Books like 'The Search'
Readers who enjoyed The Search by Iris Johansen also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery action / adventure horror thriller suspense crime dogs animals forensics
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The First Death by Kendra Elliot
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Wall Street Journal bestselling series.For a search and rescue expert, the buried remains of her past are a dangerous obsession in a twisting novel of suspense by a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author.Rowan Wolff was five years old when she, her brother, and their babysitter were kidnapped by a serial killer in the Pacific Northwest. The babysitter was murdered... -
Our Stolen Pieces by James Hunt
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen the morning after a slumber party reveals two missing girls, a newly minted Detective and a young veteran are assigned the case. Recently partnered, the pair of detectives must set aside their troubled pasts to recover the pair of girls who may have been coerced by a stranger who had kidnapped before...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure -
Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThey’re hunting a killer so silent, so invisible, that his unspeakable crimes are the only proof he exists.A car submerged in a remote pond. The bodies of two girls strapped into their seats. The mystery of their mother, vanished without a trace, leads Gwen Proctor and Kezia Claremont into dangerous territory...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure -
The Poet by Michael Connelly
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsDenver crime-beat reporter Jack McEvoy specializes in violent death. So when his homicide detective brother kills himself, McEvoy copes in the only way he knows how--he decides to write the story. But his research leads him to suspect a serial killer is at work--a devious murderer who's killing cops and leaving a trail of poetic clues...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement police-procedural suspense whodunit thriller action-adventure -
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The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAgent Pendergast faces his latest challenge in this next installment of the #1 NYT bestselling series by acclaimed authors Preston and Child, the second in the Leng Trilogy.Following the events of Bloodless, FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast and Constance Greene return. Against all odds, Constance has found a way back to the place of her origins, New York City in the late 1800s...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement paranormal police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure adult -
Dead Center by Dawn Lee McKenna, Axel Blackwell
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe quaint coastal town of Port St. Joe, FL isn’t the kind of place where people go around getting stabbed to death. So, when Jake Bellamy – an insurance agent and beloved father – is found murdered in the dewy grass of a local park, it comes as a bit of a shock. Now it’s up to Evan Caldwell, the new Sheriff and recent transplant, to solve the case...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult book contemporary -
The Silence of the White City by Eva García Sáenz de Urturi, Eva García Sáenz
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA madman is holding Vitoria hostage, killing its citizens in brutal ways and staging the bodies. The city's only hope is a brilliant detective struggling to battle his own demons.Inspector Unai López de Ayala, known as "Kraken", is charged with investigating a series of ritualistic murders. The killings are eerily similar to ones that terrorized the citizens of Vitoria twenty years earlier...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 21st-century action-adventure -
Blood on the Tracks by Barbara Nickless
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA young woman is found brutally murdered, and the main suspect is the victim’s fiancé, a hideously scarred Iraq War vet known as the Burned Man. But railroad police Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell, brought in by the Denver Major Crimes unit to help investigate, can't shake the feeling that larger forces are behind this apparent crime of passion... -
Die Again by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe latest enthralling case in Tess Gerritsen's New York Times bestselling Rizzoli & Isles series, the blockbuster books behind the smash hit TNT series.Boston Detective Jane Rizzoli is on the case of a big game hunter found dead in his apartment, alone with the body of a beautiful white snow leopard he had recently been commissioned to procure and stuff for a high-profile museum in the area... -
Missed Connections by Alexandria Clarke
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHow far would you go for revenge? Veronica Bauer isn’t above homicide. Twelve years after a ruthless attack killed her mother and put her father in prison, she embarks on a mission to bring the real culprits to justice. As bodies start to drop, Detective Sheila Arden is assigned to the gruesome case, but she soon discovers that the truth is more complicated than she thought... -
Body Double by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsBoston medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles literally meets her match–and must face a savage serial killer and shattering personal revelations–in the brilliant new novel of suspense by the New York Times bestselling author of The Surgeon and The Sinner.Dr. Maura Isles makes her living dealing with death...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc forensics law-enforcement police-procedural realistic suspense -
