Cold Blooded Killers Display
It's COLD out right now, so what better way to warm up than staying inside with a good book? And there's no better way to ward off the chill of the season with a nice murder mystery--"cold blooded" style, if you will! Check out some of these great title options today:
"Pay Dirt Road" is the mesmerizing debut from the 2019 Tony Hillerman Prize recipient Samantha Jayne Allen. "Friday Night Lights meets Mare of Easttown in this small-town mystery about an unlikely private investigator searching for a missing waitress. Annie McIntyre has a love/hate relationship with Garnett, Texas. Recently graduated from college and home waitressing, lacking not in ambition but certainly in direction, Annie is lured into the family business-a private investigation firm-by her supposed-to-be-retired grandfather, Leroy, despite the rest of the clan's misgivings. When a waitress at the café goes missing, Annie and Leroy begin an investigation that leads them down rural routes and haunted byways, to noxious-smelling oil fields and to the glowing neon of local honky-tonks. As Annie works to uncover the truth she finds herself identifying with the victim in increasing, unsettling ways, and realizes she must confront her own past-failed romances, a disturbing experience she'd rather forget, and the trick mirror of nostalgia itself-if she wants to survive this homecoming."
"The Chemistry of Death" by Simon Beckett is the first book in a series featuring forensics expert David Hunter. "Three years ago, David Hunter moved to rural Norfolk to escape his life in London, his gritty work in forensics, and a tragedy that nearly destroyed him. Working as a simple country doctor, seeing his lost wife and daughter only in his dreams, David struggles to remain uninvolved when the corpse of a woman is found in the woods, a macabre sign from her killer decorating her body. In one horrifying instant, the quiet summer countryside that had been David’s refuge has turned malevolent—and suddenly there is no place to hide. The village of Manham is tight-knit, far from the beaten path. As a newcomer, Dr. Hunter is immediately a suspect. Once an expert in analyzing human remains, he reluctantly joins the police investigation—and when another woman disappears, it soon becomes personal. Because this time she is someone David knows, someone who has managed to penetrate the icy barrier around his heart. With a killer’s bizarre and twisted methods screaming out to him, with a brooding countryside beset with suspicion, David can feel the darkness gathering around him. For as the clock ticks down on a young woman’s life, David must follow a macabre trail of clues—all the way to its final, horrifying conclusion."
"The Butcher of Berner Street" by Alex Reeve is part of a Victorian crime series featuring transgender amateur sleuth Leo Stanhope. "'Cold-hearted murder.' That's what was promised in the anonymous note, and Leo can't resist. He may be a working journalist at last, but it's a precarious gig, and a good story could bring in the readers. What he finds on Berner Street, though, is a dead body that isn't, not to mention a lady wrestler who's quite a bit more. The crowd is angry: They like things cut and dried. But Leo knows all about things that are one thing and also another. He's got a secret himself, and if he's found out, an angry crowd will be the least of his worries. This is Queen Victoria's London, and the courts are not kind to young men who are...quite a bit more."
"Instruments of Darkness" is a first novel by Imogen Robertson. "In the year 1780, Harriet Westerman, the willful mistress of a country manor in Sussex, finds a dead man on her grounds with a ring bearing the crest of Thornleigh Hall in his pocket. Not one to be bound by convention or to shy away from adventure, she recruits a reclusive local anatomist named Gabriel Crowther to help her find the murderer, and historical suspense's newest investigative duo is born. For years, Mrs. Westerman has sensed the menace of neighboring Thornleigh Hall, seat of the Earl of Sussex. It is the home of a once- great family that has been reduced to an ailing invalid, his whorish wife, and his alcoholic second son, a man haunted by his years spent as a redcoat in the Revolutionary War. The same day, Alexander Adams is slain by an unknown killer in his London music shop, leaving his children orphaned. His death will lead back to Sussex, and to an explosive secret that has already destroyed one family and threatens many others."
You'll find these and lots of other murder mysteries in our "Cold Blooded Killers" display. For additional title suggestions, see the lists below:
