Book picks similar to
Rings of Smoke by Diane O'Toole
1-fiction
1-serial-killer
1-thriller-psych
1-crime
Harvester 7
Andy Lang - 2015
Terrillia was a dying planet and nothing could be done to prevent the inevitable.Master Maulik carried the responsibilities of feeding his race with pride, and he performed his harvesting duties with diligence and compassion... yet his heart longed for adventure.But it is often dangerous to long, for sometimes the heart receives that which it desires most, and Maulik finds himself plunged into a game of political intrigue and brinkmanship that could alter the balance of power in his galaxy as rival species form an uneasy alliance.For the ultimate doom approaches.And as opposing factions draw together he finds himself a pawn in the great game, his only true ally, his new found friend, the Kressa.Discover how the story begins, the preparations for war, deceit and double dealing, plans within plans, the strangest of friendships... and an entire race reduced to the status of livestock.
Sudden Impact
Derek Shupert - 2021
A horrific childhood, bad marriage, and a stint in prison set him on the path. His time in organized crime was miserable, but he had no choice. He did pick up a few skills along the way, though, and just in time for the end-of-the-world.On a yacht off the California coast……he crossed the mob. The tsunami saved his life.Would he survive the hitmen?As Cory prepared to make his escape, fate put him in her path. Anna seemed helpless. He had to help, even if she slowed him down. Through all the looting, street gangs, and hysteria, he must find a way to get to his family in Indiana. No power, phones, or communication made things worse. Are they okay?What is the state of the country?What’s his next move?You’ll love this brilliant start to the Brink of Extension series, because the stage is set for an epic adventure of survival.
THE LYIN' KING
Vertell Reno'Diva Simato - 2016
As a single mother and inspiring artist she always managed to get by. It wasn't until she "accidentally " fell in love with a charming and romantic Atlien by the name of Ace, did she feel that her luck was changing. Things take a fast forward in their relationship and seemed to never be coming to an end, until one night Ace's past meets them in a dark alley in the mean Atlanta streets. Sage knows there is no going back from here, as she finds that you never really know a person until its too late. As her mind and heart battle it out, she's determined to keep her fairytale love story from turning into a nightmare. But what happens when Ace leaves her, and she is forced to face the truth alone? She doesn't have it all put together yet, but even after he is gone his past comes back to haunt her; demanding that she pay off his debts. Ace's mother Lillian seems to be keeping his secrets airtight as well, but reassures Sage she has nothing to fret about. Entangled in a web of love, lies, and deceit; Sage can only put her trust into her best friend Shelly. Will love conquer all for Sage or will she drown in the lies of her King?
I Dare You
Murray Bailey - 2016
As she investigates people start to die and Kate is left wondering who to trust. She follows clues from England to the Czech Republic and finally to the US, all the while with the killer on her tail. Her boyfriend said: "Don't believe what you read. Don't believe what they say. Trust me. I dare you." Kate wants the truth but is the truth worth dying for?
Sole Survivor
William Oday - 2018
The last to quit wins a million dollars. Then an EMP starts World War 3.Reality TV show contestant Emily Wilder enters the wilderness on Kodiak Island determined to win or die trying. Losing the contest means losing the only family she has left. The other contestants have their own reasons to endure and win. Finding shelter, water, and food is only the beginning because the island is crawling with Kodiak brown bears.A top secret government project unleashes a revolutionary technology that could save the doomed human race. But when political tensions between the United States and China boil over, humanity may run out of time. Survival isn’t just a game anymore.Sole Survivor is the first novel in the gripping Extinction Crisis series. If you like fast-paced apocalyptic action, then you’ll love this thrilling series from William Oday.
The Sun Killer (The Sun Killer, #1)
Diana Dwayne - 2014
The quiet, peaceful town of Marion hasn’t seen real crime since Nora was a child, and she’s beginning to grow tired of writing tickets to her neighbors and bringing in the occasional petty-thief… but that’s all about to change. When a woman is found murdered in her home, Nora gets much more than she bargained for as the ritualistic killing confounds the police and terrifies the town. The people are quiet… too quiet. Somebody knows something, but nobody will talk. With deceptively simple clues that seem to lead nowhere, the only evidence to be found does nothing but taunt the new detective. The worst part is, this is just the beginning. The Sun Killer is a look into a world of violence and death where nothing is as it seems. The second series of author Diana Dwayne begins with a bang. The Sun Killer will keep you guessing, and you won’t believe what comes next.
