Heat Wave


Richard Castle - 2008
    A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kill trot out their alibis. And then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy. Secrets that prove to be fatal. Secrets that lay hidden in the dark until one NYPB detective shines a light.Mystery sensation Richard Castle, blockbuster author of the wildly bestselling Derrick Storm novels, introduces his newest character, NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat. Tough, sexy, professional, Nikki Heat carries a passion for justice as she leads one of New York City’s top homicide squads. She’s hit with an unexpected challenge when the commissioner assigns superstar journalist Jameson Rook to ride along with her to research an article on New York’s finest. Pulitzer- Prize-winning Rook is as much a handful as he is handsome. His wisecracking and meddling aren’t her only problems. as she works to unravel the secrets of the murdered real estate tycoon, she must also confront the spark between them. The one called Heat.

The Sinner


Petra Hammesfahr - 1999
    Why? What would cause this quiet, kind young mother to stab a complete stranger in the throat over and over again, in full view of her family and friends? For the local police, it's an open-and-shut case. Cora quickly confesses and there's no shortage of witnesses, but those questions remain unanswered. Haunted by the case, the police commissioner refuses to close the file and begins his own maverick investigation. So begins the slow unraveling of Cora's past, a harrowing descent into a woman's private hell. A dark, spellbinding novel, where the truth is to be questioned at every turn, The Sinner has been a bestseller around the world, and is poised to be a summer smash with the coming TV adaptation, already hailed as one of the most anticipated shows of the summer."The Sinner is unnerving and weird and guaranteed to stick with you weeks later." -Sarah Weinman, editor of Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives and Women Crime Writers"Hauntingly insightful and sensitive." -The Guardian

Sweet Little Lies


Caz Frear - 2017
    But is he a killer? Even liars tell the truth... sometimes.Twenty-six-year-old Cat Kinsella overcame a troubled childhood to become a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police Force, but she's never been able to banish these ghosts. When she's called to the scene of a murder in Islington, not far from the pub her estranged father still runs, she discovers that Alice Lapaine, a young housewife who didn't get out much, has been found strangled.Cat and her team immediately suspect Alice's husband, until she receives a mysterious phone call that links the victim to Maryanne Doyle, a teenage girl who went missing in Ireland eighteen years earlier. The call raises uneasy memories for Cat--her family met Maryanne while on holiday, right before she vanished. Though she was only a child, Cat knew that her charming but dissolute father wasn't telling the truth when he denied knowing anything about Maryanne or her disappearance. Did her father do something to the teenage girl all those years ago? Could he have harmed Alice now? And how can you trust a liar even if he might be telling the truth?Determined to close the two cases, Cat rushes headlong into the investigation, crossing ethical lines and trampling professional codes. But in looking into the past, she might not like what she finds...

Raven Black


Ann Cleeves - 2006
    But the next morning the body of a murdered teenage girl is discovered nearby, and suspicion falls on Magnus. Inspector Jimmy Perez enters an investigative maze that leads deeper into the past of the Shetland Islands than anyone wants to go.

Three Days Missing


Kimberly Belle - 2018
    Her nine-year-old son, Ethan, is missing—vanished from the cabin where he’d been on an overnight field trip with his class. Shocked and distraught, Kat rushes to the campground where he was last seen. But she’s too late; the authorities have returned from their search empty-handed after losing Ethan’s trail in the mountain forest.Another mother from the school, Stef Huntington, seems like she has it all: money, prominence in the community, a popular son and a loving husband. She hardly knows Kat, except for the vicious gossip that swirls around Kat’s traumatic past. But as the police investigation unfolds, Ethan’s disappearance will have earth-shattering consequences in Stef’s own life—and the paths of these two mothers are about to cross in ways no one could have anticipated.Racing against the clock, their desperate search for answers begins—one where the greatest danger could lie behind the everyday smiles of those they trust the most.Praise for The Marriage Lie “[W]ill keep you reading into the wee hours of the night.” —Redbook“A good, old-fashioned page-turner, with a poisonous sting in the tail.” —Daily Mail“[A] compelling domestic thriller.” —BuzzFeed“Fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train will eat up Kimberly Belle’s latest novel…. This one is a true brain twister!” —

Special Circumstances


Sheldon Siegel - 2000
     Debut author Sheldon Siegel bursts into the legal thriller arena with a riveting courtroom drama, exposing the world of big-time law firms and lawyers in a fresh, sharp-witted, wonderfully sardonic page-turner. Meet Mike Daley. Ex-priest. Ex–public defender. And as of yesterday, ex-partner in one of San Francisco's most prominent law firms. Today he's out on his own, setting up practice on the wrong side of town. Then his best friend and former colleague is charged with a brutal double murder, and Daley is instantly catapulted into a high-profile investigation involving the prestigious law firm that just booted him. As he prepares his case, Daley uncovers the firm's dirtiest secrets. It doesn't take long for him to discover that in this trial, ambition, friendship, greed, and long-standing grudges will play just as important a role as truth and justice. Brilliantly paced, crackling with energy and suspense, Special Circumstances reminds us why we love to hate lawyers — but can't get enough of courtroom drama when it's done this well.

