Books like 'Kill Joy'
Readers who enjoyed Kill Joy by Holly Jackson also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery thriller crime suspense law-enforcement whodunit mind-games
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An Isolated Incident by J.D. Kirk
Rated: 4.54 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDo you know who's knocking at your door?After a violent home invasion in the remote wilds of Glen Coe leaves a family of four dead, DCI Jack Logan and his team are brought in to lead the manhunt... -
Ahead of the Game by J.D. Kirk
Rated: 4.55 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWhen a body is discovered at a popular Highland landmark, it seems like just another day on the job for DCI Jack Logan and his team.Except this body is missing a very vital component, and given its location - The Well of Seven Heads - it seems like someone is trying to send a message... -
Graves on the Fens by Joy Ellis
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt arrives in the morning. An old-fashioned airmail envelope addressed to Detective Nikki Galena. Inside, on a single sheet of blue airmail paper, are three words:You failed me.The second airmail envelope arrives at Nikki’s home address. The same message. Only this time, it’s followed by four names: Alexandra Cornfield, Ruth Baker, Bethany Lyons, Leanne Delaney.Four missing women... -
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L'Affaire Alaska Sanders by Joël Dicker
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAvril 1999. Mount Pleasant, une paisible bourgade du New Hampshire, est bouleversée par un meurtre. Le corps d'une jeune femme, Alaska Sanders, est retrouvé au bord d'un lac. L'enquête est rapidement bouclée, la police obtenant les aveux du coupable et de son complice.Onze ans plus tard, l'affaire rebondit... -
Horsey Mere: A chilling Norfolk Broads crime thriller by David Blake
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTHE DEBUT CRIME THRILLER SERIES OF THE YEAR!The remains of a 17th Century witch, an MP found hanging above a five-pointed star, and three girls with powers they struggle to control... -
Hope to Die by Cara Hunter
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSelf-defense or murder? In the continuation of one of Britain’s most popular crime series from Cara Hunter — the author of the instant New York Times bestseller Murder in the Family — DI Fawley returns to determine if someone has staged a crime scene in connection with another homicide from years past. Midnight. A grisly murder scene at isolated farm on the outskirts of Oxford... -
The Waiting by Michael Connelly, Christine Lakin
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsLAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a terrifying serial rapist whose trail has gone cold with the help of the newest volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry's daughter.Renée Ballard and the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago... -
The Alchemy Fire Murder by Susan Rowland
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFormer Archivist Mary Wandwalker hates bringing bad news. Nevertheless, she confirms to her alma mater that their prized medieval alchemy scroll, is, in fact, a seventeenth century copy. She learns that the original vanished to colonial Connecticut with alchemist, Robert Le More. Later the genuine scroll surfaces in Los Angeles... -
Don't Believe It by Charlie Donlea
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Girl of Sugar Beach is the most watched documentary in television history—a riveting, true-life mystery that unfolds over twelve weeks and centers on a fascinating question: Did Grace Sebold murder her boyfriend, Julian, while on a Spring Break vacation, or is she a victim of circumstance and poor police work? Grace has spent the last ten years in a St... -
The Night of the Party by Anna-Lou Weatherley
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTwo Couples. Three Secrets. One Murder.In a beautiful house surrounded by woodland, the Drayton family and their dearest friends are enjoying dinner together. The wine is flowing, the meal has been lovingly prepared, and it’s going to be an evening none of them will ever forget…A doting motherwith a manipulative daughter.A loving husbandlying to his family.A close friendkeeping a shocking secret... -
City of The Dead by Jonathan Kellerman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe past comes back to haunt psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis when they investigate a grisly double homicide and uncover an even more unspeakable motive in this riveting thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.Los Angeles is a city of sunlight, celebrity, and possibility. The L.A. often experienced by Homicide Lt... -
Malibu Burning by Lee Goldberg
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFor a professional criminal and a relentless arson investigator, fear and revenge spread like wildfire in a an incendiary thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg.Hell comes to Southern California every October. It rides in on searing Santa Ana winds that blast at near hurricane force, igniting voracious wildfires. Master thief Danny Cole longs for the flames... -
The Railway Murders by J.R. Ellis
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA puzzling locked-room mystery that puts someone Oldroyd loves in terrible danger…When a film shoot on Wharfedale’s vintage railway turns into a grisly crime scene, DCI Oldroyd’s idyllic visit to the countryside with his partner Deborah is well and truly stopped in its tracks. One of the film’s stars has been shot dead in a train carriage while the cameras rolled outside... -
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Dead Tomorrow by Peter James
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratings*Lynn gripped the sides of the armchair, trying to put aside her own inner terror. 'I can't believe I'm thinking this, Ross. I'm not a violent person, even before Caitlin's influence, I never even liked killing flies in my kitchen. Now I'm sitting here actually willing some stranger to die... -
Hysteria by L.J. Ross
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE DCI RYAN MYSTERIES In a beautiful world, murder is always ugly… Recently returned from his last case in Ireland, elite forensic psychologist and criminal profiler Dr Alexander Gregory receives a call from the French police that he can’t ignore... -
Mad River by John Sandford
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThey thought they were Bonnie and Clyde. And what's-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, chips on their shoulders, and guns. The first person they killed was a woman during a robbery. The second was incidental. Simply in the way... -
No Way Out by Allison Brennan
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom Allison Brennan, the New York Times bestselling author of Cut and Run, comes a new e-novella, No Way Out: FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid faces her worst fear when her husband goes missing Nine years ago, mercenary Kane Rogan and photojournalist Siobhan Walsh risked their lives to rescue Hestia Juarez, a thirteen-year-old girl being forced to marry a much older man to expand her father’s crime family... -
Waiting by Calle J. Brookes
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsEveryone made mistakes, but some were far more dangerous than others… Fin McLaughlin wanted nothing more than to make a difference in his work with the FBI. Headhunted by the deputy director of the Bureau to head up a new division located in St. Louis, Fin was determined to make amends for the mistakes he’d made six years earlier that had almost cost him his career—and his life... -
Fire with Fire by Candice Fox
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA pair of desperate parents. A man on the run. A rookie cop.Four people with everything on the line... -
Bad Liar by Tami Hoag
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMasterful #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag is back with a riveting, emotionally powerful new thriller! Small town labels are hard to shake. Hometown hero. Fallen angel... -
Third Watch by Robert Dugoni
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTracy Crosswhite’s ordinary night patrolling her Seattle beat becomes front page news when she responds to a domestic disturbance call that turns into a hostage crisis... -
The Missing and the Dead by Stuart MacBride
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOne mistake can cost you everything…A little girl’s body washes up just outside the sleepy coastal town of Macduff, kicking off a major manhunt. Officially, the investigation is out of Sergeant Logan McRae’s hands, but DCI Steel’s Major Investigation Team, drafted in from Aberdeen, is getting nowhere fast.Steel is running out of ideas and time... -
Black Widow by Christopher Brookmyre
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThere is no perfect marriage. There is no perfect murder.Diana Jager is clever, strong and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog about sexism. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing.Then she meets Peter... -
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The Murders at Fleat House by Lucinda Riley
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe Murders at Fleat House is a suspenseful and utterly compelling crime novel from the multi-million copy global bestseller, Lucinda Riley.The sudden death of a pupil in Fleat House at St Stephen’s – a small private boarding school in deepest Norfolk – is a shocking event that the headmaster is very keen to call a tragic accident... -
The List by Velvet Vaughn
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom the author of The Fan and Committed is the first romantic suspense novel in the COBRA Securities series. The List is an intriguing mixture of pulse-pounding suspense and sizzling passion. It was just supposed to be a game... What started out as a harmless game between friends has turned deadly real. Fourteen men are dead, all from apparent accidents... -