Broken by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsWhen Special Agent Will Trent arrives in Grant County, he finds a police department determined to protect its own and far too many unanswered questions about a prisoner's death. He doesn't understand why Officer Lena Adams is hiding secrets from him. He doesn't understand her role in the death of Grant County's popular police chief. He doesn't understand why that man's widow, Dr...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller 21st-century -
A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsA chilling thriller of serial murder and dark secrets that will leave you wondering, is the past really in the past?Three Chicago women have been found strangled, embalmed, and posed as if still alive. Doubting the findings of the local PD’s profiler, The FBI calls on forensic psychologist Zoe Bentley to investigate... -
In the Barren Ground by Loreth Anne White
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the Barrens, a vast wilderness in northern Canada bordering the Arctic Circle, night consumes every hour of the winter. Humans are scarce; ferocious predators roam freely. Locals say spirits do, too. Rookie cop Tana Larsson doesn’t mind the dark and quiet. Five months pregnant and hoping to escape the mistakes of her past, she takes a post in Twin Rivers, population 320...Categorized as:
animals crime female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure -
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Under a Blue Moon by Steve Higgs
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThis is a prequel to the Blue Moon series. It tells about Tempest Michaels' first day as a paranormal detective... -
The Coffin Dancer by Jeffery Deaver
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsDetective Lincoln Rhyme, the foremost criminalist in the NYPD, is on the hunt for an elusive murderer, the Coffin Dancer. He's a brilliant hitman who changes his appearance even faster than he adds to his trail of victims, only one of whom has lived long enough to offer a clue: the assassin has an eerie tattoo on his arm of the Grim Reaper waltzing with a woman in front of a casket... -
Cruel and Unusual by Patricia Cornwell, C.J. Critt
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 41 ratings"Killing me won't kill the beast" are the last words of rapist-murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell, written four days before his execution. But they can't explain how Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds Waddell's fingerprints on another crime scene -- after she'd performed his autopsy. If this is some sort of game, Scarpetta seems to be the target... -
I Know a Secret by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the twelfth gripping novel featuring Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles, the crime-solving duo—featured in the smash-hit TNT series Rizzoli & Isles—are faced with the gruesomely staged murder of a horror film producer.The crime scene is unlike any that Detective Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles have ever before encountered... -
The Secrets of the Shadows by Helen Phifer
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSophie was afraid of the man in the shadows. He terrified her, but he would always disappear when someone else came. But one day in June 1984, she didn't escape. He took her. When a young woman is found draped over a gravestone in a chilling murder, police officer Annie Graham experiences a familiar sense of dread... -
The Girl in the Snow by Alexandria Clarke
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA retired FBI agent. A heartstopping tragedy. Carolina Caccia, a divorced mother of two, confronts her worst fears when her son goes missing during a family ski trip. As she discovers her son has been taken, she must revisit her dark past to rescue her child... -
Vanish by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsA blessed event becomes a nightmare for pregnant homicide detective Jane Rizzoli when she finds herself on the wrong side of a hostage crisis in this timely and relentless thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Body Double. A nameless, beautiful woman appears to be just another corpse in the morgue...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc forensics law-enforcement police-procedural realistic suspense -
The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe Surgeon has been locked up for a year but his chilling legacy still haunts the city, and especially Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli. But now a new killer is at work and Rizzoli senses something horrifyingly familiar about this murderer's modus operandi... -
Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsIn Wyoming for a medical conference, Boston medical examiner Maura Isles joins a group of friends on a spur-of-the-moment ski trip. But when their SUV stalls on a snow-choked mountain road, they're stranded with no help in sight.As night falls, the group seeks refuge from the blizzard in the remote village of Kingdom Come, where twelve eerily identical houses stand dark and abandoned... -
Lone Wolf by Sara Driscoll, Jen J. Danna
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the first book in a thrilling new series, FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings and Hawk, her loyal search-and-rescue Labrador, must race against time as they zero in on one of the deadliest killers in the country . . . Meg and Hawk are part of the FBI’s elite K-9 unit. Hawk can sniff out bodies anywhere—living or dead—whether it’s tracking a criminal or finding a missing person...Categorized as:
animals crime dogs law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure -
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Abduction! by Peg Kehret