Perfect Pawn
Andrew G. Nelson - 2013
For retired NYPD Detective, James Maguire, the pieces of his life were finally starting to fall into place. He was running his own lucrative private security firm catering to Fortune 500 companies and had just met Melody Anderson, a highly successful business woman from Long Island's posh enclave of Southampton. Everything, it seemed, was looking up. That was until the morning newscast reported that his former high school flame was missing from a one car accident on a rural country road in upstate New York. Arriving back in his old hometown Maguire must come to terms, not only with his past, but the fact that no one seems interested in pursuing the investigation into Patricia Browning's disappearance, including the missing woman’s husband, the local sheriff. As Maguire struggles to put the clues together in time, he is drawn deeper into a game where people are as expendable as pieces in a chess game and the only goal is to take down the king. A crown Maguire unwittingly wears.
Allegiance
Tom Abrahams - 2014
Jackson Quick should have known better.First, he trusted a Texas politician. Then, he fell for a leggy woman. Worst of all, he drank a beer that tasted funny.Now, Jackson is running for his life, trying to piece together how he fell into a battle over something so small that it takes a microscope to see.While sniper teams take aim at a Texas gubernatorial candidate, a political aide is kidnapped and interrogated about the encrypted iPods he's carried around the globe.Will Allegiance's unwitting hero succeed in saving his life and the republic? Or, will those trying to silence him prove too powerful in a world where Allegiance is nonexistent.Allegiance is book number one in the Jackson Quick adventure series. Book two, Allegiance Burned is available now on Kindle http://amzn.to/1iuK99y and in print. Book three of the series, Hidden Allegiance, is also available on Kindle http://amzn.to/1KNroVI
Life is a Beautiful Thing, Book One
Harmon Cooper - 2015
Meta sci-fi satire. The future is futile. 2083. A pollute-addicted therapist named Meme battles his way through his mind and LA at the seat of his pants alongside a beautiful android escort with a surprising secret. With the Federal Corporate Government hunting him, will he make it to safety in time? The hunt is on. Part techno thriller, part dystopian science fiction, Life is a Beautiful Thing is a series that questions what it means to be human; a collection of novels that offers a shocking glimpse into a dark future fueled by corporate deceit and high-end intoxicants.
Altered Life
Keith Dixon - 2006
Then he finds that the skills he does have - tenacity, aggression, street-smarts - are exactly the ones he needs for his next case - hunting down a cold-blooded murderer who seems to know what his every step will be.To solve the case Sam must negotiate with his ex-wife, cement a relationship with a new love, unravel an office-based financial fraud and fight off an arrogant murderer armed only with a pen-knife.
Deep Sleepers
Adrian Wills - 2013
After all Ben Proctor has no idea of his true identity. He’s been planted deep undercover with a radical right-wing political party steadily increasing in popularity as the country’s anti-Muslim fervour grows. But when Proctor is recruited by a secretive neo-Nazi terrorist splinter group calling themselves the Phineas Priests, his mission begins to unravel at terrifying speed. He’s abducted, branded with a mysterious symbol and initiated in an eerie moonlit ceremony. The Priests have spotted Proctor’s potential and want him to lead a deadly terrorist bomb plot that is destined to kill hundreds of innocent people. As the perfect spy threatens to become the perfect terrorist, one man’s tasked with stopping him - the man who’s already inside his head. Tom Blake is a former Special Forces military psychologist who now works for British MI5. He’s supposed to be controlling Proctor using an experimental hypnotic technique developed with a black ops SAS unit. The only problem is that Proctor has gone missing – and the countdown to the bombing has already begun. And so starts a frantic hunt for the missing spy before it’s too late. With his MI5 masters demanding action, Blake needs all his military experience to track down his man and avert tragedy. Meanwhile, in the heart of London’s Canary Wharf, a Texan oil billionaire makes a rendezvous with his super yacht for a secret meeting that could be about to change history. How much does he know about the Phineas Priests and could he hold the key to stopping the bombing? And an investigative reporter finds himself hot on the heels of the biggest story he’s ever chased - with the help of a mysterious blonde trying to find her brother who she fears has been murdered in Brazil.