You Beneath Your Skin by Damyanti Biswas
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt’s a dark, smog-choked New Delhi winter. Indian American single mother Anjali Morgan juggles her job as a psychiatrist with caring for her autistic teenage son. She is in a long-standing affair with ambitious police commissioner Jatin Bhatt – an irresistible attraction that could destroy both their lives... -
Dream Town by Lee Goldberg
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA gated dream town for the megarich becomes a murderous nightmare in a riveting Eve Ronin thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg. Hidden Hills is a private celebrity enclave of white picket fences and horse trails that seems to exist in a dreamworld... -
His Other Lie by Ava Strong
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsStella Fall, still reeling from the trauma of her deceitful fiancé and her failed engagement, has decided to pursue her dreams, follow in her father’s footsteps, and throw herself into law enforcement. Upon graduating from the FBI’s academy, she isf placed in the FBI’s Connecticut field office... -
The Center Cannot Hold: A Ray Elkins Thriller by Aaron Stander
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsIn the depths of winter, Cedar County is on occasion literally frozen in place. Roads are impassable; the area schools are closed for days at a time. And the bad guys and gals, they’re hunkered down like everyone else until the weather breaks. But this winter isn’t the usual. There’s arson and murder...Categorized as:
suspense law-enforcement crime thriller mystery fiction contemporary action-adventure -
Vendetta by Lisa Harris
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNo one needs to push Nikki Boyd to excel on the Tennessee Missing Person Task Force. The case of her own missing sister, still unsolved after ten years, is the driving force in her work. When a Polaroid photo of a missing girl shows up at a crime scene, Nikki quickly recognizes similarities to the past... -
The Girl Who Ran Away: The McClintock-Carter Crime Thriller Series by Susan Lund
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA new missing persons case, a prime suspect and questions about an old friend challenge amateur sleuth and crime reporter Tess McClintock and FBI Special Agent Michael Carter in THE GIRL WHO RAN AWAY, a new book in the McClintock-Carter Crime Thriller Series... -
Bye Bye Baby by Fiona McIntosh
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIt all began in Brighton. Now there is a killer on the loose. Scotland Yard′s brightest talent is chosen to head up the high-profile taskforce, a DCI who must confront his own past as the body count rises.There are few leads and Jack Hawksworth can only fall back on instinct and decades-old cold cases for any clue to the killer′s motive ... and identity... -
Ultimatum by Simon Kernick
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsTHE THREAT8 an explosion blasts through a cafe in Central London.THE ULTIMATUMMinutes later, a call from an unknown terror group warns that a far greater attack will be launched in 12 hours' time.THE PRISONERWilliam Garrett, AKA Fox, is awaiting trial for mass murder. He claims he can name the bombers. But only at a price...Categorized as:
crime law-enforcement suspense thriller fiction mystery action-adventure contemporary -
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The Man on the Street by Trevor Wood
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings'I can safely say it will be huge ... an excellent read' PATRICIA GIBNEY, author of the DI Lottie Parker series 'A unique protagonist and a cracking plotline ... bags of heart and humanity' MARI HANNAH When homeless veteran Jimmy thinks he witnesses a murder in Newcastle, the police refuse to believe him. He's not quite sure he believes his own eyes... -
Tall Man in Ray-Bans by Joseph Flynn
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsOut for a day’s adventure exploring the dry bed of Lake Travis in Austin, Texas, two young boys stumble upon a skeleton. It might be all that remains of a fugitive named Randy Bear Heart. Wanted for robbing three banks and killing three cops, Bear Heart was never brought to justice... -
The Killing Habit by Mark Billingham
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom “one of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today” (Gillian Flynn), The Killing Habit again brings together favorite wild-card detective Tom Thorne and straight-laced DI Nicola Tanner on a pair of lethally high-stakes cases... -
The Bone Yard by Jefferson Bass, Tom Stechschulte
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAt a friend's request, Dr. Bill Brockton is called away from the Body Farm—his human-decomposition research facility at the University of Tennessee—to help prove that a woman's suicide was, in fact, murder... -
