Showing results for "Burn" in Crime Fiction

Joel Brandt swears he’s never met the woman before. His wife dead six months before, the small-time businessman is perplexed when Del Moray police inform him that a local woman, Marla Cloy, has accused him of harassing her. According to her, Joel has been lurking outside of her house, following her car, even assaulting her at the grocery store. Brandt says it’s all a lie, but the police don’t believe him. He goes to Fred Carver, an ex-cop turned PI, for help clearing his name.

Bella Beckett is clearing out her mother Betty’s house when she finds a hidden diary. On the cover, two words are written: BURN THIS. According to the diary, thirty-five years earlier, Betty witnessed the murder of Bella’s childhood friend, Vicky. The diary is quickly dismissed by the police as fiction–Betty’s attempt at creative writing–but Bella is convinced they are wrong. As she uncovers a series of dark connections, it is clear Vicky’s killer is still at large. And they weren’t just someone familiar to Betty, but a person Bella herself knows well…

McGee Ridge, earthquake-rattled and clinging to the thousand-foot cliffs of the Northern California coast, is nestled in one of a very few truly wild places left in the Lower 48. It is also home to a band of off-grid outlaws who vanished behind the famed Redwood Curtain in the 1960s and whose time there is swiftly coming to an end.

After a botched holdup, Bill, a not-too-bright bungler who has been living with his dead mother in order to collect her social security checks, hides out in a traveling freak show populated by a bizarre assortment of bearded ladies, hermaphrodites, dogmen, and a mysterious frozen man.

“NXIVM meets Southern suspense…. Gripping, timely, and ominous.” —Allison Buccola, author of Catch Her When She Falls Three women work to uncover the scorching lies and scandal behind a self-help movement, igniting a powder keg of secrets that could blow their town apart, in this...

When a mummified body is discovered in a renovated building, the gruesome discovery leads Detective Kay Hunter and her team into a complex murder investigation. The subsequent police inquiry exposes corruption, lies and organised crime within the tight-knit community–and Kay’s determination to seek justice for the young murder victim could ruin the reputations of men who will do anything to protect their business interests.

Eddie's on his way back from a routine investigation when his horse almost runs down a half-naked blonde in serious trouble. Against his better judgment, he promises to protect the frightened young woman, only to find himself waylaid by unknown assailants and left for dead beside her mutilated body.

Anticipating problems, a prestigious global restaurant convention hires Leo as a security liaison. His assignment: monitor the movements of two adversarial steak-house competitors whose "beef" has previously made for some nasty confrontations and landed a food critic in the crossfire of two warring factions. Leo sends "the Boys" off to shadow all three parties and report back to him. But even the simplest of plans can cascade into catastrophe. And Leo soon finds himself served up as the prime suspect in a murder...realizing that both his life and career are at stake.

Time is up in Old Town. As the pace of gentrification reaches frenzy in Portland, Oregon, Darby Holland’s beloved tattoo parlor, Lucky Supreme, is destroyed by a bomb that ripped through an entire city block. Only a warning call from his favorite prostitute saved his life. Developers have been like wolves at the door of Dmitri (the drunken landlord) for the past few years, but this is different.

Kimera Davis thought she was finally free from marrying for money - and living way too many lies. Until her obsessed ex-husband ignited the ultimate dark hoax, a spectacularly malicious deception that's left her family, and her best friend, Adria, reeling. Now Kimera and her young son are prisoners at a remote estate, under the thumb of her ex's powerful father. And she has only one slender chance of escape.

DI Clare Mackay is called to Albany High, where the body of a girl has been found. A suspected suicide – yet Sophie Bakewell was by all accounts a cheerful, talented student. Could she really have been hiding a darker side? It's not the only disturbing case to land on Clare's desk. Across town, an elderly man is in danger. Yet before the police can determine the facts, everything changes and they are presented with two suspicious deaths to investigate.

A woman’s body is found stuffed inside a wheelie bin, stripped of her clothes, drained of her blood, thrown out with the rubbish. Detective Jeff Rickman is on the case. Within hours, the police have their prime suspect. And it’s Rickman himself. Elsewhere, a cruel prank ends with four innocent people burnt to death. Rickman’s convinced there’s a connection with his murdered Jane Doe. But can he unravel the truth and clear his name before anyone else dies?

John Ridley is an acclaimed screenwriter and best-selling author. His first novel featuring LAPD mutant hunter Soledad O'Roark, Those Who Walk in Darkness, was an instant hit. Soledad's second adventure finds her hunting down a vigilante who is murdering metanormals indiscriminantly. She has no love for the mutants, but no one is above the law. So with her modified sidearm at her hip, she hits the pavement, determined to dish out some street justice.

Julie Bryson and rookie detective, Andy Green, once again aid Scottish detective Bob Burns. When Andy becomes the unwitting recipient of a drop of £100,000 in used notes, the trio become enmeshed in a web of murder, intrigue and Caledonian skulduggery, as the action shifts to Sicily, New York and a remote Hebridean island. The arrival of a Sicilian blacksmith as the island’s new laird leads to some hilarious misunderstandings as the line between the good and bad guys becomes increasingly blurred. After many a Highland shenanigan, the mystery is finally solved...or is it?

Emily Lime and her equally palindromic dog Otto live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (zip code 11211), in a warm community of friends and fellow artists. Her life becomes more complicated when she falls in love with Marcus, a dog walker and fellow Scrabble nut whose father is Emily's shady ex-husband, who wants the lovable Emily dead. A mystery unravels, a valuable lost cache of paintings is found, and Emily's life changes in ways she could not have anticipated.

“A smart, haunting thriller with bass reverb and a pounding heart.” —Jayne Anne Phillips, author of the National Book Award finalist Lark and Termite Scott Spencer, the acclaimed author of Endless Love and A Ship Made of Paper, reaffirms his storytelling mastery with Man in the Woods—a...

Steve Farris is an unexceptional middle-aged architect with an extraordinary past: When he was nine, his father came home one evening and murdered his mother, brother, and sister before vanishing off the face of the Earth. Steve has coped by shutting out the terrible memories, but when writer Rebecca Soltero arrives to interview him about his father, he is forced to reawaken the horrors of his childhood.

'A real page-turner' – Ian Rankin A deeply atmospheric psychological thriller set in the Scottish Highlands, The Party House by Lin Anderson is a standalone novel perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware. From the author of the pulse-pounding Rhona MacLeod series. Devastated by a recent...

In October of 1967, the Summer of Love is history, rock and roll is dark and revolutionary, and people in the small east Texas community of Center Springs simply want to live their lives as quietly as possible. But a handsome darkness in the form of Las Vegas gangster Anthony Agrioli has left the business to hide out in their tiny backwater settlement with his blond bombshell girlfriend.

Steve Farris is an unexceptional middle-aged architect with an extraordinary past: When he was 9, his father came home one evening and coolly murdered his mother, brother, and sister before vanishing off the face of the earth. Steve has coped mainly by blotting out the terrible memories, but when writer Rebecca Soltero arrives to interview him about his father, he is forced to reawaken the horrors of his childhood.