Crime Thriller – Page 3

Category: Crime Thriller

Thriller – The One That Got Away

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Thriller, Crime Thriller Psychological Thriller

Publisher: Down & Out Books

Only one girl survives a string of abductions. The killer captured, no more girls would die. Until another one does.

It’s been seven years since Kira Shanks was reported missing and presumed dead. Alex Salerno has been living in New York City, piecemealing paychecks to earn a livable wage, trying to forget those three days locked underground and her affair with Sean Riley, the married detective who rescued her. When Noah Lee, hometown reporter with a journalistic pedigree, requests an interview, Alex returns to Reine and Riley, reopening old wounds. What begins as a Q&A for a newspaper article soon turns into an opportunity for money, closure and—justice. The disappearance of Kira Shanks has long been hung on Benny Brudzienski, a hulking man-child who is currently a brain-addled guest at the Galloway State Mental Hospital. But after Alex reconnects with ex-classmates and frenemies, doubts are cast on that guilt. Alex is drawn into a dangerous game of show and tell in an insular town where everyone has a secret to hide. And as more details emerge about the night Kira Shanks went missing, Alex discovers there are some willing to kill to protect the horrific truth.

In the modern vein of Dark Places and Mystic River, The One That Got Away is a dark, psychological thriller featuring a compelling, conflicted heroine and a page-turning narrative that races toward its final, shocking conclusion.

About The Author

Joe Clifford is the author of several books, including The Lakehouse, Skunk Train, Occam’s Razor, The One That Got Away, Junkie Love, and the Jay Porter Thriller Series, as well as editor of the anthologies Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen; Just to Watch Them Die: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash, and Hard Sentences, which he co-edited. Joe’s writing can be found at www.joeclifford.com.

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Crime Thriller – A Reckoning in Brooklyn

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Crime Thriller

Release Date: December 1, 2019

Bushwick in the 1970s is a cesspool of drugs, violence and depravity. Every aspect of life in the blighted neighborhood has been poisoned by the Mafia. Butchie Bucciogrosso is an Italian cop who detests the Mob. A survivor of the streets, he returns from Vietnam to find Bushwick in ruins. He and his partner, Fast Eddie Curran, are the only cops with the courage to take on the gangsters. They become a deadly nuisance trying to win back their streets. Only the Mafia, their own dirty department, and a corrupt federal government stand in their way. With their families squarely in the cross hairs, they must destroy the Mob’s criminal empire and outwit a crooked Department of Justice before they are killed or framed by the feds. The clock is ticking with Bushwick’s survival in the balance.

About The Author

Michael O’Keefe is an author and poet. A retired detective from the NYPD, his novels are inspired by the colorful characters he encountered there–on both sides of the law. The author of the breakout thriller, Shot to Pieces (Amazon, 2016), he lives on Long Island with his family, by way of New York City.

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Financial Crime Thriller – Death Count

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Financial Crime Thriller

Date Published: December 2020

Publisher: Paperback Writer’s Publishing

Can a conspiracy be uncovered before the Death Count rises?

Forensic accountant Kat Munro fights corporate fraud during the day and kickboxes her demons at night while trying to ignore the nightmares that have plagued her since a car accident changed her life forever.

DS Adam Jackson is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of a friend two years ago.

When the partner of a successful London Investment fund dies in suspicious circumstances, Kat joins forces with Adam to investigate the firm. As they gather evidence of a crime with implications beyond the City, they find that events in their pasts are on a collision course; one which will ultimately put them both in serious danger.

Fast-paced and entertaining, Death Count takes a deadly dip into the world of financial crime.

Excerpt

Kat Munro twisted in her seat and looked behind. A dark shape took form as it approached from the gloom at speed, its headlights bearing down on them. She sensed Gabe ease their car towards the edge of the bitumen to allow the other vehicle to pass. A frown creased the skin between his eyes for a moment, and his long slender hands gripped the wheel. The breeze tossed his hair as he turned his head to look at Kat, and a warm smile lit up his handsome face. But instead of passing, the engine of the car behind them roared, and it closed the distance like a lion tracking its prey. Kat felt fear clutch at her throat. Had she been seen? The drive into town for extra supplies in Gabe’s convertible now seemed fraught with danger.

