Books like 'When Darkness Falls'
Readers who enjoyed When Darkness Falls by L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
mystery serial killer horror action / adventure crime law-enforcement hard-boiled pulp police-procedural suspense
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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...Categorized as:
crime suspense law-enforcement police-procedural mystery fiction romance contemporary -
Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe, Gwendolyn Druyor
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsListening Length 13 hours and 4 minutesShe looked alive, her hair drifting freely in the water, her red lips gently parted, as if to let her final breath escape. A small locket floated by her face, attached to her neck with a silver chain…When Detective Kay Sharp first left Mount Chester—population 3,823—in her rear-view mirror, she promised never to look back...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Silent Voices by Patricia Gibney
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShe lay so still, blue eyes shining, blonde hair fanned out, her mouth stuck forever open in a soundless scream…When Rachel Mullen is found dead by her only sister Beth, her body twisted in an arc of pain, Detective Lottie Parker knows that she has been murdered the minute she enters the bedroom...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
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 law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult alpha-mc audiobook -
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The Dollmaker by Mary Burton
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDr. Tessa McGowan had never seen anything quite like it. But the mutilated bodies on her exam table tell a stunningly macabre tale: someone with a twisted mind is kidnapping women and altering their faces to resemble real, life-size dolls. As a forensic pathologist, it’s her job to aid the agent leading the case—even if that agent is her estranged husband...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Winter's Redemption by Mary Stone
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Preacher is killing again...The serial killer who slaughtered Winter’s parents has come out of retirement, leaving bloody victims in his wake. Special Agent Winter Black has spent her entire life preparing for this moment, and she intends to end the man who took everything from her and solve the disappearance of her little brother—no matter the cost... -
The Fifth To Die by J.D. Barker
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsAlternate cover art can be found hereIn the thrilling sequel to The Fourth Monkey, a new serial killer stalks the streets of Chicago, while Detective Porter delves deeper into the dark past of the Four Monkey Killer.Detective Porter and the team have been pulled from the hunt for Anson Bishop, the Four Monkey Killer, by the feds...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
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 hard-boiled law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult amateur-sleuth -
Killing Season by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsLet it bleed. Watch it burn.The first shot punches through the windshield of an SUV. A head shot. The driver's death is instantaneous.By the time Special Agent Violet Darger arrives in Atlanta, the city teeters toward panic. The vacant streets and restaurants paint an eerie picture. No one dares to venture out.A killer walks among them. A shadow...Categorized as:
crime justice law-enforcement police-procedural pulp suspense vigilante action-adventure -
The Girl in the Sand by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsShallow graves scar the desert landscape. A cemetery in the sand. Some of the lost are never found. Thousands of girls go missing every year in Las Vegas. Taken. Bought and sold. Or worse. And now the dead are calling. These lost girls summon FBI Profiler Violet Darger to Sin City -- a new case...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural pulp suspense action-adventure adult audiobook -
Cold Lake by Jeff Carson
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe truth emerges one piece at a time. When a fisherman reels in a plastic bag containing a severed human head from the depths of Cold Lake, Colorado, Sheriff David Wolf and his deputies scramble to the scene, and quickly realize there are more surprises to be found below... -
No Safe Place by Patricia Gibney
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsListening Length: 12 hours and 4 minutesThere's nothing more dangerous than a familiar face...As funeral mourners stand in silence at Ragmullin cemetery, a deafening cry cuts through the air. Lying crumpled at the bottom of an open grave is the bloodied body of a young woman, and Detective Lottie Parker is called in to investigate...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Gallery of the Dead by Chris Carter
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 19 ratings‘Thirty-seven years in the force, and if I was allowed to choose just one thing to erase from my mind, what’s inside that room would be it.'That’s what a LAPD Lieutenant tells Detectives Hunter and Garcia of the Ultra Violent Crimes Unit as they arrive at one of the most shocking crime scenes they have ever attended...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Looking Glass by Andrew Mayne
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsProfessor Theo Cray caught one of the most prolific serial killers in history using revolutionary scientific methods. Cut off from university research because of the shroud of suspicion around him after the death of his former student and the aftermath of catching his quarry, Cray tries to rebuild his life but finds himself drawn into another unsolved case... -
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Under the Bones: A Lou Thorne Thriller by Kory M. Shrum
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEnemies make the best allies. Louie Thorne is good at only one thing. Killing. She knows peace only when she kills and this relentless thirst drives her to hunt the world's worst crime lords. But when her cancer-stricken aunt makes a dying wish, Louie is torn between her own dark nature and a promise made to the only family she has left... -
Mister Slaughter by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe world of Colonial America comes vibrantly to life in this masterful new historical thriller by Robert McCammon... -
Final Betrayal by Patricia Gibney
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratings‘She lifted the flap of the envelope and pulled out the single white page. As she opened it up she stared, open mouthed. Four words were typed on the page. I am watching you.’When Amy Whyte and Penny Brogan leave a local nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning and don’t arrive home, their families are beside themselves with worry...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural action-adventure adult audiobook book fiction -
