Circus of Nightmares: Death is the Ultimate Illusion (The Anglesey Mysteries Book 2)


Conrad Jones - 2021
    

Lethal Dose


Robert McCracken - 2016
    Terry Lawler had exposed the secrets of powerful people and apparently got his comeuppance.But when DI Tara Grogan digs further, she makes a startling discovery. Within the victim’s home are details about dozens of missing women. Details that might only be known to the last person who saw them.Just what was his connection to these disappearances in Belfast and Liverpool? Has Grogan stumbled upon evidence of a serial killer who someone else has got to first?In which case, exactly who is Grogan hunting for? And does she really want to find them?

The Moonlit Mind


Dean Koontz - 2011
    . . both human and otherwise.Twelve-year-old Crispin has lived on the streets since he was nine—with only his wits and his daring to sustain him, and only his silent dog, Harley, to call his friend. He is always on the move, never lingering in any one place long enough to risk being discovered. Still, there are certain places he returns to. In the midst of the tumultuous city, they are havens of solitude: like the hushed environs of St. Mary Salome Cemetery, a place where Crispin can feel at peace—safe, at least for a while, from the fearsome memories that plague him . . . and seep into his darkest nightmares. But not only his dreams are haunted. The city he roams with Harley has secrets and mysteries, things unexplainable and maybe unimaginable. Crispin has seen ghosts in the dead of night, and sensed dimensions beyond reason in broad daylight. Hints of things disturbing and strange nibble at the edges of his existence, even as dangers wholly natural and earthbound cast their shadows across his path. Alone, drifting, and scavenging to survive is no life for a boy. But the life Crispin has left behind, and is still running scared from, is an unspeakable alternative . . . that may yet catch up with him.There is more to this world, and its darkest corners yet to be encountered, in this eBook’s special bonus: a spine-tingling excerpt from Dean Koontz’s forthcoming novel, 77 Shadow Street.

Private Eye: Cameron Caldwell Mystery


Jason Deas - 2014
    But, after getting a DUI in his police cruiser it isn’t really an issue. The real issue now is staying alive. Cameron knows secrets that could cost him his life and flees to what he hopes is a quiet mountain retreat. Launching a detective agency in the town of Miner’s Bluff, he unknowingly stumbles into a world of murder, moonshine, shifty characters, and even deeper secrets. But the biggest secret belongs to him. It’s the cornerstone of all his troubles. Cam can look into another’s eyes and see their darkest sin—their most evil act. And it’s beginning to take a toll on his sanity. The murder investigations of his past and present collide as Cam tries to keep his life from unraveling and his eyes from tearing him apart.

Rejection (Lou Drake Mysteries)


Thomas K. Matthews - 2010
    Ten years later, fifty pounds heavier and three months from retirement, Drake works patrol in the backwater borough of Malcolm New York. He spends his idle time reading crime novels and writing one of his own.When Drake breaks protocol on another brutal murder scene, endangering his rookie partner, his captain demotes him to the booking cage. But when another body is discovered and both victims are identified as struggling literary agents, the NYPD Chief of Detectives decides Lou's writing experience could benefit the case and pairs him with his old partner one last time.As they look for clues in the struggling publishing industry, Drake finds himself thrust into the middle of a serial murder case where a methodical perpetrator is systematically killing those who rejected him. Drake must revive his old detective prowess and trust his writer's intuition to try and solve the case, while possibly exposing the truth about the old Hennings investigation - a secret that would expose a web of corruption that could shake the NYPD to its core.