“What the…” Gabe began, glancing in the rear vision mirror.

Kat looked across at him as she felt the car accelerate and gather speed.

From the back seat, Felicity hiccupped and giggled, twin dimples forming in her cheeks. She toed off her shoes and kicked her long legs up onto the seat.

Kat peered behind once more; her heart was thudding fast in her chest. The other car was keeping pace with them and was so close that she could make out the outlines of those in the front seat.

The light breeze, scented with the aroma of the wild honeysuckle growing at the side of the road, whipped her hair around her face.

“Gabe, slow down,” Kat said, pushing the strands aside.

A bend in the road was fast approaching. Gabe changed gears, slowing the car as they entered the corner, but then sped up as they exited the turn. Their pursuers fell back for a moment before catching up to them again. Kat gripped the edge of her seat, terrified. A second tighter bend loomed in front of them when the other vehicle made a sudden move to pass and clipped the back of their car. The convertible shuddered from the impact and hit the loose gravel at the side of the road. It began to spin, with Gabe fighting to control it.

“Hey,” Felicity shouted as she was tossed around on the back seat, too drunk to comprehend the danger they were facing.

The next images came into Kat’s mind in a series of flashes.

The slide into the low stone wall, the car sailing through the air before hitting the ground in a field and rolling twice… Felicity’s cries of pain… men approaching the vehicle and pulling a dazed Gabe away from the wreckage… thick and cloying smoke, blood, and flames.

Kat’s screams rang out as she looked at her arm, draped over the side door of the car, and saw her bloodied hand hanging on to her wrist by a flap of skin and tissue.

Kat bolted upright. The room was dark, the bedsheets twisted. Her breathing was coming in uneven gulps, and her heart was racing. She glanced at the bedside clock, 4:30 a.m.; there would be no more sleep for her tonight.

About the Author

SL Beaumont is the author of the award-winning novel Shadow of Doubt and the Amazon best-selling series, The Carlswick Mysteries.

She lives in beautiful New Zealand, which is only problematic when the travel-bug bites (which it does fairly often)! Her passion for travel has seen her take many long haul flights to various parts of the world. Her love of history helps determine the destination and the places she visits are a constant source of inspiration for her.

Prior to becoming an author, SL Beaumont worked in banking in London and New York.

Shadow of Doubt won the 2020 Indie Reader Mystery/Suspense/Thriller Award, was long-listed for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel, and was a semi-finalist for both the 2019 Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize and the 2020 Kindle Book Awards.

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Mystery, Thriller – Tokyo Traffic

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Detective Hiroshi Tokyo Series, Book 3

Mystery, Thriller

Released: June 20, 2020

Publisher: Raked Gravel Press

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Running from a life she didn’t choose, in a city she doesn’t know, Sukanya,
a young Thai girl, loses herself in Tokyo. With her Bangkok street smarts,
and some stolen money, she stays ahead of her former captors willing to do
anything to recover the computer she took. After befriending Chiho, a
Japanese girl living in an internet café, Sukanya makes plans to rid herself
of her pursuers, and her past, forever.

Meanwhile, Detective Hiroshi Shimizu leaves the safe confines of his office
to investigate a porn studio where a brutal triple murder took place. The
studio’s accounts point him in multiple directions at once. Together with
ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi and old-school Takamatsu, Hiroshi tracks the
killers through Tokyo’s teen hangouts, bayside docks and crowded squares,
straight into the underbelly of the global economy.

As bodies wash up from Tokyo Bay, Hiroshi tries to find the Thai girl at
the center of it all, whose name he doesn’t even know. He uncovers a human
trafficking ring and cryptocurrency scammers whose connections extend to the
highest levels of Tokyo’s power elite.

Other Books in the Detective Hiroshi Tokyo Series:

The Last Train

Detective Hiroshi Tokyo Series, Book One

Published: May 2017

Publisher: Raked Gravel Press

In Tokyo, murder’s easy to hide.

Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white collar crime in Tokyo. When an
American businessman turns up dead, his mentor Takamatsu calls him out to
the site of a grisly murder. A glimpse from a security camera video suggests
the killer might be a woman. Hiroshi quickly learns how close homicide and
suicide can appear in a city full of high-speed trains just a step–or a
push–away.

