Recommendations based on "Sudden Death (The Andy Carpenter Series, 4)"

This New York Times bestseller from Dennis Lehane is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood. When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened—something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay —demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy’s daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy’s daughter died covered in someone else’s blood. A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.

In New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fourth literary whodunit following The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, and A Line to Kill, Horowitz becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation—and only one man can prove his innocence: his newly estranged partner in solving crime, Detective Hawthorne.“I’m sorry but the answer’s no.” Reluctant author, Anthony Horowitz, has had enough. He tells ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne that after three books he’s splitting and their deal is over.The truth is that Anthony has other things on his mind.His new play, a thriller called Mindgame, is about to open at the Vaudeville Theater in London’s West End. Not surprisingly, Hawthorne declines a ticket to the opening night.The play is panned by the critics. In particular, Sunday Times critic Margaret Throsby gives it a savage review, focusing particularly on the writing. The next day, Throsby is stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger which turns out to belong to Anthony, and has his fingerprints all over it.Anthony is arrested by an old enemy . . . Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw. She still carries a grudge from her failure to solve the case described in the second Hawthorne adventure, The Sentence is Death, and blames Anthony. Now she’s out for revenge.Thrown into prison and fearing for both his personal future and his writing career, Anthony is the prime suspect in Throsby’s murder and when a second theatre critic is found to have died in mysterious circumstances, the net closes in. Ever more desperate, he realizes that only one man can help him.But will Hawthorne take the call?

The Red Desert of Wyoming is a beautiful and punishing place for anybody, even for game warden Joe Pickett and his friend Nate Romanowski in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller...Nate is off the grid, recuperating from wounds and trying to deal with past crimes, when he is suddenly surrounded by a small team of elite professional special operators. They’re not there to threaten him, but to make a deal. They need help destroying a domestic terror cell in Wyoming’s Red Desert, and in return they’ll make Nate’s criminal record disappear.But they are not what they seem, as Nate’s friend Joe Pickett discovers. They have a much different plan in mind, and it just might be something that takes them all down—including Nate and Joe.

Amazon.com ReviewEditors' pick:Brings together two of the smartest, wittiest investigators—a knife-throwing circus runaway and a PI with MS."—Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor

A cold case involving a missing private investigator threatens to unearth skeletons from Rebus's past in this "must-read" mystery (Tana French).Former Detective John Rebus' retirement is disrupted once again when skeletal remains are identified as a private investigator who went missing over a decade earlier. The remains, found in a rusted car in the East Lothian woods, not far from Edinburgh, quickly turn into a cold case murder investigation. Rebus' old friend, Siobhan Clarke is assigned to the case, but neither of them could have predicted what buried secrets the investigation will uncover.Rebus remembers the original case -- a shady land deal -- all too well. After the investigation stalled, the family of the missing man complained that there was a police cover-up. As Clarke and her team investigate the cold case murder, she soon learns a different side of her mentor, a side he would prefer to keep in the past.A gripping story of corruption and consequences, this new novel demonstrates that Rankin and Rebus are still at the top of their game.

It is fall in Philadelphia and the mutilated body of a man is found in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of the city. The victim has been viciously tortured to death. It's the work of a sadistic mind in free fall. When homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano investigate, they soon realise that their crime scene is linked to the past. Eight years ago, another body was found in the same place, in the same position, killed in the same manner. That case was never closed. Apart from their killer's unusual calling cards, the crime scene photos - past and present - are identical. As another brutalised body appears, then another, it becomes horrifyingly clear that someone is recreating unsolved murders from Philadelphia's past in the most sinister of ways. And the killer is closer than they think...

Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written sixteen years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich---the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country. Searching for her father and his glory, Nora begins t unravel the greatest riddle of American archeology. but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors...

The renowned novel from crime fiction master Raymond Chandler, with the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times), Philip Marlowe • Featuring the iconic character that inspired the film Marlowe, starring Liam Neeson.In The Lady in the Lake, hardboiled crime fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wives—one a rich man's and one a poor man's—who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

In this “absolutely gripping” (Chicago Tribune) thriller, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane vividly captures the complex beauty and darkness of working-class Boston.The tough neighborhood of Dorchester is no place for the innocent or the weak. Its territory is defined by hard heads and even harder luck; its streets are littered with the detritus of broken families, hearts, and dreams.Now one of its youngest is missing. Private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro don’t want the case. But after pleas from the child’s aunt, they open an investigation that will ultimately risk everything—their relationship, their sanity, and even their lives—to find a little girl lost.

Edgar Award finalist and author of Bury the Lead, a Today Show Book Club pick, returns with a tale of murder and deadly secrets in an ultra-secretive religious community.DEAD CENTER finds Andy Carpenter reentering the dating scene with comic results. He is surprised at what a hot ticket he seems to be, and this proves to be a mixed blessing at best. His friends are all too eager to provide advice and guidance, but of course they know just as little about the dating world as Andy. Whether the woman he is dating at the moment is terrific or far from it, the spectra of Laurie always hangs over his head. He has strong feelings of bitterness towards her for leaving, but she is, after all, the love of his life. He has had no contact with her at all, and can only assume she is back in Findlay, serving in the number two job on the local police force. Then one day he returns to the office to find Laurie waiting for him. Laurie has arrested a young man for murder and, though the evidence clearly called for his arrest, she believes he is innocent. The accused is the son of Laurie's oldest friend and she believes Andy is the best person to represent him. Andy follows Laurie back to Wisconsin where he must explore a secretive religious community that seems to hold the truth about what really happened to the deceased.