Thursday at Noon


William F. Brown - 1987
    John Kennedy is in the White House, Khrushchev is in the Kremlin, and Abdel Gamal Nasser is in Cairo. While everyone is focused on the Russian missiles in Cuba that are pointed at the US, no one notices the even more deadly ones in Egypt now pointed at Israel, no one, except Richard Thomson, a failed, burned out CIA agent who had been dumped there after his last mission blew up in his face and they couldn’t think of any place worse to send him. Already gnawed on by Langley, the US Ambassador, and even the Cairo cops, he didn’t think his day could get much worse until someone left a dead body on the rear steps of his hotel. Its head had been lopped off like a ripe melon and placed so it looked back down at its own body. A message? No doubt about it. But for whom? The body belongs to Mahmoud Yussuf, a fat petty thief and inept spy who is trying to sell photographs of a long-abandoned RAF base in the Egyptian desert. What those photos have to do with a dead Israeli Mossad agent, Nazi rocket scientists, the fanatical Moslem Brotherhood, and two missing Egyptian tank regiments could start the next Arab-Israeli War or stop it. Alone and on the run, no one believes Thomson's story -- not the CIA, the US Ambassador, and most assuredly not Captain Hassan Saleh, Chief of the Homicide Bureau of the Cairo Police, who wants to hang Thomson for murder. Like Night of the Generals, this is a murder mystery wrapped inside a spy thriller and historic fiction. The sultry slums of Cairo are a tinder box of discontent and the first faint whiffs of a military coup against the shaky, new government of Abdel Gamal Nasser are in the air. In this CIA action adventure and suspense thriller, if Tomson doesn’t solve the mystery, something is about to blow up in his face at Noon on Thursday. Tick Toc, Tick Toc…

Shatter My Rock


Greta Nelsen - 2012
    And when a vicious migraine sends her to a saggy hotel bed and him to the marketing conference in her place, she is first relieved and then thankful.Weeks later, upon discovering she’s pregnant, Claire has no reason for concern. With the help of genetic counselors and fertility specialists, she and her college-sweetheart husband, Tim, have been striving for a sibling for their ten-year-old daughter, Ally. And now they have one: a precious baby boy they name Owen.But all is not well, and soon Claire begins spotting alarming quirks in Owen’s behavior that suggest he may be stricken with Batten Disease, the terminal illness that took her brother, Ricky, back in nineteen seventy-nine. If Claire is right and Owen is sick, other disturbing things may also be true. Things like: Claire has been raped; Owen is not Tim’s son; and Owen is going to die. As events unfold, Claire finds herself confronting unthinkable choices, the consequences of which could jeopardize her career, her marriage, and even her freedom.

The Last Deep Breath


Tom Piccirilli - 2010
    The Last Deep Breath is the latest evidence, a tough yet tender noir that cuts to the heart of what sibling bonds are all about. It ricochets around like a bullet in a cinderblock room - you can never be sure where it's going to go, but you know it's probably going to hurt before it's done." --Brian Hodge, author - WILD HORSES, MAD DOGS."The Last Deep Breath is an absolute gem of a crime novel, with prose so dead-on and moving, you'll be laughing and gasping, often in the same sentence. Tom Piccirilli is already one of the big guns in crime fiction, and proves here that he may be the heir to Elmore Leonard." --Jason Starr, author - PANIC ATTACK, THE CHILL.

Getting Sassy


D.C. Brod - 2010
    Otherwise, why would she even consider kidnapping a goat and holding it for ransom?Criminal acts don’t come naturally to Robyn, but she has an ally in her accountant Mick Hughes, a former jockey with a bum leg and dubious past. Figuring that it’s best to take from those who’ve taken from others, they target Bull Severn, the man who conned Robyn’s mother, Lizzie. Bull’s Blood is a beautiful thoroughbred favored to win the prestigious Plymouth Million. But he won’t be able to race without the companionship of a very special goat, Sassy—and so Robyn and Mick hatch a scheme to kidnap the goat and bring home a hefty ransom. Turns out kidnapping a goat isn’t easy, and matters soon escalate into something much bigger than Robyn anticipated. She’s got to figure a way out of trouble before she ends up sharing her small apartment with her aging, forgetful mother, her neurotic dog Bix, and a little black goat named Sassy.

