Crime/Mystery Books

Mystery novels are puzzles that need a solution. We enjoy the thrill of the chase, the narrow escapes, and follow the clues to guess how the story is going to end. The mystery genre has been around for more than two centuries now and there are reasons why it happens to be the most popular of all genres out there. Here are top picks from our passionate community of readers.

Green Asylum

John Rothsford, a Master Clinical Hypnotist maimed by his sadistic parents during childhood, has discovered a powerful new technique he believes can truly heal his troubled patients. His first subject: six-year-old burn victim Mary Colburn. Little Mary’s reaction to John’s powerful, new hypnotic suggestion has left her family dead and Mary shunned by her community. Now, fifteen years later, adult Mary plods through life, anxious and isolated except for her cat, Victor, and her elderly neighbor, Doris.
Reuniting on her twenty-first birthday and finding himself saddened and angered to see that Mary has been riddled with trauma and guilt all these years later, John places her under trance once again to reverse her pain, and plants a new suggestion: Unbeknownst to him however, he’s created a bold, cold new Mary who finds fun and comfort in the darkest recesses of human suffering and who will stop at nothing to punish anyone who threatens her.
As Mary’s trail of victims grows and her methods become grislier and more devious, John’s own demons rise to the surface. He struggles to understand how her treatment went wrong and strives to undo the damage before someone else dies and his career is ruined. But Mary isn’t finished yet…

The Rescue (Ryan Decker Book 1)

An Amazon Charts bestseller.

For fans of Tom Clancy and Lee Child, a heart-pumping thriller of betrayal, revenge, and conspiracy by USA Today bestselling author Steven Konkoly.

Former CIA operative turned mercenary for hire Ryan Decker’s specialty is rescuing kidnap victims. Hired by an influential US senator to liberate her daughter from a human-trafficking ring, Decker never anticipated sabotage or that the assault could go so disastrously wrong. The hostage is dead. His team is wiped out, and so are their families, including Decker’s own wife and son—eliminated one by one by the Russian mafia. And he’s survived to take the fall.

When he’s inexplicably freed soon into a ten-year sentence in federal prison, Decker suspects another setup. And private investigator Harlow Mackenzie knows he’s right. She has evidence that a power greater than the Russian mob was behind the raid that ruined Decker’s life.

The next move in a nationwide cat-and-mouse game of high-level sedition is up to them. Fueled by revenge and an obsession to clear his name, Decker has only one mission: to destroy a growing conspiracy before it’s too late.

Company of Spies: The Pendergast Files Book 1

Apparently unrelated people are committing suicide and Anna Lingaard suspects foul play. She unearths a conspiracy that could rock the foundations of the British Security Services and when Lingaard meets the enigmatic Arthur Prendergast she is thrust into a shady underworld that exists in her own office.

In the spirit of John Le Carre and Len Deighton, Company of Spies is a darkly comic story of a secret service struggling under the weight of it’s own administrative red tape and office politics. Prendergast and Prendergast Returns is as funny as it is gripping. Like a cross between Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Office. The world of Espionage has never required so much admin.

Company of Spies is the first in a series of books taken from the Prendergast Files. Included in this book is The Librarian, a short story which follows on from Company of Spies.

Sisters Like Us (Mischief Bay Book 4)

The grass is always greener on your sister’s side of the fence…

Divorce left Harper Szymanski with a name no one can spell, a house she can’t afford and a teenage daughter who’s pulling away. With her fledgling virtual-assistant business, she’s scrambling to maintain her overbearing mother’s ridiculous Susie Homemaker standards and still pay the bills, thanks to clients like Lucas, the annoying playboy cop who claims he hangs around for Harper’s fresh-baked cookies.

Spending half her life in school hasn’t prepared Dr. Stacey Bloom for her most daunting challenge—motherhood. She didn’t inherit the nurturing gene like Harper and is in deep denial that a baby is coming. Worse, her mother will be horrified to learn that Stacey’s husband plans to be a stay-at-home dad…assuming Stacey can first find the courage to tell Mom she’s already six months pregnant.

Separately they may be a mess, but together Harper and Stacey can survive anything—their indomitable mother, overwhelming maternity stores and ex’s weddings. Sisters Like Us is a delightful look at sisters, mothers and daughters in today’s fast-paced world, told with Susan Mallery’s trademark warmth and humor.

