18 books like Footsteps in the Dark
Why shoot a butler?
Every family has secrets, but the Fountains' are turning deadly…On a dark night, along a lonely country road, barrister Frank Amberley stops to help a young lady in distress and discovers a sports car with a corpse behind the wheel. The girl protests her innocence, and Amberley believes her—at least until he gets drawn into the mystery and the clues incriminating Shirley Brown begin to add up…In…
Shares: 1930s, Country homes, Contemporary, Investigation
A Blunt Instrument
Inspectors Hannasyde & Hemingway #4
Who would kill the perfect gentleman?
When Ernest Fletcher is found bludgeoned to death in his study, everyone is shocked and mystified: Ernest was well liked and respected, so who would have a motive for killing him? Inspectors of Scotland Yard felt it was an unlikely crime for the London suburbs: a perfectly respectable chap at home with his head bashed in.…
Shares: 1930s, Country homes, Contemporary, Investigation
The Unfinished Clue
It should have been a lovely English country-house weekend. But the unfortunate guest-list is enough to exasperate a saint, and irascible General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith was nobody's idea of the perfect host. In fact he was absolutely frightful. He bullied his wife, Fay, grumped at his guests, refused gleefully to help his financially stricken indigent nephew, and positively blew his stack…
Shares: 1930s, Contemporary, England, Thriller
Death's Shadow
Victims and survivors, angels and demons, intersect along winding roads to imperfect justice.“Bare light bulbs shone against walls painted with graffiti and dried blood, the rooms reeking of a sweet pungent odour like burnt plastic …” So writes award-winning Hamilton Spectator journalist and author Jon Wells in one of four harrowing murder stories in Death’s Shadow. Wells take readers up close…
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder
They Found Him Dead
Inspectors Hannasyde & Hemingway #3
ONE HEIR AFTER ANOTHER TURNS UP DEAD….
Silas Kane's sixtieth birthday party is marred by argument and dissension amongst his family, and then the next morning, Kane is found dead. The coroner's verdict of death by misadventure would seem to confirm that Silas accidentally lost his way in the fog. But then Clement, his heir, is shot, and threats are made…
Shares: 1930s, Contemporary, Investigation, England
A Descent Into Hell
Bright, attractive, and both from good families, University of Texas college student Colton Pitonyak and vibrant redhead Jennifer Cave had the world at their beckoning. Cave, an ex-cheerleader, had just landed an exciting new job, while a big-money scholarship to UT's prestigious business school lured Pitonyak to Austin. Yet the former altar boy had a dark, unpredictable streak, one that ensnared…
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder
Death in the Stocks
Inspectors Hannasyde & Hemingway #1
The moonlight shone on the quiet village green when an English bobbie returning from night patrol finds on a man's two motionless feet stuck through the holes of a pair of stocks. He identifies the corpse in evening dress immediately. Wealthy Andrew Vereker was not a well-loved man, and when he was found stabbed, no one seemed to be particularly disturbed. The…
Shares: 1930s, Contemporary, England, Thriller
Behold, Here's Poison
Inspectors Hannasyde & Hemingway #2
When Gregory Matthews, patriarch of the Poplars, is found dead one morning, imperious Aunt Harriet blames it on the roast duck he ate for supper. After all, she had warned him about his blood pressure. But a post-mortem determines the cause of death as murder by poison. Suspicion falls immediately amongst his bitter, quarrelsome family. Each has a motive;…
Shares: 1930s, Contemporary, England, Thriller
The Conqueror
A fictionalized biography, fast-moving and minutely-wrought chronicle about William, Duke of Normandy who became King of England in 1066.
The day she gave birth to William, the beautiful Herleva dreamt that a tree sprang from her womb--a giant among trees, whose mighty branches overshadowed all of Normandy and England. No sooner her half-noble bastard of the Duke of Normandy had grown to manhood…
Shares: 1930s, England
Die, My Love
The day before Halloween 2004 was the last day on Earth for respected, well-liked college professor Fred Jablin. That morning, a neighbor discovered his body lying in a pool of blood in the driveway of Jablin's Virginia home. Police immediately turned their attentions to the victim's ex-wife, Piper, a petite, pretty Texas lawyer who had lost a bitter custody battle and would do anything to get…
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder
Final Analysis
In October 2002, Susan Polk, a housewife and mother of three, was arrested for the murder of her husband, Felix. The arrest in her sleepy northern California town kicked off what would become one of the most captivating murder trials in recent memory, as police, local attorneys, and the national media sought to unravel the complex web of events that sent this seemingly devoted housewife over the…
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder
A Burial at Sea
In March 1873 aristocratic sleuth Charles Lenox undertakes a delicate espionage mission to Egypt, where five British agents have been killed, apparently by the French. But soon after Charles's ship sets sail, the captain calls on him to dust off his deductive skills when a crew member is murdered and left eviscerated on the deck.
Shares: Investigation, Murder
Proof positive
Defense attorney Doug Weaver believes his client, Jacob Cohen, is innocent--but the forensic evidence proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the meek, mentally ill homeless man killed and dismembered a woman.. Hired to defend gangster Art Prochaska against charges that he murdered an informer, lawyer Amanda Jaffe and her father, Frank, have their work cut out for them--because, as improbable as…
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder, Thriller
The vanishing box
"In a nail-biting hunt for a missing loved one, DI Edgar Stephens and the magician Max Mephisto discover once again that the line between art, life, and death is all too easily blurred"--
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, England, Murder
The Wrong Side of Goodbye
In this #1 New York Times bestseller, California's newest private investigator, Detective Harry Bosch, must track down a missing heir while helping a police department connect the dots on a dangerous cold case.Harry Bosch is California's newest private investigator. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't have an office, and he's picky about who he works for, but it doesn't matter. His chops from thirty…
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder, Thriller
Judgment Ridge
This "irresistibly absorbing" true crime investigation uncovers the brutal murder of two Dartmouth professors by a pair of students in 2001 (Publishers Weekly).
On a cold night in January 2001, the idyllic community of Dartmouth College was shattered by the discovery that Half and Susanne Zantop, two of its most beloved professors, had been hacked to death in their own home. Investigators…
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder
The Bad Place
Detectives Bobby and Julie agree to watch over Frank after he wakes up in a motel to find his hands covered with blood and strange objects in his pockets. Frank knows he's not a killer.
Shares: Siblings, Brothers and sisters, Murder
The blooding
Fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann's savagely raped and strangled body is found along a shady footpath near the English village of Narborough. Though a massive 150-man dragnet is launched, the case remains unsolved. Three years later the killer strikes again, raping and strangling teenager Dawn Ashforth only a stone's throw from where Lynda was so brutally murdered. But it will take four years, a…
Shares: Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder