Small Town Crime

Twenty years after her brother Callum mysteriously vanished, Orla Payne is still haunted by his disappearance. The case was closed after her uncle's suicide - the police believed he killed himself in the Hanging Wood out of guilt over murdering the boy, even though a body was never found. Daniel Kind recommends Orla contact DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of the Lake District's Cold Case Review Team, to see if she can discover the truth about what really happened all those years ago.

Beth Haldane is worried. First, her dear friend and fellow single mother Jen suddenly gets married to a new man who seems too perfect to be true, then she moves out of leafy Dulwich Village—and now seems to have disappeared without a trace. Beth knows Jen would never leave her little daughter to handle playground predicaments or her sneaky stepmother alone. Heading to Jen’s new home for answers, Beth’s knocks on the front door go unanswered. Police are convinced the lovebirds are on an extended honeymoon, but Beth suspects Jen’s new husband is up to no good.

As kids, Amelia and Kylee were found unharmed in their upstairs bedroom the night their teenage cousin Grace, who was babysitting them, vanished from the farmhouse in Beaumont, Missouri, leaving blood all over the kitchen. Scrappy and driven, Grace, the first in their family to go to college instead of getting married and working at the meatpacking plant, had been on the verge of escaping their dead-end town. Her disappearance is a warning to any local girl who dared hope for better.

Death has come twice to Ravenbank, a remote community in England's Lake District, each time on Hallowe'en. In 1914, a young woman's corpse was found, with a makeshift shroud frozen to her battered face. Her ghost - the Faceless Woman - is said to walk through Ravenbank on Hallowe'en. Five years ago, another woman was murdered, and again her face was covered to hide her injuries. Daniel Kind becomes fascinated by the old cases, and wonders whether the obvious suspects really did commit the crimes.

Ax assault, kidnapping, brutal murder: how could these things happen in a small town? Although regional crimes hardly ever make it to the national circuit, they will always remain with the families and communities of the victims and a part of the area's history. After working with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division for twenty-four years, Rita Shuler has a passion for remembering the victims. From an unsolved case that has haunted her for thirty years to a cold case solved after fifteen years by advanced DNA technology, Shuler blends her own memories with extensive research.

Date with Justice, the ninth novel in Julia's Chapman's witty and engaging Dales Detective series, sees Delilah's brother under suspicion of murder. Can Delilah and Samson prove he's innocent? The Dales Detective Agency is on the brink of closure. Samson O’Brien has returned to his position as...

Clayton Burroughs comes from a long line of outlaws. For generations the Burroughs clan has made their home on Bull Mountain in North Georgia, running shine, pot, and meth over six state lines, virtually untouched by the rule of law. To distance himself from his family's criminal empire, Clayton takes the job of sheriff in a neighboring community to keep what peace he can.

In October of 1967, the Summer of Love is history, rock and roll is dark and revolutionary, and people in the small east Texas community of Center Springs simply want to live their lives as quietly as possible. But a handsome darkness in the form of Las Vegas gangster Anthony Agrioli has left the business to hide out in their tiny backwater settlement with his blond bombshell girlfriend.

Detective Mia Hart never planned to return home. One terrifying summer night, Mia lost two of her closest friends to suicide. Scarred and broken, she fled St. Lucy’s, a small island off the coast of Maine. Now fifteen years later, when the body of a journalist is fished out of the bay near St. Lucy’s cliffs, Mia is forced to help with the case - and face all she’s been running from. As she approaches the island, the wintery winds of Black Rock Bay usher Mia home again.

His drinking is getting worse by the day, his emotional wounds after a deployment to Afghanistan are as raw as ever, his marriage and career are over, and the only job he can hold down is with the local sheriff’s department. And that’s only because the sheriff is his mother—and she’s overwhelmed with small town Shaky Lake’s dwindling budget and the fallout from the opioid epidemic.

Decorations of cobwebs and creatures are just being taken down across Eastport’s picturesque houses as the community says farewell to Halloween and ushers in winter with the unique confections found only at the Chocolate Moose. Revelers have gathered on the waterfront for a party at local celebrity Hank Rafferty’s ramshackle mansion, known as Stone House. The home repair TV show star and his guests await a devilish dessert delivery from Jake and Ellie—who arrive just after Hank falls to his death from the house’s turret’s balcony.

What if Sean Courtland’s old Chevy truck had broken down somewhere else? What if he’d never met Denise Givens, a waitress at a local tavern in the Wisconsin town where he lands? Or Dan Young, another young man like Sean drifting through, having fled Minnesota for reasons unknown? Instead, together Sean and Dan pick up carpentry and plumbing work for an old man named Marion Devereaux, and Sean gets drawn into the lives of Denise and her father—and of the townspeople, all haunted by the disappearance of three young boys decades ago, in the 1970s.

London Scott’s routine, boring life gets a jolt when her niece discovers a woman’s body while out hiking with her boyfriend. It’s just her luck that it’s Sebastian Archer who investigates the murder. Having known the man since childhood, she’s always been the annoying tagalong. Even though she finds him drop-dead sexy, that’s a ship that can never sail now that she’s guardian to her niece and his goddaughter.

A deserted train station: A man waits. A woman watches. Chris is ready to join his wife. He’s planned this moment for nearly a year. The date. The time. The train. But he hadn’t factored in Sarah.So when Sarah walks onto the platform and sees a man swaying at the edge, she assumes he’s just had too much to drink. What she doesn’t expect is to stop a suicide. As Sarah becomes obsessed with discovering the secrets that Chris is clearly hiding, he becomes obsessed with stopping her, protecting her. But there are some secrets that are meant to stay buried....

When called upon, she can talk the death out of the dying and save their lives—only once, never twice. But this truly unique gift comes at a price, rooting Weatherly to people who only want her around when they need her and resent her backwater ways when they don’t. Weatherly’s cousin Adaire also has a gift: she’s a Scryer and can see the future reflected back in dark surfaces. Right before she is killed in an accident, Adaire saw something unnerving, and that’s why Weatherly believes she was murdered—never thinking for a moment that it was an accident.

Mount Orange, Florida, is famous for two things: cerulean freshwater springs, ideal for free divers who aren't afraid of lurking gators. And the gruesome cold case murder of best friends, Bailey and Celeste, twenty years ago. Bailey and Celeste's murders cast a permanent darkness over sunny Mount Orange. Tru has always lived in that shadow. Now she's supposed to head to FSU in the fall with her boyfriend, but those unsolved murders—and the death of her own sister—invade her every thought. It’s only in the shadowy deep of Hidden Glen Springs that she can breathe.

A powerful and resonant novel from Tom Franklin - critically acclaimed author of Smonk and Hell at the Breech - Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter tells the riveting story of two boyhood friends, torn apart by circumstance, who are brought together again by a terrible crime in a small Mississippi town. An extraordinary novel that seamlessly blends elements of crime and Southern literary fiction, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a must for readers of Larry Brown, Pete Dexter, Ron Rash, and Dennis Lehane.

The Isle of Wight has always felt like a safe place to live for keen dog-walker and reluctant sleuth Susan. But after being involved in the investigation of a troubling crime near her old home, Susan decides to move to the peaceful village of Bishopstone. Susan loves the sense of community and immediately throws herself into village life, volunteering at the local primary school and joining the choir of St Jude’s. So, when there is an altercation at the meeting of the choir committee, followed by a shocking accident, Susan is dismayed to realise her powers of deduction may be needed again.

He’s watching. She’s waiting.The unmissable new thriller from Darren O’Sullivan, author of Our Little Secret and Close Your Eyes. Having barely escaped the clutches of a serial killer, Claire Moore has struggled to rebuild her life. After her terrifying encounter with the man the media dubbed The Black-Out Killer, she became an overnight celebrity: a symbol of hope and survival in the face of pure evil. And then the killings stopped....

Why is it being built here, and why so quickly? These are the questions Cole, Bart, and Teddy, the three principals of True Triangle Construction, ask themselves when they are hired to finish a project for a mysteriously wealthy homeowner. Nestled in the mountains outside of Jackson, Wyoming, the house is a masterpiece, unlike anything they've done before. Once finished, it promises to be the architectural prize of Jackson and could put True Triangle on the map. But despite the project's lure, the owner is intent on having it built in a matter of months.