The Amazon Code (Harvey Bennett Thrillers)

When her company discovers a remarkable hidden message in the dreaming brains of her subjects, Dr. Amanda Meron unknowingly invites disaster unto her company. She enlists the help of some old friends to find out what the clues are pointing her toward, but they seem to be pointing her to one of the remote places on the planet. The Amazon Rainforest. When Harvey “Ben” Bennett gets a hint that the nefarious organization he’s been searching for has turned up in Brazil, he and his new girlfriend Juliette Richardson race to the jungle to discover what they’re after – and hopefully stop them. From the myth of the lost city of El Dorado to emerging science technology, The Amazon Code has it all: action-packed adventure, an exotic setting, and characters you’ll fall in love with. Don’t miss the next Harvey Bennett thriller – the new action/adventure, science-fiction series from bestselling author Nick Thacker!

Never Never (Harriet Blue)

The #1 New York Times bestseller of a brilliant investigator facing the shock of her brother’s murder arrest . . . and her own exile in the Australian outback.

Harry Blue is the top Sex Crimes investigator in her department. But even she didn’t see this coming: her own brother arrested for the grisly murders of three beautiful young women. “For her own good,” she’s been sent to a desolate location and assigned to a new “partner.” But is he actually meant to be a watchdog? In her strange new home, Harry vanishes to a place where no one would ever think to look for her.

Walking The Razor’s Edge: The Dutchman and The Baron

The long awaited true story of Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans and George de Mohrenschildt has finally been revealed. Authors Tommy and Hilde Wilkens bring to you “Walking The Razor’s Edge The Dutchman & The Baron”.An exhaustive seven year research and study of Willem Oltmans life and study of the Willem Oltmans Archives revealed a fascinating true story that Oltmans recorded in his personal private diaries that opens a window into history of his close intimate friendship with the strange and mysteries Baron George de Mohrenschildt and his self confessed involvement and friendship with accused Presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the months leading up to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the weeks leading up to Willem Oltmans death he arranged for his private files and notes and diaries to be stored and preserved for further historical study. One of Oltmans last hopes and wishes was that just maybe one day someone would come along and take a second look at his findings. Walking The Razor’s Edge The Dutchman & The Baron is that second look.

Girls of Glass

It takes more than a lie to hide the dark secrets of this picture-perfect family.

When the granddaughter of one of Florida’s most powerful judges disappears, it triggers a personal trauma for Detective Alice Garner: the kidnapping and murder of her own child. As a flood of painful memories comes rushing back, Alice sees herself in the guilt-ridden and emotionally fragile mother Charlotte Burke, who has become the target of a rush to judgment.

All too familiar with Charlotte’s situation, Alice is reluctant to cast any blame. Her gut instincts tell her that Charlotte’s anguish is rooted in something else—somewhere too dark for the truth to be seen. And Alice believes that it’s hiding behind the facade of the illustrious and guarded Burke mansion.

But uncovering Charlotte’s past comes with a risk. For Alice’s own life is becoming entangled in the secrets and lies of the picture-perfect family—an image that is about to be shattered in so many unexpected ways.

An Anonymous Girl: A Novel

Looking to earn some easy cash, Jessica Farris agrees to be a test subject in a psychological study about ethics and morality. But as the study moves from the exam room to the real world, the line between what is real and what is one of Dr. Shields’s experiments blurs.

Dr. Shields seems to know what Jess is thinking… and what she’s hiding.

Jessica’s behavior will not only be monitored, but manipulated.

Caught in a web of attraction, deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.

From the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, An Anonymous Girl will keep you riveted through the last shocking twist.

The Victory Garden: A Novel

From the bestselling author of The Tuscan Child comes a beautiful and heart-rending novel of a woman’s love and sacrifice during the First World War.

As the Great War continues to take its toll, headstrong twenty-one-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and it is not long before she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage.

When he is sent back to the front, Emily volunteers as a “land girl,” tending to the neglected grounds of a large Devonshire estate. It’s here that Emily discovers the long-forgotten journals of a medicine woman who devoted her life to her herbal garden. The journals inspire Emily, and in the wake of devastating news, they are her saving grace. Emily’s lover has not only died a hero but has left her terrified—and with child. Since no one knows that Emily was never married, she adopts the charade of a war widow.

As Emily learns more about the volatile power of healing with herbs, the found journals will bring her to the brink of disaster, but may open a path to her destiny.

Her Darkest Nightmare (Dr. Evelyn Talbot Novels Book 1)

Her Darkest Nightmare, first in an electrifying new series from New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak

THE HUNT FOR A SERIAL KILLER

Evelyn Talbot knows that a psychopath can look perfectly normal. She was only sixteen when her own boyfriend Jasper imprisoned and tortured her—and left her for dead. Now an eminent psychiatrist who specializes in the criminal mind, Evelyn is the force behind Hanover House, a maximum-security facility located in a small Alaskan town. Her job puts her at odds with Sergeant Amarok, who is convinced that Hanover is a threat to his community…even as his attraction to beautiful Evelyn threatens to tear his world apart.