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMatt is missing. Bonnie's brother left his classroom to use thebathroom —and disappeared. A police dog traces his scent to the curb, where he apparently got into a vehicle. But why would Matt go anywhere with a stranger? Overwhelmed with fear, Bonnie discovers that her dog is gone, too. Was Pookie used as a lure for Matt? Bonnie makes one big mistake in her attempt to find her brother... -
What Hurts the Most by Willow Rose
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsASIN B018A097LO moved to the most recent edition hereYou will never guess the ending!Am I pretty? Imagine being asked that question standing face to face with a killer. What would you answer? While her life is going from bad to worse, journalist Mary Mills receives a phone call from her father telling her that her brother has been arrested for murder... -
The Dark Corners of the Night by Meg Gardiner, Hillary Huber
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsListening Length: 11 hours and 45 minutesI am the legion of the night …He appears in the darkness like a ghost, made of shadows and fear—the Midnight Man. He comes for the parents but leaves the children alive, tiny witnesses to unspeakable horror. The bedroom communities of Los Angeles are gripped with dread, and the attacks are escalating...Categorized as:
crime female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure adult -
The Deepest of Secrets by Kelley Armstrong, Thérèse Plummer
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNumber one New York Times best seller Kelley Armstrong returns to the captivating town of Rockton in The Deepest of Secrets, the next installment in one of the most imaginative crime series on shelves today. It’s not always easy to live in the hidden town of Rockton, something Detective Casey Duncan knows firsthand...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure -
Dead Like You by Peter James
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsDetective Superintendent Roy Grace is forever haunted by the unexplained disappearance of his wife, Sandy, nearly ten years ago. Ever since she went missing, he's been consumed with finding out what happened to her. Finally, he may be moving on. He has fallen in love and is going to marry his girlfriend, Cleo, who is pregnant with their child...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure adult audiobook -
The Vanished Ones by Donato Carrisi
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWe call them the sleepers...At the elite Missing Persons bureau of the Federal Police, Mila Vasquez is tasked with finding the hundreds of lost people who have vanished from their former lives. However, the longer they are gone, they more they are forgotten by the world. Now they are returning...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure adult audiobook -
Malevolent by Jana Deleon
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom New York Times bestselling author Jana DeLeon, the first in a new thriller series. Everyone wondered about Shaye Archer’s past. Including Shaye. Shaye Archer’s life effectively began the night police found her in an alley, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name... -
The Mercy of Snakes by Dean Koontz
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA series of suspicious deaths in a retirement home draws Nameless into the confidence of a terrified former resident—and into the dark heart of a shocking conspiracy. In part five of the Nameless series, it’s time to hunt.Oakshore Park is Michigan’s most exclusive assisted-living community. Presided over by two killer angels of mercy, it’s also the go-to facility in assisted dying... -
The Dark Bones by Loreth Anne White
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsShe’s come back to solve the mystery of her father’s death and confront her own dark past. When Detective Rebecca North left her rural hometown, she vowed never to return. Her father’s apparent suicide has changed that. The official report is that retired cop Noah North shot himself, knocked over a lantern, and set his isolated cabin ablaze. But Rebecca cannot believe he killed himself... -
Looking Good Dead by Peter James
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTom Bryce did what any decent person would do. But within hours of picking up the CD that had been left behind on the train seat next to him, and attempting to return it to its owner, he is the sole witness to a vicious murder. Then his young family are threatened with their lives if he goes to the police...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure adult audiobook -
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The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsNot even the icy temperatures of a typical New England winter can match the bone-chilling scene of carnage discovered at the chapel of Our Lady of Divine Light. Within the cloistered convent lie two nuns–one dead, one critically injured–victims of an unspeakably savage attacker...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc forensics law-enforcement police-procedural realistic suspense -
Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsA detective’s brutal first case could make or break her career in an exhilarating thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg.A video of Deputy Eve Ronin’s off-duty arrest of an abusive movie star goes viral, turning her into a popular hero at a time when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is plagued by scandal...Categorized as:
crime female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural realistic suspense thriller action-adventure -
Invisible by James Patterson, David Ellis
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsEveryone thinks Emmy Dockery is crazy. Obsessed with finding the link between hundreds of unsolved cases, Emmy has taken leave from her job as an FBI researcher. Now all she has are the newspaper clippings that wallpaper her bedroom, and her recurring nightmares of an all-consuming fire...Categorized as:
