The Forgotten Girls (Book #1 in The Suburban Murder Series)

The Forgotten Girls (Book #1 in The Suburban Murder Series)
Author: Alexa Steele
Publisher: Alexa Steele
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2014-08-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 163291090X

In an elite suburb of New York City, girls are dying. That doesn’t happen in Greenvale, with its immaculate lawns, exclusive yacht clubs and multi-million dollar mansions. But behind its perfect façade, its trimmed hedges and luxury cars, a darkness lies. Girls, dependent on Adderall, outmaneuver each other to get into top colleges, while the mothers’ need to live vicariously only makes it worse. Bella DeFranco is one of the Bronx’s top SVU detectives. At only 37, she disarms everyone with her stunning good looks, yet she is as tough as most men—and a lot smarter, too. Yet when is summoned to Greenvale, she finds herself getting lost in a case that even she can’t comprehend. She stumbles into a land of secrets, a place where husbands hide their pasts from their wives, where friends are not what they seem, and where no one wants to know too much. As she digs deeper into layers of suburban dysfunction, she comes to learn that, behind all the fake smiles, there is a subtle violence--rivaling even her crime-ridden streets of the Bronx. With a killer on the loose, time running out, and a new partner who never recovered from his washed-up alcoholic days, the odds are stacked against Bella. She is determined, though, to save these girls, whatever the cost. Yet as she gets close, the depth of psychosis she discovers shocks even her…. THE LOST GIRLS (BOOK #2 IN THE SUBURBAN MURDER SERIES) is now available!

Under the Bridge

Under the Bridge
Author: Rebecca Godfrey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2009-09-29
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1439184119

*Now a Hulu limited series starring Lily Gladstone, Riley Keough, and Archie Panjabi!* “A swift, harrowing classic perfect for these unnerving times.” —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation One moonlit night, fourteen-year-old Reena Virk went to join friends at a party and never returned home. In this “tour de force of crime reportage” (Kirkus Reviews), acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls—and boy—accused of a savage murder. As she follows the investigation and trials, Godfrey reveals the startling truth about the unlikely killers. Laced with lyricism and insight, Under the Bridge is an unforgettable look at a haunting modern tragedy.

While I Was Gone

While I Was Gone
Author: Sue Miller
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2002-11-26
Genre: English fiction
ISBN: 0345420748

The "New York Times" bestseller called "quietly gripping" by "USA Today" demonstrates how impulses can fracture even the most stable family. Despite her loving family and beautiful home, Jo Becker is restless. Then an old roommate reappears, bringing back Jo's memories of her early 20s. Jo's obsession with that period in her life--and the crime that ended it--draws her back to a horrible secret.

A Mind to Murder

A Mind to Murder
Author: P.D. James
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2001-06-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0743219589

Adam Dalgluish is called to the elegant Steen Psychiatric Clinic to investigate why the head of the clinic, Enid Bolan was found with a chisel through her heart.

Death on the Devil's Teeth: The Strange Murder That Shocked Suburban New Jersey

Death on the Devil's Teeth: The Strange Murder That Shocked Suburban New Jersey
Author: Jesse P. Pollack & Mark Moran
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2022-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467153001

Four decades after Jeannette DePalma's tragic death, authors Jesse P. Pollack and Mark Moran present the definitive account of the shocking Springfield township cold case. As Springfield residents decorated for Halloween in September 1972, the crime rate in the quiet, affluent township was at its lowest in years. That mood was shattered when the body of sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma was discovered in the local woods, allegedly surrounded by strange objects. Some feared witchcraft was to blame, while others believed a serial killer was on the loose. Rumors of a police cover up ran rampant, and the case went unsolved - along with the murders of several other young women.