Crimson Lake


Candice Fox - 2017
    How do you move on when the world won’t let you?12:46: Claire Bingley stands alone at a bus stop12:47: Ted Conkaffey parks his car beside her12:52: The girl is missing . . .Six minutes in the wrong place at the wrong time—that’s all it took to ruin Sydney detective Ted Conkaffey’s life. Accused but not convicted of a brutal abduction,Ted is now a free man—and public enemy number one. Maintaining his innocence, he flees north to keep a low profile amidst the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake.There, Ted’s lawyer introduces him to eccentric private investigator Amanda Pharrell, herself a convicted murderer. Not entirely convinced Amanda is a cold-blooded killer, Ted agrees to help with her investigation, a case full of deception and obsession, while secretly digging into her troubled past. The residents of Crimson Lake are watching the pair's every move... and the town offers no place to hide.

Compelling Evidence


Steve Martini - 1992
    Now, Potter's wife is accused of his murder -- and Paul is thrust back into the big time, as he uncovers secrets that may end his career -- and his life.

Final Jeopardy


Linda Fairstein - 1996
    Patricia Cornwall knows the morgue; John Grisham knows the courtroom; but no one knows the inner workings of the D.A.'s office like Linda Fairstein, renowned for two decades as head of Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit. Now that world comes vividly to life in a brilliant debut novel of shocking realism, powerful insight, and searing suspense. Alexandra Cooper, Manhattan's top sex crimes prosecutor, awakens one morning to shoking news: a tabloid headline announcing her own brutal murder. But the actual victim was Isabella Lascar, the Hollywood film star who sought refuge at Alex's Martha's Vineyard retreat. Was Isabella targeted by a stalker or -- mistaken for Alex -- was she in the wrong place at the wrong time? In an investigation that twists from the back alleys of lower Manhattan to the chic salons of the Upper East Side. Alex knows she'sin final jeopardy...and time is running out. She has to get into the killer's head before the killer gets to her.

Deadline


Sandra BrownSandra Brown - 2013
    Haunted by everything he experienced, he's privately suffering from battle fatigue which is a threat to every aspect of his life. But then he gets a call from a source within the FBI. A new development has come to light in a story that began 40 years ago. It could be the BIG story of Dawson's career one in which he has a vested interest.Soon, Dawson is covering the disappearance and presumed murder of former Marine Jeremy Wesson, the biological son of the pair of terrorists who remain on the FBI's Most Wanted list. As Dawson delves into the story, he finds himself developing feelings for Wesson's ex-wife, Amelia, and her two young sons. But when Amelia's nanny turns up dead, the case takes a stunning new turn, with Dawson himself becoming a suspect. Haunted by his own demons, Dawson takes up the chase for the notorious outlaws. . .and the secret, startling truth about himself.

The Cold Dish


Craig Johnson - 2004
    Two years earlier, Cody and three accomplices had been given suspended sentences for raping a Northern Cheyenne girl. Is someone seeking vengeance? Longmire faces one of the more volatile and challenging cases in his twenty-four years as sheriff and means to see that revenge, a dish that is best served cold, is never served at all.

Déjà Dead


Kathy Reichs - 1997
    In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Temperance detects an alarming pattern and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her, her best friend and her own daughter, in mortal danger...

Until Proven Guilty


J.A. Jance - 1985
    Beaumont's kid, and the determined Seattle homicide detective won't rest until her killer pays dearly. But the hunt is leading Beaumont into a murky world of religious fanaticism, and toward a beautiful, perilous obsession all his own. And suddenly Beau himself is a target -- because faith can be dangerous...and love can kill.

Curious Minds


Janet Evanovich - 2016
    Emerson Knight is introverted, eccentric, and has little to no sense of social etiquette. Good thing he's also brilliant, rich, and (some people might say) handsome, or he'd probably be homeless.Riley Moon has just graduated from Harvard Business and Harvard Law. Her aggressive Texas spitfire attitude has helped her land her dream job as a junior analyst with mega-bank Blane-Grunwald. At least Riley Moon thought it was her dream job, until she is given her first assignment: babysitting Emerson Knight.What starts off as an inquiry about missing bank funds in the Knight account leads to inquiries about a missing man, missing gold, and a life-and-death race across the country. Through the streets of Washington, D.C., and down into the underground vault of the Federal Reserve in New York City, an evil plan is exposed. A plan so sinister that only a megalomaniac could think it up, and only the unlikely duo of the irrepressibly charming Emerson Knight and the tenacious Riley Moon can stop it.

Now You See Me


Sharon J. Bolton - 2011
    Within twenty-four hours a reporter receives an anonymous letter that points out alarming similarities between the murder and Jack the Ripper’s first murder—a letter that calls out Lacey by name. If it’s real, and they have a killer bent on re-creating London’s bloody past, history shows they have just five days until the next attempt.No one believes the connections are anything more than a sadistic killer’s game, not even Lacey, whom the killer seems to be taunting specifically. However, as they investigate the details of the case start reminding her more and more of a part of her past she’d rather keep hidden. And the only way to do that is to catch the killer herself.