Recommendations based on "Cruel Intent"

For FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett, the wedding of one of their own was cause for celebration. Until a woman staggered down the aisle, incoherent, emaciated, head shaved, and wearing only a white nightgown.No one knows who she is or where she's come from or why she's chosen to appear in a church filled with law enforcement agents. Then a fingerprint check determines that the woman has been missing for nearly eight years that once she was someone's wife, someone's mother and a cop. Imprisoning her in a dark cell, depriving her of any contact with the outside world, her enigmatic captor was a man she didn't know and who seldom spoke, who punished her only when she failed to follow his most basic instructions designed to keep her alive.Cold, businesslike, seemingly indifferent to his victims, he's a predator with an M.O. as terrifyingly inscrutable as any Smoky has ever encountered. As she fits together the pieces of what remains of his victim's fractured life, a chilling picture emerges of a killer every bit as calculating, masterful, and professional as Smoky and the team she leads a professional psychopath who doesn't take murder personally and never makes a mistake.There's a reason he let one of his victims go free. And by the time Smoky pierces the darkness of his twisted mind, it may cost her more than she can bear to lose to escape. For a trap snapped closed the moment she took this case too much to heart.

As team leader of the popular personal security company Troubleshooters Inc., Alyssa Locke is no stranger to dealing with danger. Her next assignment, though, is supposed to be a breeze: teach self-defense techniques to an assemblywoman and her chief of staff after a political controversy generates a blizzard of hate mail—including death threats. But then, while in New York City, Alyssa and her squad of moonlighting Navy SEALs discover a dead body. And then another one. While investigating a suspect, Alyssa is ambushed and finds herself imprisoned by the deranged serial killer she’s been after for years: The Dentist. Cut off from everyone, Alyssa must call upon all of her strength and skill to survive this confrontation with the sadistic monster, meanwhile trusting that her Troubleshooter teammates—led by her husband, operative Sam Starrett—will reach her before it’s too late.

Investigating the killing of a prisoner during a riot inside a state penitentiary, GBI investigator Will Trent is confronted with disturbing information. One of the inmates claims that he is innocent of a brutal attack for which he has always been the prime suspect. The man insists that he was framed by a corrupt law enforcement team led by Jeffrey Tolliver and that the real culprit is still out there—a serial killer who has systematically been preying on women across the state for years. If Will reopens the investigation and implicates the dead police officer with a hero’s reputation of wrongdoing, the opportunistic convict is willing to provide the information GBI needs about the riot murder.Only days ago, another young woman was viciously murdered in a state park in northern Georgia. Is it a fluke, or could there be a serial killer on the loose?As Will Trent digs into both crimes it becomes clear that he must solve the cold case in order to find the answer. Yet nearly a decade has passed—time for memories to fade, witnesses to vanish, evidence to disappear, and lies to become truth. But Will can’t crack either mystery without the help of the one person he doesn’t want involved: his girlfriend and Jeffrey Tolliver’s widow, medical examiner Sara Linton.When the past and present begin to collide, Will realizes that everything he values is at stake . . .

With danger closing in, all they have is each other.   Haunted by a mission he barely survived, Delta Force operative Mace Stevens still carries a soldier’s burden. Running a small bar in upstate New York, he remains a stone-cold warrior who guards dangerous secrets and stays ready for anything. Anything except beautiful, vulnerable Paige Grayson, who shows up at his door, demanding answers about her heroic stepbrother’s death under his command. Paige bears burdens, too. She’s plagued by demons unleashed by an older brother who committed mass murder before her eyes. But here in this snowy haven with Mace, she almost feels safe from the menacing promises of her insane sibling. As a nurse whose hands can read the deepest thoughts of anyone she touches, Paige knows that Mace needs her as desperately as she needs Mace. And when a faceless killer begins unleashing fresh terror, Mace proves just how far he will go to save the woman who means everything to him.

"Intelligent and determined, Jeri holds her own among the ranks of impressive female detectives." Publishers WeeklyA Jeri Howard mystery by the author of "Till the Old Men Die." In Alameda County, east of San Francisco, the all-American pastimes of adultery, divorce, and mindless violence prosper -- and Petty Officer First Class Sam Raynor, USN, fits right in. Private investigator Jeri Howard is working for Raynor's battered wife, who wants not only a divorce but half of everything Raynor's got. It turns out Raynor's hidden some big bucks from Uncle Sam.And that's not all he's hidden. Barely concealed behind his blond and muscled good looks is a vicious psychopath, whose wife-battering episodes are only the tip of an ugly iceberg. It seems Petty Officer Raynor's been getting away with murder . . . or close to it. And now that Jeri is on his trail, can murder be far behind?