crime drama female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure -
Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsA small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear...Categorized as:
crime drama forensics law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure -
Alone in the Wild by Kelley Armstrong
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsIn #1 New York Times bestseller Kelley Armstrong's latest thriller, the hidden town of Rockton is about to face a challenge none of them saw coming: a baby.Every season in Rockton seems to bring a new challenge. At least that's what Detective Casey Duncan has felt since she decided to call this place home... -
Shadow Unit 9 by Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit hunts humanity's worst nightmares. But there are nightmares humanity doesn't dream are real. The BAU sends those cases down the hall. Welcome to Shadow Unit. The Shadow Unit series was created by award-winning authors Emma Bull and Elizabeth Bear...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement paranormal police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult -
The Pulse by Skylar Finn
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn EMP means the end of the world as they know it for a family who fights to survive. When disaster strikes in the form of an EMP, Charlie's family flees to their homestead. They fortify their ranch and prepare to ride out the worst of the chaos. Unfortunately, the gang of scavengers who followed them from the city have other plans...Categorized as:
crime female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult book -
7th Heaven by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsA terrible fire in a wealthy suburban home leaves a married couple dead and Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner Rich Conklin searching for clues. And after California's golden boy, Michael Campion has been missing for a month, there finally seems to be a lead in his case--a very devastating lead... -
The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsForced out of the Los Angeles Times amid the latest budget cuts, newspaperman Jack McEvoy decides to go out with a bang, using his final days at the paper to write the definitive murder story of his career. He focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer in jail after confessing to a brutal murder. But as he delves into the story, Jack realizes that Winslow's so-called confession is bogus...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement police-procedural suspense whodunit thriller action-adventure -
4th of July by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsAfter losing one of its own, police lieutenant Lindsay Boxer and the surviving members of Women's Murder Club make a courageous return for their fourth and most chilling case ever--one that could easily be their last. Unabridged... -
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In the Heart of the Fire by Dean Koontz
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsA bloodthirsty sheriff is terrorizing a small Texas town where justice has been buried with his victims. Until Nameless arrives—a vigilante whose past is a mystery and whose future is written in blood.Anyone who crosses Sheriff Russell Soakes is dead, missing, or warned. One of them is a single mother trying to protect her children but bracing herself for the worst. Nameless fears the outcome... -
The Angel of Death by Alane Ferguson
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs assistant to her father, the county coroner of Silverton, Colorado, Cameryn Mahoney has seen more gore than the average seventeen-yearold. But even Cameryn is shocked when Kyle O'Neil, the most popular guy in school, discovers the gruesome corpse of their English teacher murdered in his own bed...Categorized as:
crime female-mc forensics law-enforcement paranormal realistic suspense action-adventure -
Rum Runner by J.A. Konrath
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCOULD YOUR MARRIAGE SURVIVE FIFTY KILLERS? Twenty years ago, a young cop named Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels arrested one of the most sadistic killers she'd ever encountered. She has since retired from the Chicago Police Department in order to raise her toddler daughter.But old grudges never die. They fester until the right opportunity comes along... -
Bloodline by F. Paul Wilson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJack has been on hiatus since the events in Harbingers. With his lover Gia's encouragement he dips a toe back into the fix-it pool. Christy Pickering's eighteen-year-old daughter is dating Jerry Bethlehem, a man twice her age. Christy sensed something shady and sinister about him, so she hired a private investigator to look into his past. But the PI isn't returning her calls... -
Angel Killer by Andrew Mayne
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn this self-published bestselling e-book by a real illusionist—the first thriller in a sensational series—now available in paperback, FBI agent Jessica Blackwood believes she has successfully left her complicated life as a gifted magician behind her . . . until a killer with seemingly supernatural powers puts her talents to the ultimate test...Categorized as:
cozy crime female-mc law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure -
The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Thefertility of Hill's imagination, the range of his power, the sheer quality ofhis literary style never ceases to delight." —Val McDermid,author of Fever of the BoneIn a stand-alone psychological thrillerfrom acclaimed mystery master Reginald Hill, a mysterious ex-con returns to hisremote childhood home on a deadly hunt for revenge...Categorized as:
crime drama law-enforcement police-procedural suspense thriller action-adventure adult
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