Recommendations based on "The Best American Mystery Stories 2020 A Collection"

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In suburban Georgetown a killer's Reeboks whisper on the front floor of a posh home... In a seedy D.C. porno house a patron is swiftly garroted to death... The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief...To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it was political dynamite. Suddenly Darby is witness to a murder—a murder intended for her. Going underground, she finds there is only one person she can trust—an ambitious reporter after a newsbreak hotter than Watergate—to help her piece together the deadly puzzle. Somewhere between the bayous of Louisiana and the White House's inner sanctums, a violent cover-up is being engineered. For someone has read Darby's brief. Someone who will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence of an unthinkable crime.Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the curb...Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought-after dead body in America. Now Mark is caught between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer for all of four years. Prosecutors are willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And Reggie will do anything to protect her client -- even take a last, desperate gamble that could win Mark his freedom... or cost them both their lives.

On the eve of the first Scottish parliament in three hundred years, Edinburgh is a city rife with political passions and expectations. Queensbury House, the home of Scotland's new rulers, falls in the middle of John Rebus' turf, keeping him busy with ceremonial tasks. That quickly changes, however, when a long-dead body is discovered in a Queensbury House fireplace, a homeless man throws himself off a bridge - leaving behind a suitcase full of cash - and an up-and-coming politician is found murdered. The links between the three deaths lead Rebus to a confrontation with one of Edinburgh's most notorious criminals, a man he thought he'd put in jail for life. Someone's going to make a lot of money out of Scotland's independence - and, as Rebus knows all too well, where there's big money at stake, darkness gathers.

FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR‘Deadly conspiracies, bone-crunching action and a tormented hero with a heart . . . packs a real punch’ Andy McDermottA LOST MANUSCRIPT. A SAVAGE MURDER. A DEADLY SECRET.While on a business trip to the UK, Ben Hope makes an impulse decision to attend a college reunion at his former university, Oxford. There he meets an old friend, Nick, now an internationally-renowned classical musician.But storm clouds are soon once again brewing on Ben’s horizon. After Nick’s brutal murder in an apparent home invasion robbery, Ben is drawn into the mystery of a missing music manuscript that may be a lost work by the legendary composer Johann Sebastian Bach.The hunt for his friend’s killers leads Ben across Europe, and into bloody conflict with even more dangerous people than he’d bargained for. As his quest unfolds, so does the shocking truth about the lost Bach manuscript, a secret dating back to the very darkest historical chapter of Man’s inhumanity to Man.The Ben Hope series is a must-read for fans of Dan Brown, Lee Child and Mark Dawson. Join the millions of readers who get breathless with anticipation when the countdown to a new Ben Hope thriller begins…Whilst the Ben Hope thrillers can be read in any order, this is the sixteenth book in the series.Scott Mariani's book 'The Tudor Deception' was a No.1 Sunday Times bestseller w/c 2023-11-06.

Don’t miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+!   NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Legendary Navajo policeman Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn takes center stage in this riveting atmospheric mystery from New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman that combines crime, superstition, and tradition and brings the desert Southwest vividly alive. Joe Leaphorn may have retired from the Tribal Police, but he finds himself knee-deep in a perplexing case involving a priceless artifact—a reminder of a dark time in Navajo history. Joe’s been hired to find a missing biil, a traditional dress that had been donated to the Navajo Nation. His investigation takes a sinister turn when the leading suspect dies under mysterious circumstances and Leaphorn himself receives anonymous warnings to beware—witchcraft is afoot. While the veteran detective is busy working to untangle his strange case, his former colleague Jim Chee and Officer Bernie Manuelito are collecting evidence they hope will lead to a cunning criminal behind a rash of burglaries. Their case takes a complicated turn when Bernie finds a body near a popular running trail. The situation grows more complicated when the death is ruled a homicide, and the Tribal cops are thrust into a turf battle because the murder involves the FBI. As Leaphorn, Chee, and Bernie draw closer to solving these crimes, their parallel investigations begin to merge . . . and offer an unexpected opportunity that opens a new chapter in Bernie’s life.

