Books like 'Very Bad Things'
Readers who enjoyed Very Bad Things by Susan McBride also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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All In by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThree casinos. Three bodies. Three days. After a string of brutal murders in Las Vegas, Cassie Hobbes and the Naturals are called in to investigate. But even with the team's unique profiling talents, these murders seem baffling: unlike many serial killers, this one uses different methods every time. All of the victims were killed in public, yet the killer does not show up on any tape...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure book contemporary -
Bad Blood by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen Cassie Hobbes joined the FBI's Naturals program, she had one goal: uncover the truth about her mother's murder. But now, everything Cassie thought she knew about what happened that night has been called into question. Her mother is alive, and the people holding her captive are more powerful—and dangerous—than anything the Naturals have faced so far...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure book contemporary -
Killer Instinct by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSeventeen-year-old Cassie Hobbes has a gift for profiling people. Her talent has landed her a spot in an elite FBI program for teens with innate crime-solving abilities, and into some harrowing situations. After barely escaping a confrontation with an unbalanced killer obsessed with her mother's murder, Cassie hopes she and the rest of the team can stick to solving cold cases from a distance...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure alpha-mc book -
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsMickey Haller has spent all his professional life afraid that he wouldn’t recognize innocence if it stood right in front of him. But what he should have been on the watch for was evil.Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind... -
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Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWe don’t pick and choose what to be afraid of. Our fears pick us.Tash Carmody has been traumatised since childhood, when she witnessed her gruesome imaginary friend Sparrow lure young Mallory Fisher away from a carnival. At the time nobody believed Tash, and she has since come to accept that Sparrow wasn’t real. Now fifteen and mute, Mallory’s never spoken about the week she went missing...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement action-adventure book coming-of-age contemporary -
Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsJazz Dent has never been closer to catching his father.Jazz has been shot and left to die in New York. His girlfriend, Connie, is in the clutches of Jazz's monstrous father, Billy--the world's most notorious serial killer. And his best friend, Howie, is bleeding to death on the floor of Jazz's new home...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic abuse action-adventure audiobook -
Game by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsBilly grinned. “Oh, New York,” he whispered. “We’re gonna have so much fun.”I Hunt Killers introduced the world to Jazz, the son of history’s most infamous serial killer, Billy Dent.In an effort to prove murder didn’t run in the family, Jazz teamed with the police in the small town of Lobo’s Nod to solve a deadly case...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic abuse action-adventure anti-hero -
Dark Harvest by Chris Patchell
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBecky Kincaid ventures out in the middle of a snowstorm to buy a car seat for her unborn baby and never makes it home. When a second pregnant woman disappears, Marissa Rooney and the team at the Holt Foundation fear a sinister motive lurks behind the crimes... -
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsWhat have we got? A missing little girl named Maggie Rose . . . a family of three brutally murdered in the projects of Washington, D.C. . . . the thrill-killing of a beautiful elementary school teacher . . . a psychopathic serial kidnapper/murderer who is so terrifying that the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police cannot outsmart him - even after he's been captured...Categorized as:
dark high-school law-enforcement realistic whodunit 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsAn explosive, edge-of-your-seat read about three friends, one murder, and a whole world of secrets... Angela was one of the most popular girls in her high school before she disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever knew what became of her―not Georgina, her best friend, nor Kaiser, who was close with both girls... -
The Dead List by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen Ella is mysteriously attacked on her way home from a party, her entire life changes as she finds herself at the center of an attempted murder investigation. Ella tries to move on, but her attacker isn't done yet. He shows himself in the form of horrifying signs and symbols: a clown mask strewn on her bed, a dead bird in her backpack, a shadow moving past her window in the night...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement action-adventure audiobook betrayal book -
The Likeness by Tana French, Heather O'Neill
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsListening length: 22 Hours and 18 MinutesIn this follow-up to Tana French’s runaway bestseller In the Woods, itʼs six months later and Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad with no plans to go back—until an urgent telephone call summons her to a grisly crime scene...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia friendship law-enforcement realistic whodunit 21st-century action-adventure -