Eve Dallas tracks a couple whose passion is fueled by cold brutality in the newest crime thriller from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Obsession in Death and Festive in Death.   When Lieutenant Eve Dallas examines a body in a downtown Manhattan alleyway, the victim's injuries are so extensive that she almost misses the clue. Carved into the skin is the shape of a heart--and initials inside reading E and D . . . Ella-Loo and her boyfriend, Darryl, had been separated while Darryl was a guest of the state of Oklahoma, and now that his sentence has been served they don't ever intend to part again. Ella-Loo's got dreams. And Darryl believes there are better ways to achieve your dreams than working for them. So they hit the road, and when their car breaks down in Arkansas, they make plans to take someone else's. Then things get messy and they wind up killing someone--an experience that stokes a fierce, wild desire in Ella-Loo. A desire for Darryl. And a desire to kill again. As they cross state lines on their way to New York to find the life they think they deserve, they will leave a trail of evil behind them. But now they've landed in the jurisdiction of Lieutenant Dallas and her team at the New York Police and Security Department. And with her husband, Roarke, at her side, she has every intention of hunting them down and giving them what they truly deserve . . .

Tracking leads in her sister’s disappearance could make a K-9 handler the next victim. Lacey Jefferson’s search for her missing sister quickly turns into a murder investigation—thrusting Lacey and her search-and-rescue K-9, Scarlett, into a killer’s sights. Now teaming up with her ex-boyfriend, Sheriff Creed Payne, is the only way to discover the murderer’s identity. But can they survive long enough to dig up the truth? From Love Inspired Suspense: Courage. Danger. Faith. K-9 Search and Rescue Book 1: Desert Rescue by Lisa Phillips Book 2: Desert Rescue & Trailing a Killer & Mountain Survival by Carol J. Post Book 3: Desert Rescue & Trailing a Killer & Mountain Survival by Christy Barritt Book 4: Search and Defend by Heather Woodhaven Book 5: Following the Trail by Lynette Eason Book 6: Dangerous Mountain Rescue by Christy Barritt

KISS THE GIRLS AND MAKE THEM DIE   Lucy Kincaid has firsthand experience dealing with deadly criminal predators, and she’s fully prepared to share her many talents with the FBI. But when her career plans are derailed, her boyfriend, security expert Sean Rogan, asks for help on his latest private investigation. Using her well-honed cyber-hunting skills, Lucy is soon on the trail of a missing teenage girl with a penchant for disappearing—and a shocking secret life. FBI Agent Suzanne Madeaux is also tracking someone: a serial killer on the loose in New York City. Dubbed by the press the Cinderella Strangler, he cruises seamy underground sex parties, where drug-fueled women make for easy pickings. As Lucy and Sean’s desperate search collides with the FBI’s hunt, Lucy isn’t about to step aside. Haunted by painful memories of her own harrowing encounters with evil, she’s determined to keep any more innocents from meeting the fate she so narrowly escaped. Delving deep into the twisted psyche of a remorseless killer, Lucy must confront her own fears—even if it means risking a future job with the FBI and future happiness with Sean.

Millers Kill reaches the boiling point in this white-hot novel of love and suspensePeople die. Marriages fail. In the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill, New York, however, life doesn’t stop for heartbreak. A brand-new officer in the police department, a breaking-and-entering, and trouble within his own family keep Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne busy enough to ignore the pain of losing his wife---and the woman he loves.At St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, the Reverend Clare Fergusson is trying to keep her vestry, her bishop, and her National Guard superiors happy---all the while denying her own wounded soul.When a Mexican farmhand stumbles over a Latino man killed with a single shot to the back of his head, Clare is sucked into the investigation through her involvement in the migrant community. The discovery of two more bodies executed in the same way ignites fears that a serial killer is loose in the close-knit community. While the sorrowful spring turns into a scorching summer, Russ is plagued by media hysteria, conflict within his department, and a series of baffling assaults.As the violence strikes closer and closer to home, an untried officer is tested, a wary migrant worker is tempted, and two would-be lovers who thought they had lost everything must find a way to trust each other again---before it becomes forever, fatally, too late.Julia Spencer-Fleming shows you can escape danger---but not desire---in her most suspenseful, passionate novel yet, I Shall Not Want.

HE’S A NAVY SEAL SUSPECTED OF MURDER. SHE’S HIS LOVER—AND THE CHIEF INVESTIGATOR.  Chris Waldron, an elite U.S. Navy SEAL, is used to getting out of tight spots. But all his years of training can’t prepare him for the crisis he now faces. When a mission to rescue a kidnapped ambassador and his wife goes tragically awry, an FBI hostage negotiator is killed and Chris finds himself at the center of the ensuing investigation. Leading the charge is Jamie Michaels, a blistering-hot special agent—and Chris’s onetime lover. Despite their reignited mutual attraction, Jamie is determined to keep things professional with Chris this time. But seeing him bruised and battered in that hospital bed has rekindled all those feelings she thought she’d left behind during their brief, passionate encounter in Africa. Now Jamie must keep at bay her craving for danger as she spearheads a search for the truth that just may blow Chris’s career to bits—and put them both in the crosshairs of an unseen enemy.