18 books like Joyland
Misery
Novelist Paul Sheldon has plans to make the difficult transition from writing historical romances featuring heroine Misery Chastain to publishing literary fiction. Annie Wilkes, Sheldon's number one fan, rescues the author from the scene of a car accident. The former nurse takes care of him in her remote house, but becomes irate when she discovers that the author has killed Misery off in his…
Shares: Community pick
Howl's Moving Castle
As the oldest daughter, willful, outspoken Sophie knew that her life could lead to nothing but mistakes. When her father dies, her stepmother sends her two sisters out to make their fortunes while Sophie continues to work in the family hattery. As she whispers her thoughts to the hats she trims, the shop begins to grow in popularity, until she offends the Wicked Witch of the Waste. The witch…
Shares: Community pick
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
Matters of doubt
"Cal Claxton is determined to reinvent himself as a small town lawyer in the aftermath of his wife's suicide. Once a hardcharging L.A. prosecutor, he now lives in an old farmhouse overlooking the Oregon wine country. When a scruffy, tattooed kid shows up asking for help in solving his mother's cold case murder, Cal wants to say no. But the kid, who calls himself Picasso, has ridden a bike from…
Shares: Cold cases, Amerikanisches Englisch, Investigation, Murder
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
The Burning Room
In the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit, not many murder victims die almost a decade after the crime. So when a man succumbs to complications from being shot by a stray bullet nine years earlier, Bosch catches a case in which the body is still fresh, but all other evidence is virtually nonexistent. Now Bosch and his new partner, rookie Detective Lucia Soto, are tasked with solving what turns out to be a…
Shares: Cold cases, Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder
The Bitter Season
Kovac and Liska take on multiple twisted cases as #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag explores a murder from the past, a murder from the present, and a life that was never meant to be. As the bitter weather of late fall descends on Minneapolis, Detective Nikki Liska is restless, already bored with her new assignment to the cold case squad. She misses the rush of pulling…
Shares: Cold cases, Investigation, Murder
Missing You
It's a profile, like all the others on the online dating site. But as NYPD Detective Kat Donovan focuses on the accompanying picture, she feels her whole world explode, as emotions she's ignored for decades come crashing down on her. Staring back at her is her ex-fiancé Jeff, the man who shattered her heart -- and who she hasn't seen in 18 years. Kat feels a spark, wondering if this might be the…
Shares: Cold cases, Amerikanisches Englisch, Investigation, Murder
Running with wild blood
Richard Lake of the Atlanta Police Department gets a cold case when a witness suddenly gets his memory back. Lake recruits Moriah Dru to look into the murder of Juliet Trapp' sixteen when she died' and a student at Winters Farm Academy. Juliet Trapp had told her mother she was going to Bike Week with Wild Blood' an outlaw motorcycle gang' over the Christmas break. The police were unable to solve…
Shares: Cold cases, Investigation, Murder
At Risk
A ‘one-off’ from the best-selling creator of the Dr Kay Scarpetta series, based on the serialisation in the New York Times.Moving between the chill of Cambridge, Massachusetts and the sultry humidity of Knoxville, Tennessee, Winston Garano, a police investigator, is instructed to look into a twenty-year-old murder case. Although Win reckons there are many more pressing current cases which should…
Shares: Cold cases, Criminal investigation, Investigation, Murder
Catching heat
Twenty-seven years after the deaths of Detective Abby Hart's parents, she's desperate to find the proof that will put the mastermind-the governor's wife-behind bars. When she joins a newly formed task force and teams up with PI Luke Murphy, Abby is sent to San Luis Obispo to work the cold case of a murdered college student. Realizing their investigation will bring them near the town where Alyssa…
Shares: Cold cases, Investigation, Murder
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
The Heist
Gabriel Allon, art restorer and occasional spy, searches for a stolen masterpiece by Caravaggio. Sometimes the best way to find a stolen masterpiece is to steal another one.
Shares: Criminal investigation, Amerikanisches Englisch, Investigation, Murder
Rituals
Faye Longchamp meets Spiritualist Tilda Armistead while working in Rosebower, New York, a town founded by Spiritualists. When Tilda's murdered shortly after giving Faye a session to commune with the dead, she's determined to find out who killed her.
Shares: City and town life, Amerikanisches Englisch, Investigation, Murder
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 Black Box
Harry Bosch investigates after a bullet from a recent killing is a match for one used in the unsolved murder of a photographer in 1992. The plot contains profanity, sexual references, and violence.
Shares: Cold cases, Investigation, Murder