The Coveted Girls (Book #3 in the Suburban Murder Series

The Coveted Girls (Book #3 in the Suburban Murder Series
Author: Alexa Steele
Publisher: Alexa Steele
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2017-12-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1640292934

THE COVETED GIRLS is book #3 in the #1 bestselling Suburban Murder series, which begins with THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS, book #1 (a free download)! In the magnificent, sought after Hamptons a young au pair has vanished. When she shows up savagely raped and murdered, in the Bronx, top SVU detective Bella de Franco is called to the scene and ordered to find her killer. She enters the life this young woman led, from the sleazy NYC nanny agency whose owner runs a sex ring, to the wealthy families who employ these girls, both in the city and at the beach, and finds a world whose physical beauty masks a twisted existence. Bella is no longer a stranger to places where privilege and money hide secrets. She and her new partner, Mack, have just solved two murders in towns inhabited with the one percent. But in this fabled playground of the rich, where thirty million dollar homes hide behind electric wrought iron gates and hand cut hedges, Bella encounters a culture sharper, and more shocking, than anything she has seen before. Husbands with power and influence, revered for their money and status, do whatever they want. Wives, fixtures for a public image, look the other way, as long as the perks keep coming. Friends, who love the lifestyle, keep friends secrets. Even the kids, who once knew better, remain quiet in the face of it all. Bella works tirelessly to uncover the truth about the high paid escorts, phony marriages, and broken families that littered the life of her victim, and to find who it was who needed the young girl out of the way. But she doesn’t expect the answer she gets, one that leads her to question all she thought she knew…

Silence of the Grave

Silence of the Grave
Author: Arnaldur Indridason
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2007-08-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429963433

"Now Iceland has its own Mankell." ---Holger Kreitling, Die Welt (Germany) Last year Jar City introduced international crime-writing sensation Arnaldur Indridason to rave reviews and a rousing welcome from American thriller fans. And now, Silence of the Grave, the next in this stunning series has won the coveted Golden Dagger Award. Presented by the British Crime Writers' Association, previous winners of this award include John Le Carre, Minette Walters, Henning Mankell, and James Lee Burke. In Silence of the Grave, a corpse is found on a hill outside the city of Reykjavík, and Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson and his team think the body may have been buried for some years. While Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family, slowly but surely he finds out the truth about another unhappy family. Few people are still alive who can tell the tale, but even secrets taken to the grave cannot remain hidden forever. Destined to be a classic in the world of crime fiction, Silence of the Grave is one of the most accomplished thrillers in recent years.

The Radleys

The Radleys
Author: Matt Haig
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2010-12-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1439194645

Soon to be a major film—starring Kelly Macdonald and Damien Lewis! From the bestselling author of The Midnight Library—an “irresistible...full of clever turns, darkly hilarious spins...Even if you're suffering from vampire fatigue...The Radleys is a fun, fresh contribution to the genre” (Associated Press). Just about everyone knows a family like the Radleys. Many of us grew up next door to one. They are a modern family, averagely content, averagely dysfunctional, living in a staid and quiet suburban English town. Peter is an overworked doctor whose wife, Helen, has become increasingly remote and uncommunicative. Rowan, their teenage son, is being bullied at school, and their anemic daughter, Clara, has recently become a vegan. They are typical, that is, save for one devastating exception: Peter and Helen are vampires and have—for seventeen years—been abstaining by choice from a life of chasing blood in the hope that their children could live normal lives. One night, Clara finds herself driven to commit a shocking—and disturbingly satisfying—act of violence, and her parents are forced to explain their history of shadows and lies. A police investigation is launched that uncovers a richness of vampire history heretofore unknown to the general public. And when the malevolent and alluring Uncle Will, a practicing vampire, arrives to throw the police off Clara’s trail, he winds up throwing the whole house into temptation and turmoil and unleashing a host of dark secrets that threaten the Radleys’ marriage. The Radleys is a moving, thrilling, and radiant domestic novel that explores with daring the lengths a parent will go to protect a child, what it costs you to deny your identity, the undeniable appeal of sin, and the everlasting, iridescent bonds of family love. Read it and ask what we grow into when we grow up, and what we gain—and lose—when we deny our appetites.