How do you find one woman in the biggest city in the world?

Takamatsu drags Hiroshi out to the hostess clubs and skyscraper offices of
Tokyo in search of the killer. Hiroshi goes deeper and deeper into Tokyo’s
intricate, perilous market for buying and selling the most expensive land in
the world. He teams up with ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi to scour Tokyo’s
sacred temples, corporate offices and industrial wastelands to find out why
one woman was driven to murder.

Available on Amazon

The Moving Blade

Detective Hiroshi Tokyo Series, Book Two

Published: September 2018

Publisher: Raked Gravel Press

In Tokyo, the past is present. And deadly.

When the top American diplomat in Tokyo, Bernard Mattson, is killed, he
leaves more than a lifetime of successful Japan-American negotiations. He
leaves a missing manuscript, boxes of research, a lost keynote speech and a
tangled web of relations.

When his alluring daughter, Jamie, returns from America wanting answers,
finding only threats, Detective Hiroshi Shimizu is dragged from the safe
confines of his office into the street-level realities of Pacific Rim
politics.

A moving blade is hidden in the blur of motion, felt but not
perceived.

With help from ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi, Hiroshi searches for the killer
from Tokyo’s back alley bars to government offices, through anti-nuke
protests to the gates of an American naval base. When two more bodies turn
up, Hiroshi must choose between desire and duty, violence or procedure,
before the killer silences his next victim.

Available on Amazon

About the Author

Michael Pronko is a Tokyo-based writer of murder, memoir and music. His
writing about Tokyo life and his character-driven mysteries have won awards
and five-star reviews. Kirkus Reviews selected his second novel, The Moving
Blade for their Best Books of 2018. The Last Train won the Shelf Unbound
Competition for Best Independently Published Book.

Michael also runs the website, Jazz in Japan, which covers the vibrant jazz
scene in Tokyo and Yokohama. During his 20 years in Japan, he has written
about Japanese culture, art, society and politics for Newsweek Japan, The
Japan Times, and Artscape Japan. He has read his essays on NHK TV and done
programs for Nippon Television based on his writings.

A philosophy major, Michael traveled for years, ducking in and out of
graduate schools, before finishing his PhD on Charles Dickens and film. He
finally settled in Tokyo as a professor of American Literature at Meiji
Gakuin University. His seminars focus on contemporary novels, short stories
and film adaptations.

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Romantic Thriller – I’m a Gigolo

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Book one – The Aberration Series of short stories

Short Story, Crime thriller & Romantic suspense

Date Published: 1st July 2020

Publisher: Happy London Press

I am a Gigolo

He’s gorgeous, cool and slick. Small wonder those wealthy American dames are falling over themselves to taste his flirtatious skills, just where it counts. Seduction is the name of his game, and he knows how to keep

a secret. Trouble is, our Gigolo is also a mischief maker, a man with a mission – to make a killing. So he’s got a secret of his own. But, can he keep it that way?

Deliciously sensual, with a touch macabre, the opening tale, I am a gigolo contains ten startlingly original and provocative short stories, that you’ll need to be brave to read at bedtime.

About the Author

My inspirations have come from real people, events or situations that have presented themselves. Titles like, I am a Contract Killer, I am a Gigolo, Death Zone, License to Kill, are all based on my own lifetime experiences, questions asked, incidents occurring.

Let me be reassuring, thus-far, nobody has been murdered on my watch. But the notion gave rise to the impetus to write my first murder mystery, The Lyme Regis Murders. Could I make the jump after years of writing macabre short stories to a full length drama? That familiar beating in the gut, said, ‘Yes, try it. Give it a go.’

And so to that cosy coastal town where nothing untoward ever happens. Or perhaps it does. The author seeks to shatter notions, change people’s perceptions, spoil long held views. That was my intention in entering into the world of crime thrillers. I’ve found that ‘nice’ people are not always what they seem. The helpless can be transformed into the most dangerous, the most dangerous become the most harmless. It’s all up to the writer and what they’re hoping to achieve.

For me there have been 10 children’s books, 4 books of short stories and so far, three novels, with a fourth in the mixer.