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 law-enforcement police-procedural suspense 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Genesis by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWhen a tortured young woman enters the trauma center of an Atlanta hospital, Dr. Sara Linton is thrust into a desperate police investigation with Special Agent Will Trent and his partner, Faith Mitchell. Though guarding their own wounds and their own secrets, Sara, Will, and Faith find that they are all that stand between a madman and his next victim...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Police by Jo Nesbø
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsWhen a police officer is found murdered at the scene of an old unsolved murder case that he was involved in investigating, it can hardly be a coincidence. When the same thing happens to two other officers in a matter of months the pattern is as clear as it is terrifying. None of the old cases were ever solved. The killings are extremely brutal and the police have no leads...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Under Dark Skies by A.J. Scudiere
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn NightShade nothing is as it seems . . . Eleri Eames didn’t think she’d ever be allowed to work for the FBI again, so the special FBI division of NightShade seems like an amazing opportunity. But all too soon, her chance to start over starts to disturb her...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook black-mc -
The Watson Girl by Leslie Wolfe
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn entire family is murdered and, by a quirk, a young girl is left unharmed. For fifteen years, she believed the killer had been caught, and he’s now on death row, awaiting execution. While trying to be content with her adoptive family, she’s living in relentless uncertainty and the fear of remembering what really happened that night when she was five years old. She’s The Watson Girl...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Bad Blood by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe body slumps over the steering wheel. Pools of blood going tacky on the dash. Two shots to the back of the head. A mafia-style hit in a small town.So Special Agent Violet Darger arrives in rural Michigan. She must make sense of this savagery. Figure out how something like this could happen in an idyllic town of just 5,000.The victim had been living the American dream... -
Rebekka Franck Series Box Set: Vol 1-5 by Willow Rose
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFive Amazon Bestselling Mystery Novels. The Queen of Scream Novels channels Wes Craven in this 5-in-1 boxed set! ˃˃˃ One, Two ... He is coming for you Set in the Danish coastal town of Karrebaeksminde, journalist Rebekka Franck returns to her hometown with her six-year-old daughter... -
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There's No Place like Home by Willow Rose
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsASIN moved from less recent editionWhat is the worst that can happen?Maria and Jonas Boegh asked themselves that very question when deciding to sign the papers for their new house. It might be expensive. They might be in over their heads a little financially, but they were never happier than on the day they moved in. Everything was perfect. It was the house of their dreams... -
Blood Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsBook II in the Thriller Award-nominated Huntress/FBI seriesTwenty-five years have passed since a savage killer terrorized California, massacring three ordinary families before disappearing without a trace...Categorized as:
crime hard-boiled justice law-enforcement police-procedural suspense vigilante abuse -
Caleb by Jeff Menapace
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVengeance is therapy.Caleb Lambert kills people for a living. The money is nice, but it comes a distant second to his primary reason for choosing such a Caleb often calls it “scratching an itch.”Here’s the thing, Caleb won’t just accept any contract. He and his team thoroughly vet each and every prospective mark to make sure they deserve to be punished... -
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 law-enforcement police-procedural suspense 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
The Thirst by Jo Nesbø
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsHarry Hole returns in the eleventh installment of the author's best-selling, electrifying crime fiction series—published in 48 languages, more than 30 million copies sold worldwide. In Police—the last novel featuring Jo Nesbø's hard-bitten, maverick Oslo detective—a killer wreaking revenge on the police had Harry Hole fighting for the safety of the people closest to him...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
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...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The House that Jack Built by Willow Rose
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsScott Kingston is afraid of monsters. He thinks they’re lurking outside his bedroom window at night when his mother tucks him in. He asks his mother to keep the light on to scare the monsters away. But that light is exactly what lures the kidnapper to his window and the next morning, Scott Kingston is gone...Categorized as:
crime hard-boiled law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook -
Slip Out the Back Jack by Willow Rose
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThey take turns with the knife, cutting their thumbs open. A drop of blood lands on the dark wooden table. Eyes meet across the room. All four thumbs are pressed against each other one by one. Blood is shared, secrets buried. Years later a brutal madman sprays bullets into a crowd at a movie theater in Miami and sends a chill through the entire nation...Categorized as:
crime hard-boiled law-enforcement police-procedural suspense abuse action-adventure adult -
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:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult animals audiobook -
Murder Theory by Andrew Mayne
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe desire to kill is becoming contagious in this riveting novel of conceivable mad science by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Naturalist.Computational biologist and serial-killer hunter Dr. Theo Cray receives an off-the-record request from the FBI to investigate an inexplicable double homicide. It happened at the excavation site where a murderer had buried his victims’ remains... -