The Last Second: A Novella


Robin Burcell - 2013
    In a small Arizona border town, gunrunning and drug trafficking into Mexico are a part of the landscape—but not when they're orchestrated by an officer in uniform. At least that's the story told to agents Griffin and Fitzpatrick.But the dirty cop is now missing, and his sister says he's innocent, a victim of a corrupt police department. She is convinced they set him up to take the fall, then killed him, and she can prove it—with help from a highly unusual witness. Suddenly an open-and-shut case seems anything but, and the clock is ticking as Griffin and Fitzpatrick take on an entire police department in a deadly match that could go up in smoke at the last second.

Marked by Darkness


Dawn Merriman - 2020
    . Two years ago, Detective Maribeth Johansen’s family was murdered by the killer she hunted. Maribeth now lives alone in the woods with her grief, the ghosts of her family in her mind. . Her solitude is shattered when a young woman, bearing a striking resemblance to Maribeth’s dead daughter, is murdered and left in the woods for Maribeth to find. The woman’s chest bears the same mark the killer carved into the chests of his victims. . But that killer has been dead for two years. . Is the ghost of a serial killer after her, or is there a new threat hunting her in the woods? An emotionally intense thrill ride!

Last Days


Brian Evenson - 2009
    The story follows Kline, a brutally dismembered detective forcibly recruited to solve a murder inside the cult. As Kline becomes more deeply involved with the group, he begins to realize the stakes are higher than he previously thought. Attempting to find his way through a maze of lies, threats, and misinformation, Kline discovers that his survival depends on an act of sheer will. Last Days was first published in 2003 as a limited edition novella titled The Brotherhood of Mutilation. Its success led Evenson to expand the story into a full-length novel. In doing so, he has created a work that’s disturbing, deeply satisfying, and completely original.

Blackout


Emily Barr - 2014
    You have no money, no passport, no phone.And there is no sign of your baby.What do you do?

The Follow


Paul Grzegorzek - 2011
    For young, ambitious Constable Gareth Bell, of Brighton’s drug squad, dealing with them all is just another part of his working day. Until, that is, Quentin Davey, one of the dealers that infest the City makes it personal by stabbing his partner during a drug bust. Davey, is a well known psychopath with a penchant for knives, yet manages to walk away from court without a sentence. Intent on revenge, Bell will stop at nothing to bring Davey down, no matter the personal cost – even if that means his career. The Follow is a fast paced, electrifying police thriller that is guaranteed to keep you turning the pages until the very end. Written by someone who lived and breathed the job for years, The Follow promises a non-stop roller-coaster that will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

Bad People: Four terrifying short novels of suspense


Jeremy Bates - 2018
    After a night out with his girlfriend in one of the country's remote provinces, he wakes to find himself in a pitch-black coffin—and quickly running out of oxygen. With only his cell phone and his own wits to rely on, it's a race against time to escape the claustrophobic death trap. SIX BULLETS The end of civilization arrived in the form of a giant asteroid thirteen months ago. For Burt James, a survivalist, it was not a complete surprise. He'd spent much of his adult life prepping for such a catastrophe. Consequently, while the majority of the population scoured the post-apocalyptic landscape for water and food, regressing into primitive killers, he bunkered down in his fortified hilltop home in a small town in the middle of the Australian Outback. But now he's out of food and down to his last six bullets, and he will have to make the most difficult choice of his life. THE MAILMAN Los Angeles, 1985. Never was the motto sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll more apt than the scene on the legendary Sunset Strip with the arrival of the underground Hollywood glam bands. While Mick Freeman, a record executive with a major label, works tirelessly to sign five toxic rockers whom he believes might flip the entire music world on its head, his wife, Jade, spends her days bored and alone at home, struggling with a midlife crisis that threatens to topple their twenty-year marriage. And then she meets the new mailman. Young and handsome, he sweeps her off her feet—straight into a nightmare the likes of which she could never have imagined. RE-ROLL In the near future, breathtakingly humanoid robots called Mechs are for sale, and they're designed to fulfill whatever role you want: husband, wife, best friend, slave. Manufacturers allow new owners one free "roll" to randomly determine their Mech's three leading characteristics. But as everybody knows, scoring your ideal traits is a crapshoot, though you can always re-roll—at a price.