Whilst a short story might be written with a flurry of adrenalin in the space of a few hours, a book will need more than just a flash of creativity. It will need perseverance, discipline and dogged determination.

But then, isn’t that what is required of every ambition?

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Crime Thriller & Romantic suspense

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Book one – The Aberration Series of short stories

Short Story, Crime thriller & Romantic suspense

Date Published: 1st July 2020

Publisher: Happy London Press

I am a Gigolo

a secret. Trouble is, our Gigolo is also a mischief maker, a man with a mission – to make a killing. So he’s got a secret of his own. But, can he keep it that way?

Deliciously sensual, with a touch macabre, the opening tale, I am a gigolo contains ten startlingly original and provocative short stories, that you’ll need to be brave to read at bedtime.

About the Author

For me there have been 10 children’s books, 4 books of short stories and so far, three novels, with a fourth in the mixer.

But then, isn’t that what is required of every ambition?

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Top New Thrillers This Week

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Where The Dead Fall
By M J Lee
Publisher: Canelo
Crime Thriller

One chance encounter, one street side murder, will change everything. The extraordinary new Ridpath crime thriller

DI Ridpath is in the process of getting his life back together when everything goes wrong.

Driving to meet his daughter, he is caught in a gruesome motorway accident, in which a near-naked man is rundown by a lorry, while fleeing from a lone gunman. As Ridpath closes Manchester’s road network in search of the assailant, one question remains: why did nobody else see him?

Ridpath’s investigations soon unearth a number of inconsistencies, which pulls the police force itself into question, and hint at something sinister to come.

For Manchester is on the brink of a fresh surge of violence unlike anything it has seen in decades, and Ridpath must battle this unprecedented conflict along with his own demons. One thing is for sure. There will be blood on the streets…

The nail-biting sequel to Where the Truth Lies, M J Lee’s Where the Dead Fall is an absolute must read, perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Faith Martin and Peter James

The Cleansing
By J.A. Baker
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Psychological Thriller

A village shrouded in mystery. Secrets buried deep…

When Ray moves to a new house in the village of Whitchurch, he leaves behind a relationship and a luxury apartment in search of a better life in the countryside.

However, he soon realises that sleepy Whitchurch also has its own fair share of problems. Last year, a woman’s body was discovered in the woods nearby. The killer was never caught.

Soon suspicious things start to happen. Threatening letters are sent, cars are vandalised and headstones are desecrated. But who is responsible for these acts and why?

As the tension in the village builds, Ray begins to feel the pressure. Someone is out to cause trouble and that someone might be closer to Ray than he ever imagined.

Metropolis
By Philip Kerr
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Historical Thriller

New York Times-bestselling author Philip Kerr treats readers to his beloved hero’s origins, exploring Bernie Gunther’s first weeks on Berlin’s Murder Squad.

Summer, 1928. Berlin, a city where nothing is verboten.

In the night streets, political gangs wander, looking for fights. Daylight reveals a beleaguered populace barely recovering from the postwar inflation, often jobless, reeling from the reparations imposed by the victors. At central police HQ, the Murder Commission has its hands full. A killer is on the loose and though he scatters many clues, each is a dead end. It’s almost as if he is taunting the cops. Meanwhile, the press is having a field day.

This is what Bernie Gunther finds on his first day with the Murder Commisson. He’s been taken on beacuse the people at the top have noticed him–they think he has the makings of a first-rate detective. But not just yet. Right now, he has to listen and learn.

Metropolis, completed just before Philip Kerr’s untimely death, is the capstone of a fourteen-book journey through the life of Kerr’s signature character, Bernhard Genther, a sardonic and wisecracking homicide detective caught up in an increasingly Nazified Berlin police department. In many ways, it is Bernie’s origin story and, as Kerr’s last novel, it is also, alas, his end.

Metropolis is also a tour of a city in chaos: of its seedy sideshows and sex clubs, of the underground gangs that run its rackets, and its bewildered citizens–the lost, the homeless, the abandoned. It is Berlin as it edges toward the new world order that Hitler will soo usher in. And Bernie? He’s a quick study and he’s learning a lot. Including, to his chagrin, that when push comes to shove, he isn’t much better than the gangsters in doing whatever her must to get what he wants.