The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThere's death all around us.We just don't pay attention.Until we do.The last time Lex was happy, it was before. When she had a family that was whole. A boyfriend she loved. Friends who didn't look at her like she might break down at any moment.Now she's just the girl whose brother killed himself. And it feels like that's all she'll ever be... -
The Best of Friends by Lucinda Berry
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsBest friends Lindsey, Kendra, and Dani endure every parent's nightmare when a tragic accident befalls their teenage boys, leaving one dead, another in a coma, and a third too traumatized to speak. Reeling from the worst night of their lives, the three mothers plunge into a desperate investigation of the bizarre incident... -
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The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 75 ratingsPrivate investigator Cormoran Strike returns in a new mystery from Robert Galbraith, author of the #1 international bestseller The Cuckoo's Calling.When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days—as he has done before—and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home...Categorized as:
dark friendship law-enforcement realistic whodunit 21st-century action-adventure adult -
Freeze Frame by Heidi Ayarbe
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNo matter how many times Kyle rewrites the scene, he can't get it right. He tries it in the style of Hitchcock, Tarantino, Eastwood, all of his favorite directors—but regardless of the style, he can't remember what happened that day in the shed. The day Jason died... -
The Competition by Marcia Clark
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn Marcia Clark's most electrifying thriller yet, Los Angeles District Attorney Rachel Knight investigates a horrifying high school massacre. A Columbine-style shooting at a high school in the San Fernando Valley has left a community shaken to its core. Two students are identified as the killers. Both are dead, believed to have committed a mutual suicide... -
What I Lost by Alexandra Ballard
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsA searing yet ultimately uplifting young adult novel about a teenage girl's recovery from anorexia.Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth has honed a dangerous skill: starving herself. Even when her parents send her to a treatment center, she can't stop. Then she begins receiving packages from someone she doesn't know... -
The Private School Murders by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller Confessions of a Murder Suspect, James Patterson keeps the confessions coming breathlessly as Tandy Angel delves deeper into her own tumultuous history-and proves that she can rise above the sordid Angel legacy...Categorized as:
friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic whodunit action-adventure audiobook book -
The Dry by Jane Harper
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsIn the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier...Categorized as:
dark friendship law-enforcement realistic whodunit 21st-century abuse action-adventure -
Faithful Place by Tana French
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsFrom Tana French—author of The Witch Elm and “the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years” (The Washington Post)—the bestseller called “the most stunning of her books” (The New York Times) and a finalist for the Edgar Award...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia law-enforcement realistic whodunit 21st-century action-adventure adult -
Gefrorener Schrei by Tana French, Nina Petri
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsAntoinette Conway, the tough, abrasive detective from The Secret Place, is still on the Murder squad, but only just. She's partnered up with Stephen Moran now, and that's going well - but the rest of her working life isn't. Antoinette doesn't play well with others, and there's a vicious running campaign in the squad to get rid of her... -
Deadly Little Lies by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLast fall, sixteen-year-old Camelia fell for Ben, a new boy at school who had a very mysterious gift – psychometry, the ability to sense the future through touch. But just as Camelia and Ben's romance began to heat up, he abruptly left town. Brokenhearted, Camelia has spent the last few months studying everything she can about psychometry and experiencing strange brushes with premonition...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure book coming-of-age -
Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTemperance Tempe Brennan is back and better than ever in the seventeenth thriller in Kathy Reichs's series. The forensic investigator--still tough, still fascinating--will be up to her old tricks even as Reichs takes the series in a new direction that will delight her many fans... -
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Exposed by Lisa Scottoline
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn this New York Times bestselling novel, a battle for justice pits partner against partner...Mary DiNunzio wants to represent her old friend Simon Pensiera, a sales rep who was wrongly fired by his company, but her partner Bennie Rosato represents the parent company...Categorized as:
friendship law-enforcement whodunit action-adventure adult audiobook book contemporary -
The Suicide House by Charlie Donlea
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA chilling murder in a prestigious prep school is at the heart of this riveting new novel from acclaimed author Charlie Donlea, featuring forensic reconstructionist Rory Moore and her psychologist partner, Lane Phillips. Inside the walls of Indiana's elite Westmont Preparatory High School, expectations run high and rules are strictly enforced...Categorized as:
boarding-school dark dark-academia high-school law-enforcement abuse adult audiobook -
What She Found in the Woods by Josephine Angelini
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMagda just wants to forget what happened. But there's a nightmare lurking —and it's coming for her...This is Magda’s last chance. Recovering from a scandal at her elite New York City private school that threw her life into a tailspin, she’s shipped off to live with her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest for the summer... -
Rape Girl by Alina Klein
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsValerie always wanted to be the smart girl. The pretty girl. The popular girl.But not the rape girl.That’s who she is now. Rape Girl. Because everyone seems to think they know the truth about what happened with Adam that day, and they don’t think Valerie’s telling it.Before, she had a best friend, a crush, and a close-knit family... -
Kiss the Girls by James Patterson
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsIn Los Angeles, a reporter investigating a series of murders is killed. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a beautiful medical intern suddenly disappears. In Washington D.C. Alex Cross is back to solve the most baffling and terrifying murder case ever. Two clever pattern killers are collaborating, cooperating, competing - and they are working coast to coast... -
Devil's Waltz by Jonathan Kellerman, Alexander Adams
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe doctors call it Munchausen by proxy, the terrifying disease that causes parents to induce illness in their own children. Now, in his most frightening case, Dr. Alex Delaware may have to prove that a child's own mother or father is making her sick. Twenty-one-month-old Cassie Jones is bright, energetic, the picture of health... -
I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWhat if the world's worst serial killer...was your dad?Jasper "Jazz" Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could—from the criminal's point of view.And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's Nod...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic abuse action-adventure audiobook -
One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus, Карен М. Макманус
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsCome on, Bayview, you know you've missed this.A ton of copycat gossip apps have popped up since Simon died, but in the year since the Bayview four were cleared of his shocking death, no one's been able to fill the gossip void quite like he could. The problem is no one has the facts.Until now. This time it's not an app, though—it's a game. Truth or Dare.Phoebe's the first target... -
The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky, Голди Молдавски
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNew girl Rachel Chavez is eager to make a fresh start at Manchester Prep. But as one of the few scholarship kids, Rachel struggles to fit in, and when she gets caught up in a prank gone awry, she ends up with more enemies than friends... -
Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsKeeping secrets is second nature to Nearly Boswell. Living in a trailer park outside Washington, DC, with a mom who works as an exotic dancer, she knows better than to share anything that would make her a target with her classmates...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure book coming-of-age -
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Dead Girls Don't Lie by Jennifer Shaw Wolf
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRachel died at two a.m . . . Three hours after Skyler kissed me for the first time. Forty-five minutes after she sent me her last text. Jaycee and Rachel were best friends. But that was before. . .before that terrible night at the old house. Before Rachel shut Jaycee out. Before Jaycee chose Skyler over Rachel. Then Rachel is found dead...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic abuse action-adventure audiobook -
How to Lead a Life of Crime by Kirsten Miller
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsA meth dealer. A prostitute. A serial killer.Anywhere else, they’d be vermin. At the Mandel Academy, they’re called prodigies. The most exclusive school in New York City has been training young criminals for over a century. Only the most ruthless students are allowed to graduate. The rest disappear.Flick, a teenage pickpocket, has risen to the top of his class...Categorized as:
boarding-school dark friendship high-school realistic action-adventure book contemporary -
R.I.P. Eliza Hart by Alyssa B. Sheinmel
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen Eliza Hart, the most popular girl at Ventana Ranch boarding school, is found dead on the cliffs outside her dormitory, Ellie Sokoloff is determined to figure out what happened to her. After all, Eliza was Ellie’s childhood best friend...Categorized as:
boarding-school friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic contemporary death fiction -
Cut Me Free by J.R. Johansson
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSeventeen-year-old Charlotte barely escaped from her abusive parents. Her little brother, Sam, wasn't as lucky. Now she's trying to begin the new life she always dreamed of for them, but never thought she'd have to experience alone. She's hired a techie-genius with a knack for forgery to remove the last ties to her old life... -
Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsEcho Ridge is small-town America. Ellery's never been there, but she's heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.The town is picture-perfect, but it's hiding secrets...Categorized as:
friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic whodunit 21st-century audiobook book -
The Stepping Off Place by Cameron Kelly Rosenblum
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom debut author Cameron Kelly Rosenblum comes a stunning teen novel that tackles love, grief, and mental health as one girl must process her friend’s death and ultimately learn how to stand in her own light. Perfect for fans of All the Bright Places and We Were Liars . It’s the summer before senior year...Categorized as:
realistic high-school friendship romance young-adult contemporary mental-illness mystery -
Dead Ringer by Kate Kessler
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA gripping thriller by Kate Kessler (author of the Audrey Harte novels), in which an FBI agent becomes entwined in a missing persons case that directly connects to a horrific event from her past.Eighteen years ago, FBI Agent Rachel Ward's mirror twin, Hannah, was taken by the Gemini killer, a serial killer who delights in sending photos of his victims to their twins...Categorized as:
whodunit law-enforcement realistic mystery fiction audiobook contemporary psychological -
Rosie Girl by Julie Shepard
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLittle Peach meets We Were Liars in this haunting YA debut about a troubled teen searching for her birth mom who uncovers disturbing family secrets along the way. After her father passes away, seventeen-year-old Rosie is forced to live with her abusive stepmom Lucy and her deadbeat boyfriend, Judd, who gives Rosie the sort of looks you shouldn’t give your girlfriend’s step-daughter...Categorized as:
dark realistic friendship law-enforcement romance young-adult mystery mental-illness -
The Girl I Used to Be by April Henry
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWhen Olivia's mother was killed, everyone suspected her father of murder. But his whereabouts remained a mystery. Fast forward fourteen years. New evidence now proves Olivia's father was actually murdered on the same fateful day her mother died. That means there's a killer still at large. It's up to Olivia to uncover who that may be...Categorized as:
friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure audiobook book contemporary -
The Surrogate by Louise Jensen
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratings‘You know that feeling? When you want something so badly, you almost feel you’d kill for it?’ Be careful what you wish for…Kat and her husband Nick have tried everything to become parents, and are on the point of giving up. Then a chance encounter with Kat’s childhood friend Lisa gives Kat and Nick one last chance to achieve their dream. But Kat and Lisa’s history hides dark secrets... -
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The Night She Disappeared by April Henry
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsGabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part-time as a delivery girl at Pete's Pizza. One night, Kayla—another delivery girl—goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working.Gabie can't move beyond the fact that Kayla's fate was really meant for her...Categorized as:
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Missing by Kelley Armstrong
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsEveryone knows they left. No one knows they're...m i s s i n gReeve's End is the kind of town every kid can't wait to escape. Each summer, a dozen kids leave, and at least a quarter never come back. I don't blame them - I'll do the same in another year. We thought it was just something that happened in town like ours.We were wrong...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure book contemporary -
Feuerschwester by Emiko Jean
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMurder. Fire. Revenge. That’s all seventeen-year-old Alice Monroe thinks about. Committed to a mental ward at Savage Isle, Alice is haunted by memories of the fire that killed her boyfriend, Jason. A blaze her twin sister Cellie set. But when Chase, a mysterious, charismatic patient, agrees to help her seek vengeance, Alice begins to rethink everything... -
Forget Me by K.A. Harrington
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn edge-of-your seat psychological thriller with a romantic twist On the three-month anniversary of her boyfriend Flynn’s death, Morgan uploads her only photo of him to FriendShare to get some closure—but she’s shocked when the facial recognition software suggests she tag him as "Evan Murphy...Categorized as:
dark friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic whodunit action-adventure book -
Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsAudere, agere, auferre. To dare, to strive, to conquer. For generations, privileged young men have attended St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, groomed for success by the likes of Roy Straitley, the eccentric Classics teacher who has been a fixture there for more than thirty years. But this year the wind of unwelcome change is blowing...Categorized as:
boarding-school dark dark-academia high-school realistic 21st-century action-adventure audiobook -
What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSeeing things. You were just seeing things. For city girl Callie Velasquez, nothing sounds more terrifying than a night out in the wilderness. But, wanting to bond with her popular new friends, Lissa and Penelope, she agrees to join them on a camping trip. At least Callie's sweet new boyfriend, Jeremy, will be coming too. But nothing goes as planned. The group loses half their food supply...Categorized as:
friendship high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure book contemporary crime
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