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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...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Find Her by Lisa Gardner
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsLisa Gardner's runaway New York Times bestseller--a fast-paced thrill ride featuring Detective D. D. Warren. Seven years ago, carefree college student Flora Dane was kidnapped while on spring break. For 472 days, Flora learned just how much one person can endure...Categorized as:
crime justice law-enforcement police-procedural suspense vigilante abuse action-adventure -
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...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Dead End Girl by L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHer body is broken. Wrapped in plastic. Dumped on the side of the road. She is the first. There will be more.The serial killer thriller that "refuses to let go until you've read the last sentence."The most recent body was discovered in the grease dumpster behind a Burger King. Dismembered. Shoved into two garbage bags and lowered into the murky oil...Categorized as:
crime hard-boiled law-enforcement police-procedural pulp suspense action-adventure adult -
Hope to Die by James Patterson
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsDetective Alex Cross is being stalked by a psychotic genius, forced to play the deadliest game of his career. Cross's family – his loving wife Bree, the wise and lively Nana Mama, and his precious children--have been ripped away. Terrified and desperate, Cross must give this mad man what he wants if he has any chance of saving the most important people in his life...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMaster of new noir Dennis Lehane magnificently evokes the dignity and savagery of working-class Boston in Darkness, Take My Hand, a terrifying tale of redemption.Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro’s latest client is a prominent Boston psychiatrist, running scared from a vengeful Irish mob. The private investigators know about cold-blooded retribution...Categorized as:
crime hard-boiled law-enforcement police-procedural suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Dance of Death by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsTwo brothers on opposite sides of the law battle it out on the streets of New York in this chill-inducing thriller, a follow-up to BRIMSTONE. — As the previous installment came to a close, vicious dogs and armed men surrounded FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast and his demise seemed certain. Nevertheless, he did leave behind a legacy: a letter for his friend, NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural pulp suspense 21st-century action-adventure adult -
Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsA savage crime has rocked a working-class neighbourhood of Boston; four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father is lying in an intensive care unit, his survival in doubt. He is the principal suspect. Female police detective D.D. Warren, however, is not one to take things at face value...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense abuse action-adventure adult audiobook -
Beyond Reach by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsSara Linton--resident medical examiner/pediatrician in Grant County, Georgia, --has plenty of hardship to deal with, including defending herself in a heartbreaking malpractice suit. So when her husband, Police chief Jeffery Tolliver, learns that his friend and coworker detective Lena Adams has been arrested for murder and needs Sara's help, she is not sure she can handle the pressure of it all...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Voice of Fear by Heather Graham
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA killer is looking to silence them, once and for all.FBI agent Jordan Wallace is close to cracking the human trafficking case she’s been working, when she does the one thing she should never do: let her guard down. The botched undercover mission is semi-salvaged by the last-minute appearance of criminal psychologist Patrick Law, but Jordan can’t imagine making a worse first impression...Categorized as:
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Never Walk Alone by Willow Rose
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe world is on lockdown due to a virus that originated in Miami.A woman is kidnapped from her apartment, and Detective Harry Hunter is on the case.At the same time, his sister shows up after they haven't seen each other in a year.As it turns out, Harry's sister knows more about the virus than she lets on. Soon, he wonders if the virus is connected to the missing woman...Categorized as:
crime hard-boiled law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook -
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...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Aura of Night by Heather Graham
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsTrue evil never dies. It only waits in the dark. All book editor Megan Law wants is to bury the memory of her brutal kidnapping and move on with her life. So when her publisher asks her to spin her hellish experience into the next bestseller, Megan agrees only because it might help keep other women safe...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural suspense action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The Providence Rider by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"The Providence Rider is the fourth installment in the extraordinary series of historical thrillers featuring Matthew Corbett, professional problem solver. The narrative begins in the winter of 1703, with Matthew still haunted by his lethal encounter with notorious mass murderer Tyranthus Slaughter... -
Gone Daddy Gone by Cheryl Bradshaw
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA single moment is about to change Sloane Monroe's life forever. On an early winter morning, college student Shelby McCoy walks the quiet, snowy path back home. A tree branch snaps in the distance. Then another. A man is there with her, following close behind, whispering her name. She looks back, sees him gaining on her, and runs... -
Their Last Words by Steve Parker
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA VICTIM. A MUTILATED BODY. A SINGLE WORD.A young woman is found dead on the streets of London. Her throat slashed, her body mutilated, and one word carved into her flesh: “DON’T.”Detective Superintendent Ray Paterson is assigned to the case. Young, handsome, and from a wealthy background, he’s tipped for the top. He joins a team based out of Bermondsey, South London...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement police-procedural action-adventure adult audiobook book fiction
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