Smith: A Detective Jason Smith Thriller
Stewart Giles - 2014
It is Christmas Day in York. A woman is found dead in her bed. A suicide note is found on her chest. It reads ‘I am so sorry Martin’. Hours later the police are called to a house a few miles away. A mother and her daughter have been brutally attacked; the mother is dead and the daughter is barely alive. The father is found shaking uncontrollably in the corner of the room. He is covered in blood but he is unharmed. His name is Martin Willow. Detective Sergeant Jason Smith is put in charge of the investigation. After reaching dead end after dead end, Smith starts to put the pieces together and figures out that Martin Willow is innocent and the killer is still out there. The little girl who was attacked on Christmas Day wakes from her coma and gives Smith a clue about the attacker; a piece of a song she heard directly before the attack. Smith then finds himself in a race against time to find this maniac before he kills again.
The Bourbon Street Ripper
Leo King - 2012
Although he was captured, convicted, and executed, his deeds left a scar on the city.Now, twenty years later, the murders have started again, and the secrets of the past, left buried for so long, must be uncovered in order to stop this new horror.
Two Dogs and a Blonde
Michael Reid - 2016
He inadvertently trained twelve guys to be hit men and now they are after Jennifer Warren, actress, beauty and pain in the ass. Tom has to find the bad guys before they kill Jennifer and anybody else on their list. So follows a cross-country odyssey from Colorado to the Outer Banks to Washington, D.C. to Wisconsin and back to the foothills above Denver. Tom, his Newfoundland dog Libby, Jennifer Warren and her poodle Bridgette Bardot fight the hit men and other assorted bad guys including... Philly Munson, CEO of EZ Payday Loans. He sees a huge opportunity in contract killing geared to the general public. As Philly says, "Everybody wants somebody dead. Our firm will make those dreams a reality." Billy Means. One of the dirtiest players ever in the NFL. The cops are pretty sure he killed a referee after the Lions game when the ref kicked Means out because he ripped off an opposing player's helmet and threw it in the stands. Joe Porterfield, the Sausage King of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. To stop the madness, Tom has to find out who paid to have Jennifer killed and why. And maybe Tom and Jennifer will fall in love along the way if they don't kill each other first.
The Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 4-6
Jonas Saul - 2013
He idolizes Sarah Roberts from afar, and has done so for more than five years. He has studied her pictures, memorized her news clippings and now waits in the dark for the day when he can make Sarah his hostage.A steel cage waits for Sarah, where Elmore has practiced what he will do to her. The other girls he has practiced with now lay discarded, buried about his property. He keeps their fingernails and toenails to roll between his teeth, to savor their strength, to feel the nails weaken and give in, just as his victims do.Elmore has a plan for Sarah, and she walks right into his trap. Sarah Roberts is his hostage and no one knows where they are. In Sarah Roberts Book Four, The Hostage, Sarah is in a fight not just for her freedom, but also her life.The Victim (Sarah Roberts Book Five)In Book Five, Sarah Roberts is The Victim.Sarah is killed in a horrible car accident, the DNA found in the car verified as hers. But the government men at the Sophia Project have faked her death to keep her to themselves.After her funeral, she shows up in the food court of a busy mall where a violent exchange takes place. Things go wrong fast. The people protecting Sarah die within seconds from a mysterious drug. She runs, escaping the clutches of the police who want to figure out her connection to the murderers. A group of men called The Rapturites surface to take responsibility for the carnage. They want Sarah raptured as the end times are upon us. As the police hunt her, and the Rapturites get close, people she loves, old friends who have helped her in the past, start to die around her. Vivian, her sister, watches. Vivian listens. Sarah executes.In Sarah Roberts Book Five, Sarah is The Victim, and there's nothing she can do about it. Except she won't stay dead.The Enigma (Sarah Roberts Book Six)In Book Six, The Enigma, Sarah Roberts heads to Las Vegas, Nevada.Her dead sister has left her a message with two tasks to complete in Vegas. She is supposed to choose a random guy with a cell phone and send a message to a number her sister has supplied. Before she can complete this first task, she notices a man following her. This man begs her, with tears in his eyes, to not send the text.On the west side of Vegas, a man is being tortured. Sarah's second task is to arrive at a certain time to stop it. When she shows up late, people start to die. The man who had followed her also shows up. With people dead at the warehouse, the police want to know what she's doing in Vegas and why she was there.All Sarah wants is to get her bike and leave Las Vegas. But Maxwell Ramsey has a different plan for Sarah. She has entered his territory and intervened in his business. She has cost him money and time as he plans the acquisition of a local casino. For that, Sarah has to be removed.What she doesn't expect are the deep ties to her family and what that means to her now, and in the future.In Book Six, The Enigma, Sarah Roberts is in Vegas gambling with her life and can only make it out alive if she plays her cards right.