BEGINS WITH AN ESCAPE FROM HER PAST

Then, just as the bitter Alaskan winter cuts both town and prison off from the outside world, the mutilated body of a local woman turns up. For Amarok, this is the final proof he needs: Hanover has to go. Evelyn, though, has reason to fear that the crime is a personal message to her—the first sign that the killer who haunts her dreams has found her again. . .and that the life she has so carefully rebuilt will never be the same…

“Brenda Novak’s seamless plotting, emotional intensity, and true-to-life characters…make her books completely satisfying.”—New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan

Whistleblower

Be thrilled by this classic romantic suspense from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen

When Victor Holland came flying out of the night, he ran straight into the path of Catherine Weaver’s car. Having uncovered a terrifying secret that leads all the way to Washington, Victor is running for his life—and from the men who will go to any lengths to silence him.

Though Victor’s story sounds like the ravings of a mad-man, the haunted look in his eyes—and the bullet hole in his shoulder—tell Cathy a different story. As each hour brings pursuers ever closer, she has to wonder, is she giving her trust to a man in danger or trusting her life to a dangerous man?

Originally published in 1992

Suitable Lie

Andy Boyd thinks he is the luckiest man alive. Widowed with a young child, after his wife dies in childbirth, he is certain that he will never again experience true love. Then he meets Anna. Feisty, fun and beautiful, she’s his perfect match, and she loves his son like he is her own. When Andy ends up in the hospital on his wedding night, he receives his first clue that Anna is not all that she seems. Desperate for that happy-ever-after, he ignores it—a dangerous mistake that could cost him everything.

Where the Forest Meets the Stars

An Amazon Charts bestseller.

In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again.

After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.

The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child’s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay—just until she learns more about Ursa’s past.

Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren’t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children’s website anymore?

Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars.

The Will of the Raspberries

Grace knows there is something bad about the big metal shed at the back of the yard. She sees it in the way the animals keep away from the fumes, and her parent’s growing obsession with the chemicals they create.

Grace is taken from her home late one night by her dad. They make a rushed exit with little explanation for their departure. Mom is not with them, and only quiet reassurance is given for her absence. Grace knows it’s because of the shed and the promises she made to her mom over the past few months. She knows the secrets buried beneath the shed are slowly rising to the surface.

Grace is brought to a small, prairie town. Here, Grace must sift through the questions that have haunted her. She begins to unravel the mysteries of her parent’s shed, her uncle’s troubled past, and the terrible secret she promised her mother she’d keep. But the shed and its darkness have followed her to this new place, determined to make sure its secrets stay hidden no matter the cost.

Gia Santella Crime Thriller Boxed Set: Books 1-6: Gia Santella Crime Thrillers

She lives life fast, hard, and deadly…

Do you love fierce women, dark mysteries and riveting suspense? You’ll love the Gia Santella Crime Thrillers. This volume contains:

CITY OF THE DEAD (BOOK #1)
Gia Santella copes with her parents’ death by drinking, spending, and kicking ass when it’s necessary. After an unexpected letter reveals that her loved ones’ tragedy was murder, Gia changes her focus to revenge.

Vowing to find the one responsible, the grieving daughter must stay one step ahead of a ruthless plot to end her family line. To avoid yet another family death, Gia has a bloody choice to make: kill or be killed.

FORGOTTEN ISLAND (BOOK #2)
Vigilante heiress Gia Santella is facing her most dangerous enemy yet.

When a hate group infiltrates Gia’s San Francisco neighborhood, a student journalist at U.C. Berkeley reporting on the group disappears. Gia’s search for the missing student unravels dark secrets that threaten to destroy her beloved neighborhood. She is caught in a race against time. If she fails, more innocent people will die.

DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL (BOOK #3)
Under the sultry Mediterranean skies, Gia thinks that she’s finally escaped the dark cloud that has hovered over her most of her life. But she is wrong. When tragedy strikes and she is left reeling, she is thirsty for vengeance. But in her efforts to see revenge and justice, she finds herself face-to-face with a tangled web of deep dark secrets that threaten to destroy everything she ever believed was true.

LONE RAVEN (BOOK #4)
Gia Santella’s hunt for her best friend leads her on a road trip to Mexico where she learns that there is no refuge from evil despite sunny skies and bucolic beaches. The beauty of Baja hides dark secrets and soon Gia finds herself caught up in a group of ex-pats who like the advantages of living in a place where people can disappear without a trace and nobody bats an eye.

BLACK WIDOW (BOOK #5)
A Mediterranean cruise. A fascinating new friend. An assassin playing a deadly game of revenge.
Vigilante heiress Gia Santella has everything that money can buy. It’s what she can’t buy—love, companionship, friendship—that eludes her. When Gia is forced to take a luxury cruise, she sets aside her vigilante ways. As she enjoys exotic lands and foods, a new friendship gives her hope that she might be able to lead a normal life like everybody else. But like everything else in her life has done, her new friendship soon takes a deadly turn.