Transient Desires by Donna Leon
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn his many years as a commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native city, Venice, to discover the person responsible. Now, in Transient Desires, the thirtieth novel in Donna Leon’s masterful series, he faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction... -
The Restless Dead: by Simon Beckett
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratings‘Composed of over sixty per cent water itself, a human body isn’t naturally buoyant. It will float only for as long as there is air in its lungs, before gradually sinking to the bottom as the air seeps out. If the water is very cold or deep, it will remain there, undergoing a slow, dark dissolution that can take years... -
Dead at First Sight by Peter James
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA man waits at London Airport for Ingrid Ostermann, the love of his life, to arrive. Across the Atlantic, a retired NYPD cop waits in a bar in Florida’s Key West for his first date with the lady who is, without question, his soulmate. The two men are about to discover they’ve been scammed out of almost every penny they have—and that neither woman exists... -
The Trial by Rob Rinder
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn unputdownable murder mystery by Britain's best-loved criminal barrister Rob Rinder.ONE MURDER. ONE IMPOSSIBLE CASE. WHO IS GUILTY?When hero policeman Grant Cliveden dies from a poisoning in the Old Bailey, it threatens to shake the country to its core.The evidence points to one man. Jimmy Knight has been convicted of multiple offences before and defending him will be no easy task... -
Not Dead Enough by Peter James
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOn the night Brian Bishop murdered his wife, he was sixty miles away, asleep in bed at the time. At least, that’s the way it looks to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace who is called in to investigate the kinky slaying of beautiful young Brighton socialite, Katie Bishop... -
Lupa nera by Juan Gómez-Jurado
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsRestare viva non è mai stato tanto difficile. Dopo Regina Rossa, che ha incoronato Antonia Scott come la nuova protagonista assoluta del thriller spagnolo, il secondo capitolo della trilogia bestseller di Juan Gómez-Jurado. Antonia Scott e Jon Gutiérrez sono ancora alla ricerca di Sandra Fajardo, quando Mentor li convoca per un altro caso al momento più pressante... -
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NYPD Red 2 by James Patterson, Jay Snyder
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLength: 8 hrs and 7 mins NYPD Red - the task force attacking the most extreme crimes in America's most extreme city - hunts a killer who is on an impossible mission. A vigilante serial killer is on the loose in New York City, tracking down and murdering people whose crimes have not been punished... -
The Blood Tide by Neil Lancaster
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratings‘Think Jack Reacher fronting Line of Duty’ Ian RankinYou get away with murder.In a remote sea loch on the west coast of Scotland, a fisherman vanishes without trace. His remains are never found.You make people disappear.A young man jumps from a bridge in Glasgow and falls to his death in the water below. DS Max Craigie uncovers evidence that links both victims... -
Redemption Lake by Susan Clayton-Goldner
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTucson, Arizona – Eighteen-year-old Matt Garrison is harboring two terrible secrets: his involvement in the drowning death of his 12-year-old cousin, and a night of drunken sex with his best friend’s mother, Crystal, whom he finds dead in a bathtub of blood. Guilt forces Matt to act on impulse and hide his involvement with Crystal.Detective Winston Radhauser knows Matt is hiding something... -
Darkwater Secrets by Robin Caroll
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA murder investigation uncovers sordid secrets and haunting mistakesThe Darkwater Inn stands tall and proud in the French Quarter, the hub of New Orleans. Bourbon Street is bustling, and general manager Adelaide Fountaine has her hands full with a hotel at capacity. But she is shocked when a body is found: a hotel guest stabbed with a kitchen knife... -
The Hunter by Tana French
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace... -
Critical Pursuit by Janice Cantore
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOfficer Brinna Caruso has built a reputation at the precinct as the cop to call when a child goes missing. For Brinna, it's personal because she was once one of them. Brinna and her K-9 search and rescue dog, Hero, will stop at nothing to find a missing child, no matter the stakes. Detective Jack O'Reilly isn't ready to return to his homicide duties after losing his wife to a drunk driver...
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