Charlie and Doug will hunt through a maze of evidence that defies logical explanation and leads them into the most frightening place of all...the shadows of the human mind.

The Highland Murders: Book 2


J.S. Donovan - 2018
     Months after killing one of her adversaries, gifted homicide detective Rachel Harroway finds herself being stalked by a spirit she can’t evade. Meanwhile, a new but unpredictable killer arrives in her small hometown. Torn between raising her daughter, catching a murderer, maintaining a double identity amidst her colleagues, and pursuing dangerous methods to banish the wayward spirit, Rachel battles to keep her head afloat as winter creeps into Highlands, North Carolina.

Bloodstream


Tess Gerritsen - 1998
    Now, Gerritsen melds page-turning suspense with chilling realism as a small-town doctor races to unravel the roots of a violent outbreak—before it destroys everything she loves.Lapped by the gentle waters of Locust Lake, the small resort town of Tranquility, Maine, seems like the perfect spot for Dr. Claire Elliot to shelter her adolescent son, Noah, from the distractions of the big city and the lingering memory of his father's death. But with the first snap of winter comes shocking news that puts her practice on the line: a teenage boy under her care has committed an appalling act of violence. And as Claire and all of Tranquility soon discover, it is just the start of a chain of lethal outbursts among the town's teenagers. As the rash of disturbing behavior grows, Claire uncovers a horrifying secret: this is not the first time it has happened. Twice a century, the children of Tranquility lash out with deadly violence. Claire suspects that there is a biological cause for the epidemic, and she fears that the placid Locust Lake may conceal an insidious danger. As she races to save Tranquility—and her son—from harm, Claire discovers an even greater threat: a shocking conspiracy to manipulate nature and cause innocents to slaughter.

Blood Red Winter: A Thriller


J. Conrad - 2017
    Believing his life could get no worse, Trent attempts to bury the inner demons of his past.But when he stumbles upon a terrifying crime scene, Trent's troubles are only just beginning. Discovering that one of the victims, an emaciated, blood-covered woman, is still alive, changes his life in ways he never thought possible.Saving the woman destroys all that he's ever known. Suddenly, as a witness, he's the killer's number one target. With the murderer on the loose, nobody is safe--especially Elizabeth, the only woman he's ever loved. Now, it's up to Trent to save his ex and reclaim his life. But will he discover a dangerous dark side of his own?

Racing From Evil: A Nikki Latrelle Mystery Novella; The Prequel


Sasscer Hill - 2016
    Tony Ryan Best in Racing Literature awards.RACING FROM EVIL What happens to orphaned Nikki Latrelle after she flees from her pedophile stepfather through the streets of Baltimore and climbs the razor-wire fence into Pimlico Racetrack? Nikki’s drawn to horses, knows how to ride, and dreams of being a jockey. But how can a runaway with no ID, no family, and no income survive?“Could Sasscer Hill be the Dick Francis of her generation? Count me among those who would vote yes.” Margaret Maron, New York Times Best Selling Author and Winner of Edgar Best Novel, Edgar Grand Master, Agatha, Anthony & Macavity Awards

Los Angeles


Peter Moore Smith - 2005
    Angel is convinced that the voice belongs to his beautiful and enigmatic neighbor, Angela -- and that she is terrified for her life. He paces the floor, waiting for the phone to ring again, calls the police, searches her apartment, but there is no trace of her anywhere, not for days. So begins a haunted man's quest to uncover what happened to the woman he has fallen in love with. Only now does he realize that he knows nearly nothing about her. Angel has his secrets, too. He is the son of one of Hollywood's most successful movie producers, but he has turned away from that bright and power-ridden world. Instead, he leads a cloistered existence, nursing an unfinished screenplay as Ridley Scott's Blade Runner loops ceaselessly in his darkened apartment. But now, for the first time in years, because of Angela's sudden disappearance, Angel is propelled into action. Following the few clues he has gathered about her, he trails Angela through the hard glitter of Los Angeles days and nights. With every new piece of knowledge arrives another question and an even more chilling possibility: Did he merely imagine Angela? Is someone deliberately leading him? Is the phantom he is pursuing the very fear he has been running from? In the murky underworld beneath the bright surface of Los Angeles, everything he knew about her -- and himself -- begins to unravel. In this city of secrets that aren't meant to be told and people who aren't meant to be found, Angel may soon discover that the most dangerous lies of all are the ones you tell yourself.

California Blood


Pete Palamountain - 2011
    Baldy.• Suicide of a wandering derelict.• Murder of a wealthy matriarch.• Murder of a charismatic Catholic priest.