Psychological Mystery Thriller Suspense

On the eve of the global lockdown, Don Barlow opens the door of his old beachside cottage to find a pretty girl with pink-tipped hair, claiming to have nowhere to go. He allows her entry, and so begins a mystery set in unprecedented times: with the virus raging outside their home, the girl cannot be asked to leave, but what does he risk by having her stay?

In The Perfect Smile (book four), criminal profiler Jessie Hunt, 29, fresh from the FBI Academy, is assigned a disturbing new case: a woman in her 30s has been murdered after using a dating website for her affairs with married men. Had she gotten too close to one of the married men? Was she the victim of blackmail? Of a stalker? Or was there some far more nefarious motive at stake? The list of suspects takes Jessie into wealthy, manicured neighborhoods, behind the veil of seemingly perfect lives, lives which are actually rotten to the core.

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice, on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then, natural disaster creates an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.

Aditi is a young girl who can charm her way into anyone's heart, but she prefers to stay alone. As an upcoming journalist, she decides to do a story on a haunted house. Little does she know that her life is about to change—forever! The photographer duo—Ratan and Ravi—are her team-mates for the project. But they cannot understand the mystery shrouding her persona, her sudden behavioral changes and the sharp personality differences in her. Are these just mixed signals, or is there someone else making her behave this way?

Christian Windsor is a certified genius. He's also autistic. At 23 years old, with two PhDs, Christian joins the FBI's most dangerous division, The Exceptional Crimes Unit. His first assignment? A serial killer on a rampage. Nicknamed The Surgeon, he's cutting the eyeballs out of women. That's not the only psychopath lurking in the shadows, though. There's another, and Christian can't see him.

Allander Atlasia is an infamous psychopath whose heinous crimes have earned him a lifetime stay at the Tower, the world's most extreme maximum-security prison. But after a brilliant and brutal escape, the criminal mastermind begins a killing spree that is intensely personal. Jade Marlow is an ex-FBI profiler and tracker whose fearlessness is only surpassed by the severity of his own inner demons. With a record of irrational behavior and a genius for putting himself into the mind of a criminal predator, he may be the one man diabolical enough to catch Atlasia.

Perla Wultz lives with her husband, Grant, and their precious daughter, Sophie, in a gated Pasadena community. Affluent, sociable, and accomplished, Perla plays the part of loving wife and mother to perfection. It seems an ideal life, if not for a decades-old crime that has become Perla’s dark and consuming secret obsession. Twenty-three years ago, Leewood Folcrum confessed to murdering two young girls during a birthday party. Though he’s been condemned to a life sentence, his crime is not forgotten.

You're home making dinner for your husband. You expect him any second. The phone rings - it's the call you hoped you'd never get. You jump in your car and race to a neighborhood you thought you'd never visit. You peer into the dark, deserted building. You brace yourself for the worst. And then, you remember nothing else. They tell your husband you've been in an accident. You lost control of your car as you sped through the worst side of town. The police suspect you were up to no good. But your husband refuses to believe it.

Mickey Gibson, single mother and former detective, leads a hectic life similar to that of many moms: juggling the demands of her two small children with the tasks of her job working remotely for ProEye, a global investigation company that hunts down wealthy tax and credit cheats. When Mickey gets a call from a colleague named Arlene Robinson, she thinks nothing of Arlene’s unusual request for her to go inventory the vacant home of an arms dealer who cheated ProEye’s clients and fled.

Vowing to make a fresh start, Sarah McAdams has come home to renovate the old Victorian mansion where she grew up. Her daughters, Jade and Gracie, aren’t impressed by the rundown property on the shores of Oregon’s wild Columbia River. As soon as they pull up the isolated drive, Sarah, too, is beset by uneasy memories - of her cold, distant mother, of the half-sister who vanished without a trace, and of a long-ago night when Sarah was found on the widow’s walk, feverish and delirious.

In L.A., Cassie Black is another beautiful woman in a Porsche: except Cassie just did six years in prison and still has "outlaw juice" flowing in her veins. Now Cassie is returning to her old profession, taking down a money man in Vegas. But the perfect heist goes very wrong, and suddenly Cassie is on the run - with a near-psychotic Vegas "fixer" killing everyone who knew about the job.

A porn star is found dead, and the LAPD doesn’t think much of it. But FBI agent Jessie Hunt, 29, senses something much more sinister at play, something that may just reach into the upper echelons of power and society.

Driving alone at night in a wild rainstorm, Luke Conway strikes something—or someone. He and his wife, Carrie, recently moved back to Clear River to help take care of her ailing father, and after a tragedy at his previous job, this move is their last chance at a new life. Now, standing in the downpour on this Texas road, Luke, an off-duty cop, has a decision to make—and he has to make it fast. No one else is around. No witnesses. And he can’t find a body.

Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she’s always envied.

Tucking her little boy Ollie into bed one night, Sarah notices his beloved teddy bear, which she bought him when he was born, is missing and in its place is a new toy given to him by her ex-husband’s new girlfriend, Laura. When she asks Ollie about it, he begins to shift uncomfortably before whispering, "Laura told me a big secret, and she said I can never tell you." Soon, Ollie is asking to spend more time with his dad and Laura, and shrinking away from Sarah. Then, when she calls to him in the garden one day, Ollie doesn’t answer back.

Rosie Lachlan wants nothing more than to find The One. A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, she’s working at her parents’ bridal salon, anxious for a happy ending that can’t come soon enough. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect, ostensibly to learn more about Daphne. But Rosie has a secret.

Talia Kemper is on death row for murdering her husband. She had an alibi and no known motive, yet Talia’s unwavering protestations of innocence have always been ignored. Then one day in the visiting area, she sees a recognizable stranger she’s certain is her husband. It turns out the man she’s been convicted of killing may not be dead after all. But as the days tick away toward Talia’s execution, what will it take for her to be believed?

With vividly realized characters and a breathtaking pace, Last Man Standing is another spellbinding title from David Baldacci, best-selling author of Wish You Well. When the FBI Hostage Rescue Team is ambushed, it is up to sole survivor Web London to find the killer.

Brecken Hill in upstate New York is an expensive place to live. You have to be rich to have a house there, and Fred and Sheila Merton certainly are rich. But even all their money can't protect them when a killer comes to call. The Mertons are brutally murdered after a fraught Easter dinner with their three adult kids. Who, of course, are devastated.

Twenty years ago, gregarious Lorelei and mousy Holly became fast friends as students in the same college psychology seminar. Taught by an expert in control and human behavior, the two students also grew close to their charismatic professor. But in one twisted moment of gaslighting, their friendship flamed out and Lorelei’s once-promising future fell apart. Flash-forward, Holly has everything Lorelei ever wanted, while Lorelei is a lonely cat lady.