TASTE OF VENGEANCE (BOOK #6)
They dine with bishops. They vacation with presidents. They sleep with movie stars. So who can stop them when their actions turn deadly? Sydney Rye and Gia Santella—two fierce vigilantes devoted to justice—meet for the first time when they find themselves caught up in a deadly Silicon Valley subculture revolving around some of the most powerful men in the world. It doesn’t take long for them to realize that the elite group of men are playing a depraved and deadly game and nobody will dare to interfere. It’s left up to the two women to risk it all to stop the men and save more innocent lives.

The Consequence of Falling: (An enemies-to-lovers office romance)

The list of things I hate is short. Not even my soon-to-be ex-husband is on that list. Nope. I save only the worst of the worst, the crème de la crème, the absolute I cannot even for this list . . .

1. Black coffee
2. Rude people
3. Nathaniel Bradley

Which is why when my father informs me that he’s making Nathaniel Bradley his new business partner, and in turn, my boss, I flip out.

1. He’s an annoying know-it-all.
2. He calls me a spoiled princess every chance he gets.
3. He disapproves of everything I do.

I go into this knowing I’ll hate every second in his presence. Except the longer he’s around, the more I find myself staring at his lips and remembering the one time they were on mine. I randomly find myself looking at his hands and wondering how they’d feel on my skin.

I try to snap out of it, but I guess I’m not as smart as I thought I was. No matter how many times I remind myself of the times I’ve practically thrown myself at him and he’s pushed me away, I keep falling little by little.

I’d always heard that it was a bad idea to mix business with pleasure and if that’s the case, this thing with Nathaniel has demise written all over it.

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy, Book 1)

Book one of the New York Times–bestselling All Souls trilogy—”a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter and Twilight” (People)

Deborah Harkness’s sparkling debut, A Discovery of Witches, has brought her into the spotlight and galvanized fans around the world. In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.

Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar’s depth to this riveting tale of magic and suspense. The story continues in book two, Shadow of Night, and concludes with The Book of Life.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Tuscan Child

From New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Rhys Bowen comes a haunting novel about a woman who braves her father’s hidden past to discover his secrets…

“Pass the bread, the olives, and the wine. Oh, and a copy of The Tuscan Child to savor with them.” —NPR

In 1944, British bomber pilot Hugo Langley parachuted from his stricken plane into the verdant fields of German-occupied Tuscany. Badly wounded, he found refuge in a ruined monastery and in the arms of Sofia Bartoli. But the love that kindled between them was shaken by an irreversible betrayal.

Nearly thirty years later, Hugo’s estranged daughter, Joanna, has returned home to the English countryside to arrange her father’s funeral. Among his personal effects is an unopened letter addressed to Sofia. In it is a startling revelation.

Still dealing with the emotional wounds of her own personal trauma, Joanna embarks on a healing journey to Tuscany to understand her father’s history—and maybe come to understand herself as well. Joanna soon discovers that some would prefer the past be left undisturbed, but she has come too far to let go of her father’s secrets now…

A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

He can’t leave his hotel. You won’t want to.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

Blood for Blood (Ziba MacKenzie Book 1)

Ziba Mackenzie profiles killers. Now one is profiling her.

Rush hour, London. A packed commuter train is torn apart in a collision. Picking through the carnage, ex-special forces profiler Ziba MacKenzie helps a dying woman who passes on a cryptic message: He did it. You have to tell someone.

When a corpse is found bearing the gruesome signature of a serial killer dormant for twenty-five years, Ziba is pulled into the hunt for the perpetrator. As the body count rises it becomes clear he’s on a new spree. But what’s brought the London Lacerator back after such a long hiatus? And does his sudden return have anything to do with the woman on the train?

Ziba scrambles to profile the killer in the hope of predicting his next move. But time is running out. And the closer she gets to uncovering his identity, the closer he gets to destroying hers.

Shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger Award

No Second Chance: A Suspense Thriller

When his child is taken, a father will stop at nothing to get her back in this explosive, white-knuckle thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben.

When the first bullet hit my chest, I thought of my daughter…

Shot twice by an unseen assailant, Dr. Marc Seidman lies in a hospital bed. His wife has been killed. His six-month-old daughter has vanished. But just when his world seems forever shattered, the ransom note arrives: We are watching. If you contact the authorities, you will never see your daughter again. There will be no second chance. With no one to trust, and mired in a deepening quicksand of deception and deadly secrets, Marc clings to one unwavering vow: bring home his daughter, at any cost.