*winner Of The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award For Best Thriller* *a Financial Times Best Thriller Book Of 2022* You'll Never Know My Name. But You Won't Forget My Number. Behind The Events You Know Are The Killers You Don’t. When Diplomacy Fails, We're The Ones Who Gear Up. Officially We Don’t Exist, But Every Government In The World Uses Our Services. We’ve Been Saving The World, And Your Ass, For One Hundred Years. Sixteen People Have Done This Job Before Me. I Am Seventeen. The Most Feared Assassin In The World. But To Be The Best, You Must Beat The Best. My Next Target Is Sixteen, Just As One Day Eighteen Will Hunt Me Down. It’s A Dog-eat-dog World And It Gets Lonely At The Top. Nobody Gets To Stay For Long. But While We're Here, All That Matters Is That We Win. Visceral, Cinematic And Wildly Addictive, Seventeen Will Keep You On The Edge Of Your Seat And Live Long In The Memory. Until Eighteen Comes Along…

'Smart characters, shocking twists' Lisa Gardner'I couldn't turn the pages quick enough' Heidi Perks'Terrific, high-octane, really pacy' Jo Spain'A compelling read with great set pieces and, most of all, that charismatic cast of characters' Sun______________ The Sunday Times bestseller A killer with rich taste A rock star, a fashion designer, a software tycoon and a millionaire heiress. All glamorous, stunningly attractive, and incredibly rich. All dead. All murdered. All of them Detective Lindsay Boxer's problem. But the frantic media attention on the case distracts from the murder of a local street hero. Only intrepid reporter Cindy Thomas, a member of the Women's Murder Club, is on the case. The victim was celebrated across the city. Who would want to kill him? Could the down-and-out Samaritan have been hiding a dark secret? With tensions running high in their personal lives, will the Women's Murder Club be strong enough to crack these cases, or will the strain tear them apart?______________ More praise for the Women's Murder Club 'Fast-moving, intricately plotted . . . Boxer steals the show as the tough cop with a good heart' Mirror'I have never begun a Patterson book and been able to put it down' Larry King'Patterson and Paetro at their best.... A series that shows no signs of fatigue or flagging' BookReporter.com

'Smart characters, shocking twists' Lisa Gardner'I couldn't turn the pages quick enough' Heidi Perks'Terrific, high-octane, really pacy' Jo Spain'A compelling read with great set pieces and, most of all, that charismatic cast of characters' Sun______________ The Sunday Times bestseller A wolf in sheep's clothing Detective Lindsay Boxer doesn't know who she can trust. A weapon stolen from a police evidence locker is used in a series of vigilante murders, and Lindsay must investigate her closest colleagues and ask herself if they are capable of such heinous crimes. When two severed heads are left in a famous actor's garden, Lindsay is called to investigate the grisly scene, unearthing a third head and wondering how many more she'll find before she catches the killer. Amid the chaos of these crimes, Lindsay struggles with her pregnancy and the vindictive reporter dragging her personal life into the public eye. She and her unborn baby are heading into dangerous territory...______________ More praise for the Women's Murder Club 'Fast-moving, intricately plotted . . . Boxer steals the show as the tough cop with a good heart' Mirror'I have never begun a Patterson book and been able to put it down' Larry King'Patterson and Paetro at their best.... A series that shows no signs of fatigue or flagging' BookReporter.com

A new terror is sweeping the streets of San Francisco. And the killers look a lot like cops... As Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates whether the perpetrators are brilliant impostors or police officers gone rogue, she receives a chilling warning to back off. On the other side of the city, an innocent woman is murdered in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses. But there are no clues and no apparent motive. With killers in disguise, a maniac murderer on the loose, and danger getting ever closer to Lindsay's door, could this be one case too many for the Women's Murder Club?

Journalist Joe Talbert investigates the murder of the father he never knew, and must reckon with his own family's past, in this "brilliant sequel" to the national bestseller The Life We Bury (Publishers Weekly).MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD FINALISTBARRY AWARD FINALISTJoe Talbert, Jr. has never once met his namesake. Now out of college, a cub reporter for the Associated Press in Minneapolis, he stumbles across a story describing the murder of a man named Joseph Talbert in a small town in southern Minnesota. Full of curiosity about whether this man might be his father, Joe is shocked to find that none of the town's residents have much to say about the dead man-other than that his death was long overdue. Joe discovers that the dead man was a loathsome lowlife who cheated his neighbors, threatened his daughter, and squandered his wife's inheritance after she, too, passed away--an inheritance that may now be Joe's. Mired in uncertainty and plagued by his own devastated relationship with his mother, who is seeking to get back into her son's life, Joe must put together the missing pieces of his family history -- before his quest for discovery threatens to put him in a grave of his own.